Secondary Hypo Questions

[dano79]

As many of you know I have been diagnosed with secondary Hypo...

Labs : FSH: 3.7 1.4-15 LH: 4.7 (1.5-9.3) Testoserone: 390 I'm 27

My MRI was normal, yet I am still secondary. My doctor beleives its idopathic, but what could be the other causes?

We also discusses my current treatment today 125 iu every other day. He is calling me back tomorrow, do you think I would be better off trying to convince him to bump my doseage to 250 iu every other day?

The other thing we dissucsed was how long to wait to decide if this works are not. Could it take months for this to work? When would be a good cut off point?

[farmerjohn]

I think you should also check TSH for hypothyroidism, Vitamin D deficiency, high total estrogen and estradiol, and iron levels (iron, ferritin, TIBC, and saturation %) for hemochrmoatosis. You are only slightly low so there could easily be a simple answer like hypothyroidism. Not to minimuze that but it is easier to treat than hypogonadism.

Also, the HCG should work very quickly. I would not increase the dose until you have labs saying you need to. With HCG its better to aviod too high a dose because you can become desensitized to it. You are no where near that with 150 or 250 iu most likely though. When I started HCG my first blood test was in 4 weeks and my T was up substantially % wise.

[dano79]

Originally Posted by farmerjohn

I think you should also check TSH for hypothyroidism, Vitamin D deficiency, high total estrogen and estradiol, and iron levels (iron, ferritin, TIBC, and saturation %) for hemochrmoatosis. You are only slightly low so there could easily be a simple answer like hypothyroidism. Not to minimuze that but it is easier to treat than hypogonadism.

Also, the HCG should work very quickly. I would not increase the dose until you have labs saying you need to. With HCG its better to aviod too high a dose because you can become desensitized to it. You are no where near that with 150 or 250 iu most likely though. When I started HCG my first blood test was in 4 weeks and my T was up substantially % wise.

I've already had thyroid tested, no problems or nutritional deficiecies. I should also add that before starting HCG I've been on testosterone shots for two years.

Four weeks is not that long. (I've been on it for a week, should I be noticing any changes by now?)

[muscleintraining]

What is the role of Vitamin D deficiency in low T? My doc has ordered this test for my next blood tests.

[farmerjohn]

Vitamin D is not really a vitamin but is a hormone. From my understanding it is a building block for many other hormones and if low can cause low T. I'm not sure of the exact mechanism there but I can tell you Shippen tests for vit D deficiency for low T. He ran 3 tests on me:
Vitamin D, 25 Hydroxy
Vitamin D, 25, OH, D3
Vitamin D, 25 OH, D2

dano, I think you should be noticing an effect from the HCG after a month. In fact if you read David Z's primer on HCG you will find one of the tests to see if HCG is viable is to test after a brief period on it (not sure how long but it was less than a month) and see what % increase in T you got. Of course you have to compare to a T level when you were on nothing, no HCG or gel or anything. Now if you were on T shots for 2 years it may take some time for the leydig cells to regenerate because atrophy has surely set in after 2 years. Still you should see a significant % increase after a month even if the total T level is still low. For example if when on nothing your total T was 100 and after a month on HCG (say 300 iu three times a week) it went up to 200 then even though you are still low you had a good response to it and odds are good that with more time the leydig cells will regenerate and you will do well. That said if you level is still only 200 you would increase dose of HCG. You can go up to 500 iu daily max.