6 ms·

I wonder if hormones will ever become widely available for personal use, or if we will just accept a changing hormonal landscape for men and woman. I doubt any

I wonder if hormones will ever become widely available for personal use, or if we will just accept a changing hormonal landscape for men and woman. I doubt any of the underlying causes of "obesity/BMI, assay variations, diet/phytoestrogens, declined exercise and physical activity, fat percentage, marijuana use, and environmental toxins." will actually be fixed

ravenstine 6y ago
Women already get to play with their hormones without a prescription, but for some reason we make it really difficult for men to safely adjust their hormone levels. There's a lot of misconceptions about testosterone and how it can be used to benefit lots of men. If you go into any doctor and they have tour testosterone tested, they probably won't give you TRT unless your T is below the low-bound of "normal", but being on the low-bound means you're not at your optimal. There's also lots of scare material about TRT out there for people who don't want to body build; supposedly you're guaranteed to have cardiovascular issues, shrunken testicles, 'roid rage, and so forth. If you keep your T at its optimal level but not going significantly past that, the chances of serious issues are minimal. TRT aside, young people need to get their vitamin D, get exercise, eat little to no refined sugar, filter their water, and be allowed to co-mingle; when males and females are separated for long periods of time, testosterone decreases even more.
- mrweasel 6y ago
  > Women already get to play with their hormones without a prescription I don’t think that’s true. Even birthcontrol requires a prescription.
  - scohesc 6y ago
    In some places you can ask your pharmacist to write up a prescription for birth control without even consulting your doctor. I know this because I live somewhere where this is the case.
- The_rationalist 6y ago
  when males and females are separated for long periods of time, testosterone decreases even more. Source? BTW you're totally right and this misinformation and dumb overregulation is criminal to men happiness
  - nxc18 6y ago
    I’m skeptical re: point about keeping men and women separated. As a gay man does being around women increase or have no effect on my testosterone levels? For straight men, can it be any woman (your mom, your aunt, your daughter, the unattractive neighbor)? Or is it about a sexually-relevant female? Do they have to be attractive?
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  > but for some reason we make it really difficult for men to safely adjust their hormone levels Because in men you can't.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tsdlts 6y ago
  Even at replacement levels you'll shut down your natural production and risk never being able to naturally produce your own T. Needing to do intramuscular injections for the rest of your entire life is usually not a consolation prize people want to sign up for. Plus, in the U.S., should someone lose their health insurance and not be able to afford exogenous testosterone anymore they'd be in a pretty awful situation. Also you'll likely end up infertile.
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    Yes, the downsides of TRT are numerous, but rarely discussed online. It's not as simple as "experimenting" with TRT. Exogenous testosterone will begin diminishing your natural testosterone production immediately. In theory there are ways to counteract this, but in practice it's not guaranteed that someone can ever discontinue TRT once they've started. Even those who rebound may not return to their original, pre-TRT levels. Testosterone is also interconnected with other hormone systems, which will also be disrupted by TRT. For many, TRT turns into a game of adjusting various medications up or down to try to get back to how they felt pre-TRT.
    - heyoni 6y ago
      Generally speaking, if your testicles don’t shrink, your production stays the same right? That’s what I’ve seen people do; inject testosterone until they notice shrinkage, then stop.
      - qes 6y ago
        > Generally speaking, if your testicles don’t shrink, your production stays the same right? No, absolutely not. The size of your testicles is in no way indicative of your testosterone production. While a shorter period of use generally has a higher chance of your natural production restarting after ceasing exogenous testosterone, your natural production of testosterone shuts down immediately with the introduction of exogenous testosterone.
        6y ago
- dqpb 6y ago
  What are the optimal testosterone levels?
  - perardi 6y ago
    I’m not sure about optimal, but normal depends on age. 600 ng/dL would be a reasonable average for a normal level. https://www.mayocliniclabs.com/test-catalog/Clinical+and+Interpretive/83686 https://www.mayocliniclabs.com/test-catalog/Clinical+and+Int...
- andrekandre 6y ago
  > filter their water what kind of filtering?
  - sebmellen 6y ago
    Reverse osmosis and carbon filtration: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis#Drinking_water_purification https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis#Drinking_wat...
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  I'd note that hormones for women in birth control often come with some pretty heavy side effects that a lot of women aren't effectively prepared for or warned of in the mental health space. Just adjusting one's hormone profile to hit some level you have in mind is not as easy as you imply.
throwboi-420 6y ago
> I wonder if hormones will ever become widely available for personal use By that you mean sex hormones. Melatonin and insulin are widely used hormones e.g.. Depends where you live, but these days in the US it's quite easy for kids to get sex hormones from doctors, related to gender "reassignment." I'm not sure about doctors' tolerance for becoming more-manly if you're already a man, though.
davio 6y ago
There's a TRT place 5 minutes from my house. The google reviews make it sound like people are getting the results they want.
karmicthreat 6y ago
It did not take much effort on my part to get on TRT with my primary care physician. Less than 200 ng/dl free testosterone and another test to make sure it wasn't a bigger issue. Once I started within a couple month I was amazed at how much better I felt than I ever had. Even my 20s. Like vitamin D people need more than you would think and guidelines are too conservative. I could have probably had fewer issue if they would have just juiced me up with this in highschool. Rather than just let me be chronically exhausted.
- staticman2 6y ago
  The guidelines say that people like yourself need more testosterone... you got more and it works... so you've concluded the guidelines are too conservative? That doesn't follow.
Karawebnetwork 6y ago
As a transgender person, I also feel that this practice will be (or at least should be) common in the future. My estrogen levels were too low for a while and this caused me all kinds of side effects. My endocrinologist simply increased my dose. Then we noticed that my testosterone levels were too low, so we reduced the dose and got rid of the testosterone blockers. After a while we noticed that my levels fluctuated too much during the day. So we switched from pills to injections (which create curves that last a week instead of 24 hours). This solved my brain fog problems, made it easier for me to fall asleep at night, brought me back to the energy levels I had in my early twenties, etc. It made me realize how dependent we are on stable hormone levels. I think many people would benefit from hormone therapy or at least annual lab checks.
- perardi 6y ago
  Cisgender male here, but, uh, let’s say enhanced with a little more testosterone. Tanking your estrogen levels, or having them too high, suuuuuuucks. And the surprise to me was having estrogen come in too low from taking too much aromatase inhibitors. The mood, skin, and libido changes are awful.
  - castlecrasher2 6y ago
    >Tanking your estrogen levels, or having them too high, suuuuuuucks. Out of curiosity, what does it feel like?
    - perardi 6y ago
      * Certain things were not as rigid as I’d like * Really dry skin * Night sweats like you would not believe * Urinating a lot * Depression and fatigue
    - AuryGlenz 6y ago
      For me, everything hurt.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
It's trivially easy to find a doctor willing to sell you testosterone replacement therapy these days. There are plenty of unscrupulous doctors who will find an excuse to do it, although they usually require you to buy the testosterone through their store. It's a total racket. Be warned: Going on TRT should be considered a one-way street. Once you start adding exogenous testosterone to your system, your body's natural production will decrease. It doesn't take long for your body's natural production to virtual stop completely, making you dependent on TRT for the rest of your life. There are hypothetically ways to try to counter this shutdown, but it's far from guaranteed. Many people who start and then stop TRT end up with lower levels than when they started, even with the countermeasures in place. No man should experiment with testosterone unless they're ready to continue using it for the rest of their life. I know plenty of people who thought they were getting a leg up in their 30s by getting on TRT, who now regret having to constantly buy and maintain TRT supplies and carry it around whenever they travel. The initial euphoric effects of TRT will wane over time, too.
- RickS 6y ago
  +1 for this warning. My scores are on the low end of average (mid 400s). Not low enough to warrant corrective T therapy (200s), but enough to wonder if the 600-700 range might mean a big change in quality of life. I was pretty adamant about giving it a shot, and consulted with an endocrinologist who said the same thing ("it's not low enough to introduce what would become a life sentence of treatment"). After much stubborn research trying to find a legitimate second opinion[1], I finally conceded that he was right. I'm all for biohacking, but the one-way/ratcheting nature of T therapy specifically should make it an endeavor of last resort. [1] I say legitimate because you can effortlessly find someone who will agree that you and everyone needs a T boost, and will write you an Rx on the spot if you have the cash. An it will work. It's not that it's a scam, or particularly deadly. The benefits are just very overplayed compared to their permanence, which is downplayed.
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    > The benefits are just very overplayed compared to their permanence, which is downplayed. The testosterone hype is out of control. The scariest part is that many people are skipping straight to TRT instead of trying to identify underlying causes of low testosterone. For most people, simple lifestyle and diet changes can make a dramatic difference. Many people also overestimate the benefits of increased testosterone. This is doubly challenging because sudden testosterone increases can feel quite good for a short while, but the effects will subside as your body acclimates to the higher levels. When the initial effects wear off, many patients start asking for higher doses or looking to steroid cycles to augment the testosterone. It's also important to note that testosterone isn't an isolated hormone system within your body. TRT will alter a number of related hormones with various effects that aren't well-studied. Exogenous testosterone can't match your body's natural cycles, either. A person might actually feel better with a natural testosterone level of 400-500 (actually totally normal and quite common) than a TRT-driven level of 600-700 due to these effects.

ravenstine 6y ago

Women already get to play with their hormones without a prescription, but for some reason we make it really difficult for men to safely adjust their hormone levels. There's a lot of misconceptions about testosterone and how it can be used to benefit lots of men. If you go into any doctor and they have tour testosterone tested, they probably won't give you TRT unless your T is below the low-bound of "normal", but being on the low-bound means you're not at your optimal. There's also lots of scare material about TRT out there for people who don't want to body build; supposedly you're guaranteed to have cardiovascular issues, shrunken testicles, 'roid rage, and so forth. If you keep your T at its optimal level but not going significantly past that, the chances of serious issues are minimal. TRT aside, young people need to get their vitamin D, get exercise, eat little to no refined sugar, filter their water, and be allowed to co-mingle; when males and females are separated for long periods of time, testosterone decreases even more.

mrweasel 6y ago
> Women already get to play with their hormones without a prescription I don’t think that’s true. Even birthcontrol requires a prescription.
- scohesc 6y ago
  In some places you can ask your pharmacist to write up a prescription for birth control without even consulting your doctor. I know this because I live somewhere where this is the case.
The_rationalist 6y ago
when males and females are separated for long periods of time, testosterone decreases even more. Source? BTW you're totally right and this misinformation and dumb overregulation is criminal to men happiness
- nxc18 6y ago
  I’m skeptical re: point about keeping men and women separated. As a gay man does being around women increase or have no effect on my testosterone levels? For straight men, can it be any woman (your mom, your aunt, your daughter, the unattractive neighbor)? Or is it about a sexually-relevant female? Do they have to be attractive?
Gibbon1 6y ago
> but for some reason we make it really difficult for men to safely adjust their hormone levels Because in men you can't.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tsdlts 6y ago
Even at replacement levels you'll shut down your natural production and risk never being able to naturally produce your own T. Needing to do intramuscular injections for the rest of your entire life is usually not a consolation prize people want to sign up for. Plus, in the U.S., should someone lose their health insurance and not be able to afford exogenous testosterone anymore they'd be in a pretty awful situation. Also you'll likely end up infertile.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  Yes, the downsides of TRT are numerous, but rarely discussed online. It's not as simple as "experimenting" with TRT. Exogenous testosterone will begin diminishing your natural testosterone production immediately. In theory there are ways to counteract this, but in practice it's not guaranteed that someone can ever discontinue TRT once they've started. Even those who rebound may not return to their original, pre-TRT levels. Testosterone is also interconnected with other hormone systems, which will also be disrupted by TRT. For many, TRT turns into a game of adjusting various medications up or down to try to get back to how they felt pre-TRT.
  - heyoni 6y ago
    Generally speaking, if your testicles don’t shrink, your production stays the same right? That’s what I’ve seen people do; inject testosterone until they notice shrinkage, then stop.
    - qes 6y ago
      > Generally speaking, if your testicles don’t shrink, your production stays the same right? No, absolutely not. The size of your testicles is in no way indicative of your testosterone production. While a shorter period of use generally has a higher chance of your natural production restarting after ceasing exogenous testosterone, your natural production of testosterone shuts down immediately with the introduction of exogenous testosterone.
      - 6y ago
dqpb 6y ago
What are the optimal testosterone levels?
- perardi 6y ago
  I’m not sure about optimal, but normal depends on age. 600 ng/dL would be a reasonable average for a normal level. https://www.mayocliniclabs.com/test-catalog/Clinical+and+Interpretive/83686 https://www.mayocliniclabs.com/test-catalog/Clinical+and+Int...
andrekandre 6y ago
> filter their water what kind of filtering?
- sebmellen 6y ago
  Reverse osmosis and carbon filtration: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis#Drinking_water_purification https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis#Drinking_wat...
klmadfejno 6y ago
I'd note that hormones for women in birth control often come with some pretty heavy side effects that a lot of women aren't effectively prepared for or warned of in the mental health space. Just adjusting one's hormone profile to hit some level you have in mind is not as easy as you imply.

throwboi-420 6y ago

> I wonder if hormones will ever become widely available for personal use By that you mean sex hormones. Melatonin and insulin are widely used hormones e.g.. Depends where you live, but these days in the US it's quite easy for kids to get sex hormones from doctors, related to gender "reassignment." I'm not sure about doctors' tolerance for becoming more-manly if you're already a man, though.

davio 6y ago

There's a TRT place 5 minutes from my house. The google reviews make it sound like people are getting the results they want.

karmicthreat 6y ago

It did not take much effort on my part to get on TRT with my primary care physician. Less than 200 ng/dl free testosterone and another test to make sure it wasn't a bigger issue. Once I started within a couple month I was amazed at how much better I felt than I ever had. Even my 20s. Like vitamin D people need more than you would think and guidelines are too conservative. I could have probably had fewer issue if they would have just juiced me up with this in highschool. Rather than just let me be chronically exhausted.

staticman2 6y ago
The guidelines say that people like yourself need more testosterone... you got more and it works... so you've concluded the guidelines are too conservative? That doesn't follow.

Karawebnetwork 6y ago

As a transgender person, I also feel that this practice will be (or at least should be) common in the future. My estrogen levels were too low for a while and this caused me all kinds of side effects. My endocrinologist simply increased my dose. Then we noticed that my testosterone levels were too low, so we reduced the dose and got rid of the testosterone blockers. After a while we noticed that my levels fluctuated too much during the day. So we switched from pills to injections (which create curves that last a week instead of 24 hours). This solved my brain fog problems, made it easier for me to fall asleep at night, brought me back to the energy levels I had in my early twenties, etc. It made me realize how dependent we are on stable hormone levels. I think many people would benefit from hormone therapy or at least annual lab checks.

perardi 6y ago
Cisgender male here, but, uh, let’s say enhanced with a little more testosterone. Tanking your estrogen levels, or having them too high, suuuuuuucks. And the surprise to me was having estrogen come in too low from taking too much aromatase inhibitors. The mood, skin, and libido changes are awful.
- castlecrasher2 6y ago
  >Tanking your estrogen levels, or having them too high, suuuuuuucks. Out of curiosity, what does it feel like?
  - perardi 6y ago
    * Certain things were not as rigid as I’d like * Really dry skin * Night sweats like you would not believe * Urinating a lot * Depression and fatigue
  - AuryGlenz 6y ago
    For me, everything hurt.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

It's trivially easy to find a doctor willing to sell you testosterone replacement therapy these days. There are plenty of unscrupulous doctors who will find an excuse to do it, although they usually require you to buy the testosterone through their store. It's a total racket. Be warned: Going on TRT should be considered a one-way street. Once you start adding exogenous testosterone to your system, your body's natural production will decrease. It doesn't take long for your body's natural production to virtual stop completely, making you dependent on TRT for the rest of your life. There are hypothetically ways to try to counter this shutdown, but it's far from guaranteed. Many people who start and then stop TRT end up with lower levels than when they started, even with the countermeasures in place. No man should experiment with testosterone unless they're ready to continue using it for the rest of their life. I know plenty of people who thought they were getting a leg up in their 30s by getting on TRT, who now regret having to constantly buy and maintain TRT supplies and carry it around whenever they travel. The initial euphoric effects of TRT will wane over time, too.

RickS 6y ago
+1 for this warning. My scores are on the low end of average (mid 400s). Not low enough to warrant corrective T therapy (200s), but enough to wonder if the 600-700 range might mean a big change in quality of life. I was pretty adamant about giving it a shot, and consulted with an endocrinologist who said the same thing ("it's not low enough to introduce what would become a life sentence of treatment"). After much stubborn research trying to find a legitimate second opinion[1], I finally conceded that he was right. I'm all for biohacking, but the one-way/ratcheting nature of T therapy specifically should make it an endeavor of last resort. [1] I say legitimate because you can effortlessly find someone who will agree that you and everyone needs a T boost, and will write you an Rx on the spot if you have the cash. An it will work. It's not that it's a scam, or particularly deadly. The benefits are just very overplayed compared to their permanence, which is downplayed.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  > The benefits are just very overplayed compared to their permanence, which is downplayed. The testosterone hype is out of control. The scariest part is that many people are skipping straight to TRT instead of trying to identify underlying causes of low testosterone. For most people, simple lifestyle and diet changes can make a dramatic difference. Many people also overestimate the benefits of increased testosterone. This is doubly challenging because sudden testosterone increases can feel quite good for a short while, but the effects will subside as your body acclimates to the higher levels. When the initial effects wear off, many patients start asking for higher doses or looking to steroid cycles to augment the testosterone. It's also important to note that testosterone isn't an isolated hormone system within your body. TRT will alter a number of related hormones with various effects that aren't well-studied. Exogenous testosterone can't match your body's natural cycles, either. A person might actually feel better with a natural testosterone level of 400-500 (actually totally normal and quite common) than a TRT-driven level of 600-700 due to these effects.