AndroGel to the Rescue?

Yesterday I visited my primary care physician, Dr. Parry Moore, who prescribed AndroGel 1.62% testosterone gel.

AndroGel 1.62%

AndroGel comes in a pump-style dispenser (see above). Each press of the pump squirts a dab of the gel onto your waiting fingers. You then spread the dab onto the opposite upper arm/shoulder, in an unexposed area that a t-shirt would cover (see illustration at left).

The alcohol base of the gel evaporates immediately, leaving just the dried gel on your skin. You spread a second dab onto the other shoulder, using your other hand. Then you wash the remaining gel off your hands.

Dr. Moore also took another blood sample that is intended to confirm my low T level from the previous test, and will establish my baseline for prostate-specific antigen (PSA). PSA can be read as a tipoff for prostate cancer. Using a testosterone replacement product like AndroGel can change one's PSA reading, so Dr. Moore wants to keep tabs on my PSA count.

Dr. Moore was at first reluctant to begin AndroGel for me because he feels a single low T-level measurement can just be a temporary anomaly. I pressed him to go ahead and prescribe AndroGel right away for me, citing the list of symptoms I have been experiencing (see below).

Dr. Moore gave me a promotional packet of information from the maker of AndroGel, Abbott Laboratories. In the packet is a list of symptoms that may or may not go along with any given man's low T levels:

• fatigue or decreased energy (I have that)
• reduced sex drive or libido (yes)
• sexual dysfunction — weak or fewer erections (yes)
• depressed mood (somewhat)
• increased body fat (don't believe so)
• reduced muscle mass/strength (maybe)
• decreased bone strength (don't know)
• loss of body hair — less frequent shaving (not really)
• hot flashes/sweats (no)

Any of these symptoms can of course have other causes. Yet they can be used by a physician, along with a low T level in the blood serum and a man's general medical history, to determine a possible need for T replacement therapy.

Type II diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, both of which I have, can also be associated with or bring on low T, according to Abbott Laboratories.

The male body — i.e., the testicles — can lose ability to make sufficient T naturally. Or low T can happen when the brain, through the hypothalamus and pituitary gland, stops ordering up as much T production as before from the testes.

I asked Dr. Moore how many of his male patients have low T, and he responded that about 20 percent of those over 50 do.

AndroGel is expensive, by the way. A one-month supply cost me $92. The packet Dr. Moore gave me contains a card that when activated may lower my costs to $10 per month.