Doc: Thanks for salvaging this convo with some factual perspective. I’m a geezer too and just want to feel strong and not lethargic. So I follow the topic with interest. There is a certain element of trying to cheat nature, internally, instead of just externally (hair dye, cosmetic surgery etc.). It feels a bit dangerous, to try various hormonal supplements and herbal substances, but I have yet to find a doctor address this precisely.
I like Kevin’s blunt advice, too. The best way to feel strong is to keep doing hard things, repetitively, yet strike a balance with your joints, muscles and ligaments.
Since I retired, I truly am starting to feel the beneficial effects on longer workouts at the gym. I joke that I have a case of Bigorexia but I really do lift fairly heavy weights and such and only have to really be careful of leg stuff because its so hard on the knees. I doubt Kaiser will pay for me to keep running to the lab to check T-levels so its all an abstraction of whether its helping.
It’s up to me to follow up with diet and sleep. I tried terrestis tribulus, chrome and such, but I have no idea if its really helps. As my PSA levels elevate, the best Kaiser docs tell me is just not to take any herbals. So I went off the tribulus for about five months to see, and re-tested and the PSA is just higher so so much for that theory. They absolutely disdain saw palmetto, too. This leaves me wondering if supplements do anything but make supplement manufacturers wealthy. I include this tiresome PS stuff because, if you spend a few quality hours on the Internet reading up about supplements and supplement claims, you will only learn that its a thriving business for youth chasers. And that actual MDs endorse the shit (of course for consideration if not outright partnership with the vendors). I have ZERO idea whether to believe in any of it anymore. I am all the way back to basic notion of ancient herbalists observing effects and thinking that all medicine came from that so there must be something besides the evil chemically-created solutions from Big Pharma.
So, this involves T-Levels too. Most of the T-enhancing claimants have Fenugreek, Tribulus, Chrome and perhaps a few others I missed. I sometimes think its just a huge mind-game, for which I have no clear way to discern. You can buy all the ingredients cheaper that the Joe Weider or Doug Flutie concoctions from Vitacost.
The big guns seem to be progesterone creams and actual Testo ones. These come with so many warnings that one might prefer lethargy to dying of cancer and heart disease. The progesterone supposedly stimulates production of testo but a person isn’t supposed to take it more than three weeks out of a month, with no explanation given. If you look into this stuff, it’s mostly warnings to stay away. Yet its still marketed. $$$$
So I remain clueless but I have tried this stuff. Whether it works, I have no idea. Whether its might also simultaneously increase prostate and other cancers seems like a real possibility.
Caveat emptor. Seems like a shitty way to die soon but you know, we all want to go out erect and powerful. (Nyuk)
Yeah, that's about right.
