Hello there everybody, I am a male 36 years old and I’ve done a testosterone test and it came out around 200 ng/dl which is very low because my doctor told me that a normal range for a 20 -39 years old male it is anywhere between 400 and 1080 ng/dl. So well, I would really like to know if there’s anybody who has an experience with the effects of the low testosterone on mood for a male my age. I am in depression, my mood is always low and my libido is always low as well. I have been thinking that maybe I might be getting some help from some supplements that may increase my testosterone as well as my depression. thank you in advance.
Having low testosterone and in depression
- Thread starter JohnPi
- Start date
Oh well, I know that the standard range that the labs and the doctors are going to give you for a total testosterone is anywhere between 241 and 847 ng/dl, however you can be sure that in case you testosterone is anywhere between 241 and 399 range (especially since you said that your testosterone is 200), you are almost for sure are going to experience some various symptoms of a low testosterone. What I am trying to say is that you might be having for instance 390 ng/dl and you would still have some low testosterone symptoms, not mentioning what you would feel at 200 ng/dl.
In fact, what I know is that there are some guys who are doing fine in the 400s range, however even in the 400s range I do know that there are a lot of males who would be struggling a little bit. what I am trying to say is that it is possible for a male to have, for instance, a total testosterone of 450 ng/dl and he might be feeling just as good as a guy that is having a total testosterone of 700 ng/dl, however this is very unlikely. But how a guy is feeling at 200 ng/dl and 700 ng/dl then there’s already a very huge difference. and the same thing also goes for the high testosterone as well.
Besides, I also have to mention that your estradiol, which is the most abundant for of the estrogen, reading it is exactly as important as your testosterone reading either. I know that the normal range it is typically anywhere between 13 and 54 pg/ml but even so this might so important, that’s because what is really critical it is the ratio of the testosterone to the estrogen. Young healthy males are having ratios of about 30, 40 or maybe 50 or maybe even more than that, however you could be heaving a very healthy total testosterone which might be reading about 500, however in case your estrogen is 50 then the ratio is only 10 which means that most likely you would be struggling. but what if your total testosterone is 200 and your estrogen still remains 50? Of course you would be struggling and you would be struggling a lot at such readings. Besides, I have to mention here that free testosterone it is just as critical as the total testosterone. The free testosterone it is generally expressed as a percentage of your total testosterone and from as much as I know, the standard range it is anywhere between 1.6 % and 2.9%.
Just remember that the official level for the low testosterone level it is an abysmal 260 ng/dl and very often the doctors are not going to diagnose you as having low testosterone (b> hypogonadal) that’s unless you are going to be below this already incredibly low reading. However you should be realizing (and there are some doctors who do understand this and they are helping folks struggling) that the 260 reading is already a very and very low testosterone and it is an outdated and arbitrary statistical figure. I really hope that you would be finding a doctor that would understand and would help you. but very often, those males who are struggling and are in depression with their total testosterone reading of per example 265 are being sent home with no help since the doctors can’t officially diagnose them so. Anyway, since you are in the 200 ng/dl then it means that you would be surely getting your diagnose, but you’ve just got to know that the docs might be helping you until you would reach the 260-270 ng/dl point and then they would stop your treatment while you’re feeling just the same as you were at 200 ng/dl. Just be careful about this. good luck.
</p><p> </p><p>Oh well, to be honest I do not have estradiol data so I guess that I am going to need to search more into that, I am going to ask my doctor what’s with this.</p><p> </p><p>
</p><p> </p><p>My doctor told me that my free testosterone it is at 2.3% and this is why I am going to assume that it is in a normal range, isn’t it?</p><p> </p><p>
</p><p> </p><p>Oh well, yeah, as I have said I guess that I am pretty much below this figure. However, what I am finding pretty strange is that my doctor did not think that this low testosterone thing it is related to all my complaints of low energy and low depression and he did told me something about the HRT saying that in his opinion the HRT it is not appropriate for me. besides, he has not mentioned anything about an endo referral either, so I guess that he thought there’s no need of it. from as much as I have read online and from as much as I see what you’re saying up there, the depression and the low testosterone ARE related and I’ve also read that a good endo can do a good job with this. not sure what to think. and frankly, I can think that he has been only humoring me when I did have managed to get him to finally write me the script for the testing (the rest of the blood work really appears to be just fine).</p><p> </p><p>What do you think about all of this? thank you in advance.</p>
Hey OP, in case you are having a good insurance then you should be getting your primary physician to refer you to a really good endo doctor who can help you out. that doctor could figure out what it is the root of the problem and in case you are going to be lucky enough then he is going to be able to put you on some kind of HRT program that would help you (HRT means hormone replacement therapy). This program usually consists of a good quality human grade testosterone. I’ve been there so I do know what I am talking about and gotta say that I do love the Watson pharmaceutical brand, the one that I recommend you to take, hands down to it, its surely the best that I have ever used. Hope you would get some help.
Hey there all, the symptoms of the low testosterone can also fool a guy due to the fact that they are so ubiquitous and by saying that I mean that the testosterone is affecting almost everything at all in a male. In fact, I could say that it affecting absolutely everything because it affects the most important things such as our brain, our libido, our muscles, our blood and so on and so forth and therefore these things are affecting everything else. the testosterone is the most important thing for a male and it is obvious that the first thing and the most important in most guys minds it is how it is affecting their sex life. this low testosterone is affecting both the libido as well as the erectile strength to varying degrees and it is obvious that this is not really that good for your sexual life.
However, even so, some very common symptoms of low testosterone also include depression, difficulty to concentrate, mental fuzziness of fogginess, the loss of muscles, low energy, anxiety, memory losses, increased weight gain, decreased facial hair as well as a general feeling about not caring about anything at all and some others either. very often, those males that are having low testosterone are very often simply not caring about anything at all, all they do is simply to “exist” and it does not matter what happens around them. the pleasure and the desire can be very much decreased, therefore no goals, no aims etc. and all of this in combination is greatly affecting your job career as well as your relationships with family, friends etc.
So well, one of the biggest reasons of that low testosterone is being considered so deadly it is that it is somehow affecting all of the major cardiovascular markers. On a pretty recent large scale epidemiological study it has been found out that those men who have had low testosterone (which is less than 250) then they were associated with first thing: fatter, 2nd one they also had lower HDL, another thing they were having higher triglycerides, next they were having higher blood pressure and the last one they were also been having higher blood glucose. You’ve got to know that this is a deadly combination! those men who were having low testosterone has been tracked more than 18 years and then it has been established that they have been having an approximate 40% higher death rate from all the causes.
This low testosterone it is being very often associated with some heart diseases, with depression, with diabetes, with metabolic syndrome, with the cognitive disorders as well as to even osteoporosis. As I have said, low testosterone is affecting everything in the male body and it can make a male suffer from some conditions that seemingly have no relationships between them. having all of this said, I really do not think that it would be an exaggeration to mention that the low testosterone it is a Kiss of Death for all of the male homo sapiens out there – low testosterone would result in no males at all. there’s a 2007 study that has found that a low testosterone can be associated with the increased risk of deaths from the cancer, from heart diseases as well as a lot of other causes. That is why, I beg you, please, do not agree with the fact that a testosterone in the range of 200 -300 is fine. if your doctor tells you that this is alright then go get another doctor, or make this one change his mind or whatever, but it is important that you should not agree with this. the more you would agree with this the worse for you.
So well, in case you are going to get down to the 200s (but it seems that you are already there) then there’s really a very good chance that you are not going to care very much about anything in your life and especially not about sex. Since you’re so low I bet you don’t care about anything now. this has been all verified in a study from China (but I believe that there must be a lot of other studies regarding low testosterone not only in China) where there have been some guys that were suffering from low testosterone (on an average of 260-270) have been compared to those guys who were having their testosterone in a normal range levels (of an average of about 550-560). So well, here has been the usual symptoms that were described by those guys who were having a low testosterone: 89 percentage of those guys who were having a low testosterone has said that they were experiencing a lack of energy, about 79 percent of them have said that they were having erectile dysfunction issues, approximately 70 percentage of those guys said that they were having a loss of their pubic hair and approximately 66 percent of those guys reported a decrease in their sexual endurance. Taking in consideration all this data, the researchers have concluded that the low levels of the testosterone are being directly related to the both advanced age as well as diminished sex drive. And this has been conclude a long time ago as this study has been done years ago.
Regarding for the estrogen, all men only need a small and youthful amount of estrogen for having an optimum health. However, there are men who are suffering from an increase in this estrogen amount and the overabundance of the estrogen and especially in the middle aged and old aged men it is purely an nightmare for them. here are only a couple of those bad things that an too bigger amount of estrogen can do to us, to men:
1. It is decreasing the natural testosterone production in our body (it is binding to the testosterone receptors in the brain that is giving the signal for the body to produce more and more testosterone)
2. This one is most likely the worst of them all as the high estrogen levels it is causing a male body to make fewer and fewer androgen receptors. As a result you’re going to suffer a lot. if you don’t know what happens search online. this is a very and very bad outcome.
3. It is displacing the testosterone in androgen receptors throughout the entire body and so your free testosterone is being basically “all dressed up” and it has nowhere it can go.
4. The erectile muscles that are located at the base of the penis are being all packed up with the testosterone receptors. Since the testosterone levels are slowly decreasing and the estrogen is displacing testosterone, those muscles are slowly starting to atrophy and so this is leading to some big erectile dysfunctions.
5. Another thing is that when the estrogen is binding to an androgen receptor, it is not activating that receptor while compared to the testosterone that is, obviously, activating the testosterone receptors so in this way they are doing whatever they are being supposed to do. however the estrogen it is only leaving all of them lifeless and inert. With time, a man start feeling this in a way that he’s not happy about.
6. It is also increasing the SHBG, this is the protein that it is binding to the testosterone and by doing so, it is decreasing the free “bioavailable” testosterone that it is being used by our bodies, a high level of estrogen results in no testosterone for our bodies.
7. An increasing level of estrogen it is being associated with some long term prostate issues and here we might include cancer as well.
8. And lately, in males the increased estrogen it is also being related with increased blood clotting, with the narrowing of the arteries and ultimately with heart disease as well.
As much as you can see, playing around with low testosterone is very dangerous. That is why I would suggest you to do whatever it takes to take care of it as soon as it is possible. It doesn’t matter if this means that you have to search for other doctors or whatever else. in case your doctor would tell you that 260 level of testosterone is fine then go and search one that knows enough about testosterone and knows that even 360 is not enough, not talking about 260. I really hope this is going to be helpful a bit. good luck.
Of course I can’t be sure, however I have heard that the testosterone supplementation it is basically permanent because as soon as you are going on and this is so because of the feedback downregulation of the LH and the endogenous testosterone production. What I am trying to say is that once you are going on for this, the rest of your life you should be going on with this as your body is going to lose the ability of producing the testosterone in a natural way.
Besides, because of all of that this is going to lead to a testicular atrophy (since they are not going to work the way they should) and this is going to lead, obviously, to a loss of fertility and I do find it pretty logical, especially taking in consideration that I remember I’ve heard about some trials where the testosterone injections have been tested as a means for men’s contraception’s… I assume there must be a reason for this. so well, I am thinking that it is pretty possible that a part of his hesitation to prescribe me anything like this may be because of my relative young age I have (as I said, I am only 36… not that old after all).
PuritySupreme
New member
“Of course I can’t be sure, however I have heard that the testosterone supplementation it is basically permanent because as soon as you are going on and this is so because of the feedback downregulation of the LH and the endogenous testosterone production. What I am trying to say is that once you are going on for this, the rest of your life you should be going on with this as your body is going to lose the ability of producing the testosterone in a natural way.
Besides, because of all of that this is going to lead to a testicular atrophy (since they are not going to work the way they should) and this is going to lead, obviously, to a loss of fertility and I do find it pretty logical, especially taking in consideration that I remember I’ve heard about some trials where the testosterone injections have been tested as a means for men’s contraception’s… I assume there must be a reason for this. so well, I am thinking that it is pretty possible that a part of his hesitation to prescribe me anything like this may be because of my relative young age I have (as I said, I am only 36… not that old after all). “
Hey there, you might be right about what you are saying up there (by the way, I just copy texted it, I am sorry, gonna learn how to make it right) and I do know that there are some alternate methods that you could try if you want, if you do not want the have the therapy monthly. I do not know very much about you but I think that this could be helpful because providing some general statistics would be helpful. like for example, one very important thing is: what’s your diet like? You’ve got to know that having an excess of the body fat is truly elevating your estrogen levels and so this could be the cause of your testosterone levels to drop low. generally, your diet is directly related to your testosterone production, to how you look, how you feel and how you’re in general. you might think that I am not saying the truth or whatever else, but you should know that a diet can really change a lot! along with the supplementation of the vitamins! This might seem too little, but this would make a big change. Besides, exercising and a good diet would most likely do the trick for you. most men with low testosterone are finding it enough to have a good exercising plan and a good diet. Only a few need something more than that. besides, not sure if this is true but I have also read that there are a lot of people having some really good results when they were using B 3 vitamin and niacin. I personally have not tried it myself so I can’t recommend it from experience, but I recommend you to do some more research on it and check it out if it suits up for you and if you like what other people are saying about this. I am thinking about trying it out myself but I think that in your condition, you should try anything about this. hope you would get the help you need. Good luck.
Georgia St
New member
Hi, have you ever seen an urologist? This is pretty important. it may be that this low testosterone is just trying to tell you a signal that something is wrong. My husband has had testicular cancer; that’s what I am hinting at. It is very curable however it is very often not detected in time. my husband’s tumor has been so small that he could not even feel it and it has been only a coincidence that he has got checked out. of course I can’t be sure if there is a connection between the low testosterone and the testicle problems however I think that it would be very well worth to talk to an urologist and see what he’s going to tell you. also, have you always felt this way (I am talking about having low energy, being in depression etc.) or this is all new for you?
I do agree with the fact that dieting and exercising is very well worth doing, however I am a woman and I am using testosterone as a little white pill every single morning, it is helping me with the pain and especially with the tooth pains, this is why I think that pills are an option either. you just have to get it all checked, go to an urologist, go to an endo doc. try changing your lifestyle, your diet etc.
PuritySupreme
New member
Oh wow, testosterone is helping you with the pains?! That very strange for me. what type of pain do you have, only oral? Or there are other types of pains that you’re getting and that testosterone helps you out?
I mean, yeah, it is very well known that the testosterone can help a man in a lot of ways, however I have never heard about testosterone to be helpful for pains and especially in women using it. I don’t want to say that this is impossible, I only find it very interesting and new for me.
Georgia St
New member
So well, I am going to try my best to keep this as short as possible. You asked me what types of pains I have: I am having neck pain because of fusion, DDD as well as facet stuff. And besides this all, I am also suffering from tooth pains either. after I have went off my testosterone, after a hysterectomy, I have started to notice that my teeth really started to hurt more and more. the crowns that have been 6 months old started to hurt. So well, I have been researching a lot about this, I’ve been researching for hours for some weeks and then I have found the following statement about mouth wounds healing slower for females:
“regarding the hormones and inflammation
Those findings may seem a surprise for a lot of people due to the fact that for other types of wounds, scientists have found out that women, generally, tend to heal faster than men do. it is believed that this may be due to the fact that the inflammation of skin wounds are helping them to close and to heal faster, and men are possessing some more increased levels of the anti inflammatory hormone testosterone. So well, thus, women are having a quicker healing time for the skin wounds due to the fact that they are having less testosterone.
However, this quicker healing time it is not the case inside he women’s mouth where the inflammation it is actually tending to draw out the healing process. Therefore the anti inflammatory testosterone, abundant in saliva, may be the reason of why the oral wounds are healing faster in men than in woman. The study author of this, an UI research assistant professor named Christopher Engeland said that this is only one of the very few times in the research of healing where men are having an advantage over women.
After reading this and a bit of more reading I have started back to take my testosterone and already my 7 month old crowns started to feel better within a week or so after starting with the testosterone and luckily this has allowed me to get the next 2 done (oh my…). Besides, I do not know the scientific explanation as to why, but I really do find that this hormone does help me with my neck, shoulder as well as arm pain overall. But I don’t even need to know why because I just know that the hormones are, in fact, the key to a lot, and we don’t even know about it. I just feel that people have not done enough research on this but they will and this is why I am having absolutely no doubts that with time, we are going to starting hearing more and more about them in the next years and we would hear them to be helpful in those fields where we couldn’t not even imagine that they might be helpful, i’m pretty sure about this. so, don’t underestimate the power of hormones 
PuritySupreme
New member
Hey, thank you very much for your information, today I found something new
I’ve got to say… you know what it is funny… it is the fact that I have always been a big believer in the testosterone therapy and that’s even if there’s somebody who responsible have had some goals that they wanted to achieve being on hormones (like for example to gain in mass or to heal faster from an injury). The thing is that the media as well as everybody else (but usually what media says – everybody says) is hyping it all around to be an extremely big bad thing and I do agree that it can be in case it is abused, anything that’s abused is a big bad thing. there’s nothing abused being helpful. however, there’s one very good question that I always have: how many times have any of you heard about anybody dying because of the testosterone therapy? And not talking about some kid out there who started to shot up roids and has already been manically depressed. Did you know that there are around 56,000 people per year that are going to the ER for acetaminophen overdoses per year? And still, no big fuss. Anyway, I am sorry for ranting here, lol, I just also think that this is the future and we should start thinking about this at it really might be helpful for everybody for a lot of conditions!
So well, I personally have also been thinking about the same things that you have posted up there Georgia St. even though I am not have absolutely any suspicious of the testicular cancer, it is quite possible that there are some physical problems that could be leading to the low testosterone condition. I have been checked out pretty thoroughly though and it seems that there is nothing that is coming up.
From as much as it seems, my physician does seem to be of the opinion that in the terms of the cause and effect, the depression it is what leads me to have low testosterone and it is not the other way around. I am not sure. He might be right, but I am afraid that he is not…
</p><p> </p><p>About this, I do know that most of the doctors are going to give you a script for a lower testosterone than 300s in case you are experiencing such symptoms of weakness, depression, lack of appetite or increased appetite leading to weight gain and so on. in case you are truly not feeling yourself and you are feeling like you are tired all the time without no reasons for this to be so, then I really think that a trip to a doctor is going to be very well worth it.</p>