Posted by dmlvt on January 4, 2007, at 11:26:10
In reply to Re: Lab tests to look for underlying causes ... » notfred, posted by Phillipa on January 4, 2007, at 10:26:10
> Well you may also be exhausted from all that
> excercise as the body ages less is frequently
> best as I've found with myself. But I highlyI don't doubt that the exercise is a stress inducer. At the levels that I exercise, cortisol is likely to be increased and testosterone likely to be decreased. I enjoy competing in the events that I do and I am not naive enough to believe it's completely healthy to exercise at that level. I hope it's healthier than doing nothing, but it is a major body stressor.
>recommend you have your thyroid tested with an
>edocrinolist as I do have hasimotosMy plan is to ask the PCP to do the tests and then refer me to the endocrinologist if anything looks off, including borderline values. There is really a significant amount of controversy these days in what should be considered normal for TSH and for total testosterone as well. Depending on the lab, the reference ranges used to allow values as high as 4.5 or so to be normal for TSH, but more and more often, the normal range is considered to end at 2.2 to 2.5 (I forget the units at the moment).
For total testosterone, I think the normal values go down to 300 or so, while a healthy 18-year old male is likely to have a value in the 800-100 range. Some endos will do further testing and consider treatment as values approach 350 or even 450, rather than using 300 as the cut-off.
The whole HPA axis is so complex and the number of tests that could be run is so huge.
>Also check your iron levels. Good luck.
That isn't one that I thought about. I deliberately take multi-vitamins without iron, as men seem more likely to get too much rather than not enough. I was a vegetarian for a year or so, but about a year ago, I resumed eating some meat, and I would bet that I'm getting enough iron.>Seriously with all that excercise shows darn
>good functioning to me. Sounds like you're in
>great shape. Love Phillipa
I do function reasonably well and I am in good shape. My PCP recently told me that I'm a difficult patient because I'm not satisfied to be in the 50th percentile. He said that most medical training is based on getting people's health to the 50th percentile and I constantly want to be at the 99th percentile. Perhaps my expectations are too high, and I probably am a challenging patient because of that. But, I often feel that the only way to get really good medical care is to be as educated as possible and to challenge the providers. I say this as someone who works in the health care industry, working with doctors every day.
DML
poster:dmlvt
thread:719227
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070101/msgs/719265.html