Just chiming in here. I was googling for the phrase "what does it mean when males respond well to clomid" and came across this. So I joined up, and here is my situation.
41 year old male. Around age 39-40, I was having anxiety attacks, panic attacks, heart palpitations (sometimes a skipped beat, and less frequently, what felt like an arrythmia). I felt tired, and weird symptoms would come and go, like feeling spacey. I ended up in the ER thinking I was having a heart attack, they checked me out and said I was fine. All of this came out of the blue, from age 0-38 I really didn't have anything more than normal anxiety (work stress, etc, but I seemed to deal fine with it). I used to play sports, sort of thrived on that feeling.
I spent the next 6 months working with my doctor, first checking out all kinds of cardio things. Seemed ok (although we later found out I have a bicuspid aortic valve, which may eventually require heart surgery, but as of now it looks OK supposedly). We checked digestive, and sleep disorder, and all sorts of stuff. Eventually I said to the doctor "Hey doc, what about low T?". He said he didn't think that was the issue, but sent me for a test anyway.
The first test came back around 300mg. The second test came back at 250 or so. My estradiol was around 35 at the time. My LH and FSH were in range, but IMO they were low (but the doc said they looked OK).
I was sent to an endo (female, interestingly enough) and we discussed options. She was pushing the creams ... or T as an option. I brought up Clomid, since I really wasn't crazy about turning my nads off permanently. I was theorizing that maybe being overweight (30 pounds or so) I am just aromatase efficient, creating a lot of it, and lowering my T as a result of higher E. My game plan was to lose 30 pounds, and then see where I stood. We agreed I would try the clomid, maybe it would alleviate the panic and anxiety symptoms that were making it hard to work.
Well, I will say that for the first 4-6 weeks I felt virtually NOTHING. My dosage was a half pill every day (I think this was 12.5mg per day).
Then suddenly things began to change. I started to feel normal again, and the anxiety and panic and skipped heart beats stopped entirely. My libido increased (I did not have ED, just low libido - i.e. a lack of desire to engage in sex, always tired, but once I did engage I was fine).
We tested my numbers 3 months later, and my T was at 780, my E was at 60. My other numbers came up as well (LH, FSH). Everything was in range, the E was significantly high, it was the sensitive E test.
We continued on the dose - I had not lost a pound (more on that later) - so she said let's see if you can lose some weight now feeling better. But about 2 months into my happy days, I came down with prostatitis! This scared the heck out of me ... I googled and was reading about how T and/or E (it's all debated everywhere) can cause prostate to grow, get inflamed, etc. So I took it upon myself to cut way back on my clomid dose, like down to 12.5 every three days. A 75% reduction.
The prostatitis was NO FUN. Painful to pee and had to pee all the time. It lasted for about a month and didn't really improve at all for the first 2 weeks, and then faded away over the next couple of weeks. But while this was all going down, I came down with the anxiety symptoms again, bad. So when my prostate felt better, I went back up to 12.5 three of every 4 days.
Again, it took a month for the anxiety and panic attacks to go away, but they finally did again.
Fast forward 3 more months, and I was re-tested. This time, my T was an even 1000, and my E was at 66. I was also having a very hard time losing any weight. Not only did the pounds seem stubborn, but my cravings for junk food were higher than they used to be. My inhibitions about eating bad seemed to be gone, so my workouts were often offset by some IPAs or a bad meal or two.
The endo told me I should just stop taking the clomid cold turkey, she said that she thinks I may have just been going through "something" that has resolved itself, because I was responding so "robustly" (her words). I told her that scared me, and I would rather taper off, and she said no problem.
So I am now down to 12.5 mg, every other day. We will re-test in 2 months time, and go from there. Maybe I will taper off and have OK numbers, and this was all a bad dream that lasted 2 years. More realistically, I will find some dosage that gets me "just enough" T to be normal, and/or lose that weight and see if the aromatase was really the main culprit.
I will also throw in that my original doc had me scanned for a pituitary tumor (terrible experience, ugg). They called me and said the test was negative, and I was all set. But then my doc said he reviewed it and had some concerns. He said my pituitary seemed to have a little "lean", which could imply some extra weight (from a micro adenoma) that wasn't yet visible. So that's out there - he wants me at some point to re-scan, which of course was horrible so I am not exactly dying for that.
Lastly, side effects of the clomid?
- Zero vision issues, thankfully.
- Sometimes my prostate feels a little inflamed. I do think all this T/E is making it unhappy. I have this deep down fear that I have prostate cancer. My doc checked my PSA, and it was 0.6 or something, and stayed that way 6 months later. He said my prostate is enlarged (he said like 25%?), but this was at the height of prostatitis. I do think it's enlarged, I have to go more frequently than others my age. I also wake up to urinate more often than not around 3-5 AM on normal nights. Can't seem to sleep 8 hours without having to go, only 5-6.
- Seems hard to lose weight when the E is high.
Hopefully this all helps someone. But I am certainly a strong responder to the clomid, and had no vision issues, just the one bought of prostatitis (which my cardiologist says is certainly from the clomid, and my endo swears is unrelated and just coincidental). Yes, I also question my endo's skills ... she happens to be my primary's spouse, so it puts me in an awkward spot to ask for a new endo.
41 year old male. Around age 39-40, I was having anxiety attacks, panic attacks, heart palpitations (sometimes a skipped beat, and less frequently, what felt like an arrythmia). I felt tired, and weird symptoms would come and go, like feeling spacey. I ended up in the ER thinking I was having a heart attack, they checked me out and said I was fine. All of this came out of the blue, from age 0-38 I really didn't have anything more than normal anxiety (work stress, etc, but I seemed to deal fine with it). I used to play sports, sort of thrived on that feeling.
I spent the next 6 months working with my doctor, first checking out all kinds of cardio things. Seemed ok (although we later found out I have a bicuspid aortic valve, which may eventually require heart surgery, but as of now it looks OK supposedly). We checked digestive, and sleep disorder, and all sorts of stuff. Eventually I said to the doctor "Hey doc, what about low T?". He said he didn't think that was the issue, but sent me for a test anyway.
The first test came back around 300mg. The second test came back at 250 or so. My estradiol was around 35 at the time. My LH and FSH were in range, but IMO they were low (but the doc said they looked OK).
I was sent to an endo (female, interestingly enough) and we discussed options. She was pushing the creams ... or T as an option. I brought up Clomid, since I really wasn't crazy about turning my nads off permanently. I was theorizing that maybe being overweight (30 pounds or so) I am just aromatase efficient, creating a lot of it, and lowering my T as a result of higher E. My game plan was to lose 30 pounds, and then see where I stood. We agreed I would try the clomid, maybe it would alleviate the panic and anxiety symptoms that were making it hard to work.
Well, I will say that for the first 4-6 weeks I felt virtually NOTHING. My dosage was a half pill every day (I think this was 12.5mg per day).
Then suddenly things began to change. I started to feel normal again, and the anxiety and panic and skipped heart beats stopped entirely. My libido increased (I did not have ED, just low libido - i.e. a lack of desire to engage in sex, always tired, but once I did engage I was fine).
We tested my numbers 3 months later, and my T was at 780, my E was at 60. My other numbers came up as well (LH, FSH). Everything was in range, the E was significantly high, it was the sensitive E test.
We continued on the dose - I had not lost a pound (more on that later) - so she said let's see if you can lose some weight now feeling better. But about 2 months into my happy days, I came down with prostatitis! This scared the heck out of me ... I googled and was reading about how T and/or E (it's all debated everywhere) can cause prostate to grow, get inflamed, etc. So I took it upon myself to cut way back on my clomid dose, like down to 12.5 every three days. A 75% reduction.
The prostatitis was NO FUN. Painful to pee and had to pee all the time. It lasted for about a month and didn't really improve at all for the first 2 weeks, and then faded away over the next couple of weeks. But while this was all going down, I came down with the anxiety symptoms again, bad. So when my prostate felt better, I went back up to 12.5 three of every 4 days.
Again, it took a month for the anxiety and panic attacks to go away, but they finally did again.
Fast forward 3 more months, and I was re-tested. This time, my T was an even 1000, and my E was at 66. I was also having a very hard time losing any weight. Not only did the pounds seem stubborn, but my cravings for junk food were higher than they used to be. My inhibitions about eating bad seemed to be gone, so my workouts were often offset by some IPAs or a bad meal or two.
The endo told me I should just stop taking the clomid cold turkey, she said that she thinks I may have just been going through "something" that has resolved itself, because I was responding so "robustly" (her words). I told her that scared me, and I would rather taper off, and she said no problem.
So I am now down to 12.5 mg, every other day. We will re-test in 2 months time, and go from there. Maybe I will taper off and have OK numbers, and this was all a bad dream that lasted 2 years. More realistically, I will find some dosage that gets me "just enough" T to be normal, and/or lose that weight and see if the aromatase was really the main culprit.
I will also throw in that my original doc had me scanned for a pituitary tumor (terrible experience, ugg). They called me and said the test was negative, and I was all set. But then my doc said he reviewed it and had some concerns. He said my pituitary seemed to have a little "lean", which could imply some extra weight (from a micro adenoma) that wasn't yet visible. So that's out there - he wants me at some point to re-scan, which of course was horrible so I am not exactly dying for that.
Lastly, side effects of the clomid?
- Zero vision issues, thankfully.
- Sometimes my prostate feels a little inflamed. I do think all this T/E is making it unhappy. I have this deep down fear that I have prostate cancer. My doc checked my PSA, and it was 0.6 or something, and stayed that way 6 months later. He said my prostate is enlarged (he said like 25%?), but this was at the height of prostatitis. I do think it's enlarged, I have to go more frequently than others my age. I also wake up to urinate more often than not around 3-5 AM on normal nights. Can't seem to sleep 8 hours without having to go, only 5-6.
- Seems hard to lose weight when the E is high.
Hopefully this all helps someone. But I am certainly a strong responder to the clomid, and had no vision issues, just the one bought of prostatitis (which my cardiologist says is certainly from the clomid, and my endo swears is unrelated and just coincidental). Yes, I also question my endo's skills ... she happens to be my primary's spouse, so it puts me in an awkward spot to ask for a new endo.
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