For your testosterone problem, I've heard that there is a a very good alternative to actual steroid use, which doesn't have long-term problems associated with it, that is used by teens and the extremely old; the drug is an anti-estrogen called clomid (look it up on Wikipedia). I haven't used it myself but the research done on it (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) proves it to be highly effective for men of all ages with testosterone problems.
After only a month of treatment, testosterone is around 600ng/dl for most.
Obviously, testosterone problems can lead to blood sugar problems, anhedonia and many of the side effects you probably experience, thus it would be the primary thing to go for fixing.
But you don't even need to consume any drug for testosterone, you only need to abstain from the sexual for at least 5 (recommend 7) days and do heavy exercises (carry weights), that alone can fix the problem quickly as it surely did for me.
As for myself, I too experience anhedonia and all the negative symptoms of schizophrenia minus the lack of insight into my own mental life, and possibly minus another symptom as well.
What has worked for treating my anhedonia (inability to experience any emotions, whether painful or not) was St. John's Wort.
I take it SJW works because of serotonin, since serotonin negatively effects hormones and I noticed that while on SJW I could do less physical exercises; obviously, SJW has other effects on the brain.
While on SJW, my social anxiousness returned, which was probably shielded by my emotional flatness, so-called schizophrenia. Yay to such a cure!--this is why I personally don't take SJW anymore.
Raising dopamine is very easy: you only need to supplement with an amino acid like l-tyrosine or l-dopa (l-tyrosine makes l-dopa) and do so on an empty stomach, with no other amino acid, and abstain from eating for at least half the day, as far as you can go without getting sick, passing out, or whatever it is.
Fasting is the quickest and best way to increase dopamine and other brain chemicals, that strengthen focus and emotions, since fasting does not have long-term damaging effects (tyrosine does neither) that many drugs do.
After I did this process with tyrosine and fasting, I was finally able to enjoy commercials again! Oh the joy of watching mindless commercials!
Joking aside, dopamine, as we both know, has a major effect on anhedonia - a positive one.
Good luck.
- Yosef
Thanks so much for the input! The Clomid sounds like a miracle. Maybe my pdoc will be able to prescribe it. I have had trouble finding positive experiences from it though. Some people on a few forums haven't stated much benefit but perhaps that is from users whom already have decent testosterone levels.
My Testosterone levels are that of a really old man and I really hardly have any energy for life right now. Such apathetic, dull, tired, unmotivated days. I couldn't even bring myself to reply to this until now.
Clomid raises T levels significantly but does this increase on paper directly correspond with improvements in health? Such as more masculine appearance, improved mood, motivation, energy etc? I look very non-hormonal these days and have pretty much all the general symptoms of low testosterone.
I tried Tyrosine in the past. Has had some motivational benefits but mood felt worse a lot of the time. Perhaps it wasn't good for upregulation. I'd notice some dysphoria here and there. L-Dopa Mucuna herb sometimes worked small wonders but it was very inconsistent. I felt kinder, more affectionate, and loved some of those feelings but also would make me tired a fair bit of the time and sometimes just made my mood feel worse overall. Tolerance onset perhaps but it was bit unpredictable. Sometimes I'd feel better, sometimes just want to sleep. -Fasting after Tyrosine I don't believe is something I've tried but maybe I'll give it a shot one day. SJW I don't think i can try any time soon since even if I quit vortioxetine 5mg I still am on 1.2mg valium which i am doing a slow withdrawl. SJW effects other med levels thus can be troublesome to mix suppossedly.
Fasting may have played a role 2 days ago. I had to go on a clear liquid only diet in preparation for a colonoscopy. I was dreadfully hungry and mega dose of magnesium oxide as laxative was uncomfortable. eventually i'd notice some greater motivation several hours later and bit more receptive and reactive to my surroundings. Including in the afternoon 28+ hours without food, and zero sleep (magnesium insomnia kept me up + perhaps hunger). But something like this is not usually sustainable for me. Eventually I may have had a hypoglycemic episode when I was shiveringg and shakingg after the colonoscopy procedure. blankets did very little to keep me warm. I been having lot of chills this past month on and off, sometimes after eating, and often just randomly and my skin dries up intensely. blood sugar issues or general low testosterone + whatever else. I'm not literally shaking now but my body is still very very cold especially my hands. That extreme shaking scenario manifested itself a year ago when I was hooked up to an IV as well. They were doing an ACTH stimulation or supression test and insulin was involved. There would be cortisol and blood sugar fluctuations through out the test as shown in the printed results. My cortisol would climb from 200 to 530ish. Surely only to drop when the testing was over. Anyway... Middle way through it I felt so much better, thoughts became so incredibly more clear and I felt I wanted to actually go out and do things, even be around people, then after being taken off the IV or near the end I'd be so cold and shaking (no magnesium involved these days) and within 30 minutes my improved mood would rapidly decline into foggy tired dull apathy again. I don't understand why this is. intense fog, slow mindedness, poor ability to think, etc.
But thank you so much for the Clomid information. I had no idea such a med existed. Hopefully my dr can try me on it, sometimes I feel so hopeless.
I can see the irony of my suggestion that you should do physical exercises and abstain from sexual acts as a way to increase testosterone, since in your case you probably don't have a libido that needs controlling nor the ability to do sufficient physical exercises.
Nonetheless, should you suddenly get energy to do things then the first thing I would recommend is weight training and you don't need to go to any gym or buy any weights, you only need to let your upper body strain your legs by bending your legs and stretching them up again, all while standing with a straight back and your arms pointing out from the center of your body. I do 200 repetitions of these everyday and the hormonal effect is seen within the day, greatly increased after sleeping.
Interestingly, you say your cortisol and testosterone are both low and both of which are increased by doing physical exercises, though cortisol drops down around an hour after stress exposure.
Did you try 50mg of zinc? In my case, I experience that when I feel that my libido is down or my energy is low, taking zinc sufficiently quickly fixes the problem. If you try zinc, make sure to stay below 60mg to avoid neurotoxicity and if you supplement with zinc in high doses every day, you need to supplement with at least 1mg of copper every 3 days or so to avoid zinc-induced copper deficiency.
It may also be good to couple the high amount of zinc with proteins to increase the androgen-activity of the zinc.
Are you on any psychiatric medication that may down regulate dopamine or some such, like Risperidone (Risperdal)?
Several psychiatric medication are known to reduce testosterone and cause long-term brain issues, both SSRIs and antipsychotics.
Did you get your vitamin levels checked by a doctor? Chances are, either as the cause behind your condition or caused by the condition, you may be vitamin deficient. If you could, it would be advisable to get the actual lab test on a paper instead of letting the doctor say that the results are fine since doctors are notorious for slipping into the trap of taking normal results as also healthy results.
For me, the biggest problem with fixing mental issues (whether they have a physical cause or not) is contacting doctors, whether normal doctors that treat physical problems or psychiatrists, since they often worsen the issue with their methods of alleviating the problems, as opposed to making the problems better.
From my own experience, it's never a good thing to trust any so-called doctor as only a very small fraction of them care about truth, and an even smaller fraction desire helping their clients.
Much of what I've said is of course common sense and are things you've understood to begin with, I would assume. I mention this because I get irritated by people who advise to me the self-evident things and I assume you may, too.
Edit:
I forgot to answer your question ("Clomid raises T levels significantly but does this increase on paper directly correspond with improvements in health?") and the answer is absolutely yes!
There is free and total testosterone and at least 2 types of testosterones, and multiple androgens, and yada yada, but trust me that you will notice the effects of high testosterone while on the anti-estrogen clomid if at all it has any effect on you (which I am sure it would).
Couple clomid with weight training and you may further drastically increase testosterone and I would assume that you could get it to the 800ng/dl amount (which I believe is the ceiling for tests).
Best of all, you don't even need a prescription since you can buy it online (like viagra pills) but you didn't hear it from me! And I am not sure of which website would sell it (docsimon dot com sells various anti-estrogens but couldn't find clomid on there).
If you want advice for the usage of clomid then merely look at bodybuilding.com There are a lot of steroid users taking anti-estrogen meds on there, legally and illegally. They know of the worst case scenarios, best dosages and so on.
vitamin and mineral levels appeared fine in a test a month ago and around 8 months ago. TSH fluctuated at 5.5, 3.5, 2.8 4.3, 4.8 etc. usually above 4. Free T3 was higher end at 6 at one point but never been tested since. At that time I had tremendous anxiety and worst period of my life. I felt 1.5 years ago i was dealing with a severe adrenal crisis. I could not even lay in bed without some intense adrenaline stress attacks incoming plus various other intense symptoms of Adrenal Exhaustion.
I have recovered from that to an extent but I am still long ways off from being healthy especially with my intense chornic fatigue, poor energy, tiredness, poor interest, and lackluster cognition. Very difficult to handle stress but Vortioxetine helps with that to some extent.
The values on blood tests for CBC and other routine tests all appeared to be fine. Others not so much.
Cortisol AM was once at 60! Another time at 240. But never higher than that. Usually 200 or less at other times but these tests are taken when I usually feel my best which is early in the morning and when cortisol is meant to be highest. Pretty unreliable testing but I cannot afford cortisol saliva tests.
UREA (kidney function etc) 2.6 range: 2.7- 7.5
Cholesterol 5.49 range desired: <5.2
HDL: 1.96
LDL: 3.30
Microalbumin (RDM U) <2 -outside the limits of detection*
Microalb/creatine ratio *. -outside the limits of detection*
Oct 23rd 2014 tests:
Creatine 94 60-110umol/L
eGFR 81 >=60. mL/min/1.73m**2
TSH 2.88
T4 Free 16 12-22
Cortisol am 240 170-540
ACTH 2.3 <10.0
Urinechemistry:
Volume 24h 3100 H 600-1800
Creatine 24h U 12.8 M:8.6 - 19.4
Epinephrine <10 <100
Norepinephrine 273 <500
Dopamine 1713 <2600
Metanephrines Fract .24h U:
normetanephrine 1.2 <3.3 UMOL/D
metanephrine 0.4 <1.7 UMOL/D
during the october tests I was taking high dose royal jelly which helped in some ways and may have influenced results considerably. had to stop taking due to bad blood sugar crashes and candida die off/aggravation issues. In general btw I have very frequent urination. Seems no matter the day. May be an important symptom. Often feel dehydrated. Thirsty often.
Here is an earlier test for May 27th 2014-
Free Testosterone 28 L 31-94pmol/L
ACTH <2 <10
Norepinephrine 1.2 0.8 - 3.4 nmol/L
Epinephrine <0.1 <0.8 nmol/L
Metanephrines free <0.20 <0.49 nmol/L
Normatenephrines free 0.40 <0.89 nmol/L
TSH 3.31
T4 Free 14 12 -22
LH 2 (luteinizing hormone) 2 - 9 IU/L
Free T3 4 2.6 - 5.7
Cortisol am 60 L 170-540 nmol/L
FSH 4 2-12 IU/L
Testosterone 12.6 M: 7.6-31.4 nmol/L
Prolactin 8 <18 ug/L
Estradiol 57 <157 pmol/L
Other test on March 12th 2015-
Free Testosterone 181 L 196- 636 pmol/L
So I may have some possible kidney issues aside from low Testosterone, will have to do some further testing. if anyone has suggestions for which tests specifically please let me know. My gastrologist will be ordering the tests because my horrid family doctor refuses to help me in any way shape or form.
Edited by AlexCanada, 26 April 2015 - 04:02 PM.