Question:
I apologize if this has been provided for me before, but what are the typical symptoms of low T? The obvious is ED, etc., but I think I've also read about others like being cold all the time, etc. One of the reasons I'm asking is because it seems to me that many of the symptoms seem to match the symptoms for depression, and if so, I can see that as being a reason why a doctor would steer a person to a psychologist instead of an urologist.
Answer:
Low testosterone does often match the symptoms of depression because low testosterone can make you depressed. Many doctors will be glad to prescribe you an anti-depressant or to refer you to a psychologist. They might do the same if your thyroid is off. Meantime, you need to find a doctor who can provide
medical care. If you are a woman, the doctors are going to check your hormone levels automatically. If you are a man, then everyone acts as though you must have eliminated every other option before even beginning to think about testosterone. I tried anti-depressants for a few months once because my ass was
dragging hard and the thought of winter coming was biting me hard too just thinking about the energy that it all takes and so on. I just told my doc that I was middle aged male and that I needed more information than the average bear to figure things out so I wanted him to either check my T period. He checked my T. I had none. Putting an anti-depressant into a man with no T is an absolute waste of time and very poor medicine. Guess what? Men need to have their T levels up in order to be healthy. It varies from guy to guy. Mine were: chronic tiredness, weakness, exhaustion if I did anything physical or emotional, afternoon brain fog, sleepiness during the day but waking up in the middle of the night,
weight gain, muscle loss, moodiness, irritability, hypoglycemia. I never lost the ability to have an erection just the desire to and of course the spontaneous ones stopped. These symptoms slowly worsened over a
period of years and sometimes would get better for a few days. You go to a doctor with something like, I don't feel good, I feel tired a lots...He'll treat you for depression or maybe try to fix the symptoms
individually or just tell you it's all in your head and send you home. Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain. If you respond well to antidepressants then you were depressed. A person with a hormone
imbalance won't respond to antidepressants at all. I know. Fortunately, there is a simple blood test for low testosterone. If you have these depression-like symptoms and your testosterone is in the lower third of
normal or below normal [Yes, I know, normal is just a statistic. It tells nothing about what's normal for you.] your problem is likely low testosterone rather than depression. I guess it's possible to have both but I think working on fixing the obvious one first is the best strategy. I know, long ramble. I haven't had my coffee yet.
