Hello all, this is my first post, but I wanted to let you guys know of something that has helped me significantly and might offer some promise to many of you. Here's my story...
I went to two different urologists (one was even at the vaunted Johns Hopkins School of Medicine). They both basically said, "Yup, that's Peyronie's. Good luck." Finally I went to a third urologist who actually seemed like he might care. We talked about my total health history, and then he said something along the lines of, "You don't seem like a candidate to have low Testosterone levels" (relatively young and fit 41 year old) "but it's such a basic thing that I want to check it to make sure I'm not letting anything slip through the cracks."
My first thought was "I'm not here to check my T levels. I've got Peyronie's dammit! Fix it!" But OK, I got a blood test done. I went back for the follow-up and learned that my T levels were in fact low. I couldn't believe it at first - I think it wounded my manly pride (lol). Anyway, he explained that they are still only in the beginning stages of exploring this angle on Peyronie's. He told me that in his practice, he started testing his Peyronies Disease patients, and "almost all of them have low T. We don't exactly know what the connection is there, but it's got to be something."
Then he explained the basic hypothesis (I am going to just put this in my own words instead of trying to remember his exact wording). He explained that the rest of your body is pretty stingy with sharing nutrients and oxygenated blood with the penis. Most of the time the penis gets barely a life support drip of blood and nourishment. The only way your penis really gets nourished is through erections. Fortunately our bodies have a pretty good way to make up for the lack of nutrients at night. The idea is that men with normal/healthy T levels pretty reliably have about 5 erections per night while sleeping. They usually last about 20 to 30 minutes. The penis is repeatedly flooded with blood, oxygen, and nutrients to keep the tissues strong and healthy.
If, however, someone has low T levels, maybe they are only having 1 or 2 erections per night, and they're sort of half erections and maybe only last 5 minutes. That does two things: 1. it possibly predisposes someone to a penile injury due to weakened/compromised tissues in the first place, and 2. if they do get a penile injury, their penis won't get sufficient blood/nutrients to repair the damage.
The blood tests indicated that I had low T levels. In hindsight, I could think back to when I was pretty sure my T levels must have started to drop. It was about 2 years earlier when my workouts just started to seem inexplicably harder. It was more difficult to motivate myself. I was tired. I realized I couldn't remember the last time I had woken up with "morning wood" (sleep erection). Honestly, I had been sort of half conscious of these things happening, and just chalked it up to being a busy, over-stressed middle aged dad. And by the way, if you do some Googling, you can find that low T levels are correlated with a number of
chronic health conditions (that have nothing to do with sexuality in general or your penis in particular). So there are other health reasons to make sure your T levels are good.
So... I learned I had low T. Now what? There are numerous testosterone therapies - I'm not a doctor, so I won't get into the various alternatives. What my doc suggested with me was to take clomid to increase T levels. Clomid was originally developed as an estrogen therapy for women, but they have since learned that it works just as well to spur a man's natural T production as well. Technically, it is an "off-label" use for clomid. (There are rumors that one drug company is testing a "male clomid" where they had to change the formula just slightly to reissue a patent on it.) Anyway, quite a few doctors have been using clomid for years with almost no side effects in cases where the man can still generate his own testosterone. If a man can't generate his own, he needs testosterone replacement therapy. Again, I'll let you talk to a doctor about it.
The result? I have now been on clomid for a year, getting my T levels checked via blood test every three months. They have been back into the healthy range for a year now. I'm feeling much better, have more energy, and - crucially for Peyronie's - I'm back to getting a lot more erections. I'm waking up in the middle of the night or in the morning with "morning wood" again. My Peyronie's has not gone away entirely, but it has improved significantly. I had taken a picture of my erection for my first visit with my doctor to show him. I had not really been conscious of much improvement, until I took another picture after about 7 or 8 months of having good T levels again. When I compared the pictures, I was shocked. Definitely a huge improvement - I went from approximately a 30 degree bend to around a 10 or 15 degree bend. The only other therapy I tried is using a
VED several times. After I hurt myself one time, I never touched it again.
I don't think my Peyronie's will ever go away entirely, but it is drastically improved now. I firmly (ha!) believe it is because my T levels have been fixed. A lot of other aspects of my health and quality of life have improved as well.
Anyway, I know how awful Peyronies Disease is. I literally cried quite a few times thinking that any sort of sex life I might have was just going away... for good. My wife and I have always had a fun and satisfying sex life. It broke my heart that it might be going away, and I felt terribly guilty that I would be depriving her of that satisfaction. But things have been going great!
I hope that sharing my story might prove helpful to a few of you. I urge you to try going to a urologist, endocrinologist, or hell, even a general practitioner and asking to have your T levels checked. It can't hurt and it just might help! Your insurance should cover it. And maybe, just maybe, if you do have low T, it will help put you on the road to recovering at least partway from your Peyronies Disease (along with all the other health benefits of having healthy T levels).
Too long/didn't read summary: there appears to be a growing amount of evidence (at least in one urology practice) of a correlation between low T and Peyronies Disease. Get your T levels checked. They might be low. If so, there are steps you can take to help correct your T levels... and hence your Peyronies Disease.
Regards,
Kevin
Author
Topic: Testosterone levels and Peyronies Disease (Read 6346 times)