Welcome to My "Low-T Me" Blog

Suffering is painful, and I've been suffering.

I went to the doctor last week complaining of mental confusion and feeling as if my head is fogged in. He used the term "cognitive impairment." He suggested trying a number of things, and he also said he wanted to do some blood tests. I blurted out, "Can you include a test for testosterone?" He said that it might reveal an interesting result: low testosterone making my brain soggy ...

The testosterone level in my blood turned out to be 259.0, given in nanograms per deciliter, I believe. The normal range for males over 50 (I'm 65) is 181-758. (For men 20 to 49 years of age it's higher: 262-1593 ng/dL.)

The middle of that range is 469.5, which is roughly where I was 3 1/2 years ago. Here are the numbers I have in my records:

• 1-7-2005     535.0
• 2-7-2006     490.0
• 4-2-2009     469.0
• 4-6-2010     402.0
• 10-23-2012   259.0

Testosterone is a hormone produced by the male testes (testicles). It starts getting churned out at the arrival of puberty, when a boy starts to become a man. (I am paraphrasing a lot of this from Wikipedia's article on Testosterone.) It causes facial hair, pubic hair, pubic hair, and other body hair to start to grow, as do the penis, testicles, scrotum, etc. The boy begins to experience penile erections and gains the capacity for ejaculation.

Throughout his adult life, the human male continues to secrete testosterone in large, but varying, amounts. (Women also secrete testosterone in smaller amounts.) Most significantly, T (as I'll call it for short) is associated with a man's ability to be aroused sexually and carry out the procreative act.

Various life situations can cause a man's T secretion to go up or down.

Apparently, T (or a chemical derivative of T made within the male body) is essential to a man's proper cognitive function and his general sense of well-being. I have seemingly lost both of those things in some degree, as I have lost my erectile capacity and my sex drive. These symptoms have come to a crisis stage, I feel, though I have been experiencing them in lesser degree for two or three years.

My list of symptoms includes:

1. Erectile dysfunction
2. Loss of libido (sex drive)
3. Mental confusion
4. Indecisiveness
5. Poor memory
6. Loss of interest in usual activities and pursuits
7. Lower sense of well-being
8. Fatigue

Put another way, there's less pep in my step, sexually and otherwise.

Plus, all my attitudes have become platitudes.

My symptoms are worse in the afternoon and evening than in the morning. Apparently, T levels are higher in the A.M. than in the P.M. for most men, so the 259.0 ng/dL T level I got in an early morning blood test surely drops as nighttime approaches.

There seems to be a difference of opinion: some experts say it's normal for aging men to have lower testosterone. Others say it's not. But one way or the other, the drop from 469 to 259, which is over a 43 percent drop between age 61 and age 65, seems like I've gone over a cliff.

Tomorrow, I see the doctor about this. I expect he will start me on testosterone replacement therapy, giving me some kind of T supplement — a pill, a gel, a cream, a patch, whatever.

Next week I hope to be back to my usual self:

Just kidding ... or maybe not!