Testosterone Deficiency, Erectile Dysfunction, and Testosterone Replacement Therapy

Testosterone Replacement Therapy: Injections, Patches, and Gels

Your body usually tightly controls the levels of testosterone in your blood. Levels are typically highest in the morning and decline through the day. Low testosterone (male hypogonadism) is a condition in which your testicles don’t produce enough testosterone (the male sex hormone). More specifically, the Leydig cells in your testicles make testosterone. The current scientific literature suggests that TRT worsens breast and prostate cancer.

Good luck finding a supplement study that measured testosterone more than once at the beginning and once at the end of the study. The unique pharmacokinetic profile of testosterone pellets is due to their crystalline structure, which dissolves slowly in SQ spaces. Individual pellets consist of 75 mg of testosterone and may be combined to deliver variable doses of testosterone therapy. Table 6 (featured below) provides pharmacologic information for SERMs, hCG, and AIs. While SERMs, hCG, and AIs are all categorized as « alternative therapies » to testosterone, they are actually a diverse group of agents. These agents share the common overall treatment effect of increasing intrinsic production of testosterone, but there are substantial differences in pharmacologic characteristics and mechanisms of action between them.

The AUA has a policy that all pharmaceutical broccoli and testosterone biological agents are referred to only by their chemical compound formulation in guidelines, white papers, and best practice statements and not by their brand or generic name. This allows the AUA to eliminate any notion of allegiance to industry in general, or to any product in particular. Additionally, identifying drugs solely by their chemical compound formulation allows guidelines to remain current, despite the dynamic nature of the marketplace. It is important to remember that having a level of testosterone that is too high is dangerous. This will include exclusive health content about the LGBTQ+ community from Mayo Clinic. And according to Dr. Samplaski, her patients typically find the discussion more than worthwhile. Direct-to-consumer advertising by testosterone pharmaceutical companies has resulted in more men requesting testosterone testing.

No orders for drugs or pharmaceutical products may be placed through this website. Not all products or services will be appropriate for all patients in all states, and decisions regarding appropriate therapeutic treatment options are medical decisions to be made in consultation with your Low T Center physician. Our team is reinventing healthcare for men by providing testosterone treatment solutions in the form of testosterone therapy that make more sense for your on-the-go lifestyle. Home treatments include everything you need for treatment, as well as remote monitoring and optimization from our team. As a cutting-edge health clinic for men, we are here to serve you and provide options for you to address your health your own way. There are products that allow men to receive testosterone orally through buccal or sublingual delivery, which are absorbed in the mouth or under the tongue. Because of their short half-life, these products must be dosed two to three times a day, which many patients don’t like.

The hematocrit should be checked at baseline, at 3 and 6 months, and then annually. If hematocrit is more than 54%, stop therapy until hematocrit decreases to a safe level; evaluate the patient for hypoxia and sleep apnea; reinitiate therapy with a reduced dose. BMD of lumbar spine and/or femoral neck should be measured at baseline every 1 to 2 years of testosterone therapy in hypogonadal men with osteoporosis or low trauma fracture. A digital rectal examination and PSA level should be obtained before initiating treatment, at 3 months, and then in accordance with guidelines for prostate cancer screening, depending on the age and race of the patient. A urologic consultation is mandatory if any of the following is present (Table 4). Altered T levels in AD may precede rather than follow diagnosis. Some of these signs and symptoms can be caused by other factors, including medication side effects, obstructive sleep apnea, thyroid problems, diabetes and depression.

Your body is a finely-tuned machine, and one slight imbalance can easily lead to another. This is what can happen if you have a testosterone deficiency. But as with any medical treatment, TRT isn’t always free of side effects. One condition often linked to TRT is a decrease in the size of your testes, clinically known as testicular atrophy. Your healthcare provider will recommend regular testing to make sure TRT isn’t hurting your health. TRT doesn’t fix or cure the underlying cause of low testosterone.

Since everyone metabolizes medications differently, your Hone care team stays with you every step of the way—ready to answer questions and fine-tune your plan so you feel your absolute best. Your licensed physician will review your labs & health history to diagnose your symptoms and create a personalized plan. If you are experiencing any of these symptoms and want an evaluation, give either our Lafayette or Hope Mills men’s health and wellness clinic a call today. The fact is, primary care providers are « in the trenches » and extremely busy handling many complicated medical issues every day. Adding a « Low-T » conversation to a 15-minute office visit about Diabetes, Hypertension, and Cholesterol can be overwhelming. Low-T deserves a visit all by itself, so we decided to provide that to Fayetteville and surrounding communities.

If a man’s testosterone is below the normal range, it’s best to repeat it once more to be sure before starting testosterone therapy — often staying on it indefinitely. Men get started on testosterone replacement and they feel better, but then it’s hard to come off of it. Men can often feel a big difference when they stop therapy because their body’s testosterone production has not yet recovered. Although some men believe they feel younger and more vigorous if they take testosterone medications, there’s little evidence to support the use of testosterone in otherwise healthy men. Guidelines from the American College of Physicians indicate that testosterone therapy might improve sexual function somewhat in some men, but there’s little evidence that it improves other functions, such as vitality and energy. Testosterone replacement therapy, in the form of injections, pellets, patches or gels, can improve the signs and symptoms of low testosterone in these men.

A person should start at the lowest recommended dose and increase gradually, if necessary. Injectable testosterone is an inexpensive and common form of TRT. A person can receive short-acting treatment, which involves a shot every 1 or 2 weeks, or long-acting treatment, in which the second shot is 4 weeks after the first, and all others are 10 weeks apart.

Differences in age, geography, date of initial testing (testosterone immunoassay testing was more commonly used before 2005), comorbid conditions, and baseline and therapeutic testosterone levels across studies introduce heterogeneity in the pooled population. Actual patient scenarios will require individual adaptation with variability in expected outcomes. It also highlights that treating clinicians should have specific endpoints for treatment in mind, with regular monitoring of these outcomes to assure that ongoing therapy is warranted and effective.