My journey so far with low testosterone.

[fifty]

With apap the mask is everything. You can buy from cpap.com and they have a great return policy. Buy a few masks and keep only the one you like. I am also an apap user. Sleep is huge.

You don’t have to get a therapeutic plebotemy until your hematocrit is 53 or 54. On the other hand donating blood if you haven’t in a while probably wouldn’t hurt.

 

[CSI007]

With apap the mask is everything. You can buy from cpap.com and they have a great return policy. Buy a few masks and keep only the one you like. I am also an apap user. Sleep is huge.

You don’t have to get a therapeutic plebotemy until your hematocrit is 53 or 54. On the other hand donating blood if you haven’t in a while probably wouldn’t hurt.

Thank you. Back to using the APAP for 2 days. Still struggling with sleep. 6 1/2 hours two days ago and 5 1/2 hours last night.

Donating blood is difficult for me. I need to get a script to do it at a hospital because of my history with cancer.

I thinking that if tomorrow I increase my T that the RBG rise will soon follow.

 

[fifty]

What apap mask are you using and what is bothersome about it?

 

[CSI007]

What apap mask are you using?

This is the machine that I am using: ResMed AirSense 10 AutoSet CPAP Machine with Heated Humidifier

With this mask: Philips Respironics DreamWear Nasal CPAP Mask

I have had a few issues with the machine. I have been awaken with a blast of constant air around 12 a couple of times that required me to reset the machine. That is probably my biggest complaint. NO issues really with breathing through my nose 100%.


As far as sleep overall goes. About a year in to TRT my sleep just went to crap. Never really had any sleep issues until then. Just trouble sleeping, waking up at 2am then 4am then 6am etc. etc. I wake up early in the morning and I feel wide awake and couldn't fall back to sleep and I get up and walk around for a few minutes and then I feel like I need 8 more hours of sleep. It's crazy.

I downloaded the data from my machine a couple of months ago and it seems that the majority of my apnea events are open airway events where I just stop breathing. I figure that will probably kill me at some point in the future.

I was averaging around 35 overall events per hour and with the apap a typical night is 1 to 5 events with an average around 2 to 3.

 

[fifty]

That is a good mask. I have used that machine and mask. Know that there is a new resmed n30i mask that is an attempt to improve on the dreamwear.

The air blast has happened to me. There may be a setting your doc can set to reduce this. If it happens to me (rarely) i just press stop then start. Might need a max pressure adjustment but ask your provider about this. Maybe they can set it remotely.

 

[CSI007]

After meeting with my Doctor today he wants to raise my T from 15cc up to 20cc (I think thats 125mg/week up to 150mg/week) and I will retest in 8 weeks to see what level it gets me up to since I am not feeling as good as I did when my levels were in the 700s.

One thing he noticed on my blood work that I did not is that my creatinine had risen from 1.15 to 1.22 and he is a bit concerned about it.

Anyone on TRT for a couple of years have a rise in their creatinine?

 

[Rabbit91476]

Wow that was a read. After page 10 I skipped to the end to see if there was a happy ending.
Question as I do my first injection
1Are you happy over all. I can read the anxiety and over analyzing in your posts.
2My god how much did you pay in labs. Did you say you were cash pay
3 how much of your symptoms came from recovering from cancer?

 

[CSI007]

Just to keep my thread here updated. So I looked back to 2016 and my creatinine was .99 So every year I have had an increase. I started T in 2017. So not sure if it's related or not or if I am in kidney failure. Doc just ordered a 24 hour urinalyses to see if there is protein present which should hopefully clear up things or at least allow me to take my finger off the panic button.

 

[CSI007]

Wow that was a read. After page 10 I skipped to the end to see if there was a happy ending.
Question as I do my first injection
1Are you happy over all. I can read the anxiety and over analyzing in your posts.
2My god how much did you pay in labs. Did you say you were cash pay
3 how much of your symptoms came from recovering from cancer?

Ha, yeah some anxiety but I like to ask lots of questions and present things from all angles. I'm analytical like that.

I use discountlabs.com and I have probably spent about a grand or so over the past 3 years.

I was feeling great up until late last year over all. So far TRT has been a positive experience.

Hard to tell about the cancer side of things. I have nerve damage from chemo that is for sure - I have had it since my first chemo treatment and it never went away. Did the Chemo cause low T? I will never know since they never pulled labs back then for it.

 

[CSI007]

Quick update to keep track of my changes. Yesterday morning I started on 126.5mg up from about 105mg/week EOD schedule. Today I am feeling it. Hot flashes and flush with some sweating. Muscle aches and some joint pain. I am going to look back earlier in this thread but I feel like this happened when I also started TRT for the first time as well as each time my numbers decreased. My body must be ultra sensitive to changes in hormone levels.

On Saturday I stopped taking metformin time release. I may go back on it but I am not sure that I have really seen significant changes in my blood sugar and considering my kidney function values and possible issues with it when taking metormin I thought this wouild be the best course of action for now.

I also reintroduced vitamin D3 back into the daily routine. 10000iu/day for now.

 

[CSI007]

Update for the day after my second increased dosage injection. My trough day yesterday was better then Monday for sure. I felt much, much better. Today is worse then yesterday but not as bad as Monday was. I am still having some hot flashes but the muscle aches and pain have subsided.

Yesterday I had a bit of a scare. I went for a walk for about 30 minutes. On the way home I was very lightheaded and weak. Made it home and my blood sugar had dropped pretty significantly down to 76. I am willing to bet that was on the high side of +-20% too. The way I felt I was probably in the mid 60s or lower. I quickly got some sugar in me and the levels rose into the low 100s. Yesterday was day 4 with no metformin.

Energy level today seems better then recent weeks.

 

[CSI007]

I have an update folks. ANY comments are GREATLY appreciated. At this point this is sooo crazy. Does anyone have an ideas for this? Or at least where to look? Increase in creatinine started right around the time I started TRT and/or HCG.

So basically my kidneys appear to be working correctly with normal amounts of protein and creatinine clearence. But my blood has higher end creatinine in it and my urine has above normal amounts in it. If the kidneys were not working I don't believe that I would be dumping the creatinine (the reason for higher amounts in the blood)

I do not do intense exercise, no creatnine supplements and my diet has been the same for years.

 

[DragonBits]

I have an update folks. ANY comments are GREATLY appreciated. At this point this is sooo crazy. Does anyone have an ideas for this? Or at least where to look? Increase in creatinine started right around the time I started TRT and/or HCG.

So basically my kidneys appear to be working correctly with normal amounts of protein and creatinine clearence. But my blood has higher end creatinine in it and my urine has above normal amounts in it. If the kidneys were not working I don't believe that I would be dumping the creatinine (the reason for higher amounts in the blood)

I do not do intense exercise, no creatnine supplements and my diet has been the same for years.

I think it depends on what you weigh and your muscle mass.

What I have read is "

• 14 to 26 mg per kg of body mass per day for men"

So if you weigh 113 KG then the top of the range would be 2900 mg. I also see in the lab report that this is based on an average body surface area, which I have no idea what that means for you.

It sounds like a doctor ordered that test, why not ask those questions?

 

[CSI007]

I think it depends on what you weigh and your muscle mass.

What I have read is "

• 14 to 26 mg per kg of body mass per day for men"

So if you weigh 113 KG then the top of the range would be 2900 mg. I also see in the lab report that this is based on an average body surface area, which I have no idea what that means for you.

It sounds like a doctor ordered that test, why not ask those questions?

I did ask him, his answer was the same as above so far. He has not had a chance to discuss in depth with me yet though.