Final Blood Work Summary
I had 3 blood draws for this experiment: pre-dosing, 1 week, and the final 3rd week. The first 2 draws were just sex hormones. The final draw included lipids/met plus I added on FSH and LH. The first week I ramped from 1mg to 3mg. Weeks 2 and 3, I ramped from 3mg to 6mg. At the end of the 3rd week I stopped dosing, took my lipid/met tests the next morning, came home, took 12mg, waited 2 hours, and had the final hormone test draw. I did not do a full blood panel except at the end, as I’d had 2 or 3 just this year. I only decided to add FSH and LH after reading about their importance. At first, I was mainly concerned with testosterone and the estrogens.
Levine Markers
As I mentioned previously, most of my Levine markers went in the wrong direction by small amounts, which resulted in a pheno calculated age score about 11 years younger than my bio age. I tested twice earlier this year at 14 and 15 years younger.
Minor Out of Range Issues
Other red out-of-range values that I didn’t consider particularly important:
- Sodium and chloride slightly low: I don’t eat much salt, and they’ve been borderline low for several years, sometimes slipping into the red reference range as they did for this test.
- RBC, hemoglobin, and hematocrit slightly low: They’ve been slightly low for about 2 years. My PCP isn’t worried about it. I take VitB and iron and never feel general fatigue. Although it could be bone cancer or multiple myeloma, which my mother died from, I took a blood marker test for MM a while back, and it came back negative.
- Urine glucose high: I take dapagliflozin.
Hormones
The sex hormones are difficult to interpret, but the numbers look “bad.” They weren’t that great to begin with. However, I have never felt physiologically inadequate, and for most of the test, my libido was fine. The last few days there was a noticeable decrease in tumescence, but still sufficient rigidity for “functionality.” After the bolus dose, we went on a brutal week-long desert cross-country trip with little sleep, intermittent food, and water. Even considering those “distractions,” I would judge my libido as being impaired for 5 or 6 days after the bolus dose, i.e., minimal morning erections. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had sex behind an outhouse in the desert, and regardless of any exogenous estriol intake, and in any case, considering the sunburn, snakes, gravel, sand, and splinters, at this decade of my life, I’m in no shape or mood for it. So there’s a lot of “noise” around these “impressions” and despite these confounding factors, from my perspective, there’s a clear decrease in libido with large doses.
Next steps?
I’ll check my hormones in a month or so. Then I might try a few weeks at low dose (1 or 2 mg) to see what my hormones look like. Recall that after a week at low dose most of my hormones looked better, so I’m not giving this baby up yet.
A post script, if you please.
“S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse / a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, / questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. / Ma perciocchè giammai di questo fondo / non tornò vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero, / senz’ tema d’infamia ti rispondo.”
