Better Be Careful With Your Testosterone Gel
Hormone Replacement Therapy is becoming more and more common as the years go by, and to be honest, when done correctly, it really can work wonders. When done incorrectly, well, you end up with a veiny neck like Sylvestor Stallone (if you’re lucky!).
The endocrine (hormone) system is a finely-tuned orchestra, coordinated by your body with an amazing level of specificity, so just jumping in willy-nilly and shooting hormones into your body is like jumping into the middle of the Philharmonic Orchestra with a cowbell and starting to bang away randomly. Sure it may be gratifying for an instant, but in the end, disaster will ensue.
You see, it isn’t just about messing with ONE hormone. One hormone can affect others, which affect others, and so on, until all kinds of weird crap starts happening in your body and bulging neck veins start popping out from too much Growth Hormone (sorry, I keep coming back to Stallone).
So, it wasn’t a big shock when a recent study on testosterone gel and older men went a bit awry when a few of the subjects started having all kinds of health problems. Now, first off, they were taking HUGE doses- never a good idea- and second, this was a population that was already having a lot of mobility and other health issues. If you read Eugene Shippen’s excellent book on testosterone, he’s adamant about how careful you have to be when you start dosing people on this stuff.
I’m actually a bit surprised that only about 10-15% of the participants had problems, considering how high their dosage levels were and how frail they were to begin with.
If you’re thinking about hormone replacement therapy, for the love of God, get a doctor who’s really, really good at it. Otherwise… you guessed it. Bulging neck veins. Or worse.