Andropause

Women's menopause is a defined stop. Men do not have that stop. Testosterone tends to drift down over decades, and symptoms that get blamed on it — belly fat, low drive, a shorter fuse, worse sleep — have a dozen other owners. The name is useful only if it gets you tested instead of supplemented from a podcast.

Free and total testosterone, drawn in the morning, plus the symptom story, are the start. Age by itself is not an indication. A fit 60-year-old with normal morning levels does not need a vial because his friend has one.

Sleep apnea is the big one. So are heavy alcohol use, low thyroid, depression, and pain medicines. A new relationship stress will flatten libido with a perfect lab. The intake asks about these because treating the wrong layer wastes a year.

If you want the number checked and you are also willing to hear that the number is fine, you are the right patient for this page. If you only want the prescription, the visit will feel like an argument.

Replacement can restore levels into a range your clinician is aiming for, with the fertility and blood-count tradeoffs that younger men face too. Older men add prostate and cardiovascular history to that talk. Bring prior PSAs and any urology notes.

Training and protein still matter. Testosterone is not a substitute for legs that have not squatted in a decade. It will not, by itself, remove a waistline that is mostly sleep and beer.

The hard part of andropause is that a slow, normal decline and a genuine deficiency can feel identical from the inside, both show up as a shorter fuse, a softer libido, a thicker middle, and worse sleep. The difference lives in the morning labs and the willingness to look at everything else happening to a man in his fifties, not in how convinced he is that his testosterone is the culprit.

That is why the honest visit is prepared to tell a fit sixty-year-old with normal levels that a vial is not his answer. Age alone is not an indication, and 'just in case' ignores the real costs of replacement. When the decline is genuine, treatment helps; when it is ordinary aging plus poor sleep, chasing it with testosterone wastes a year and adds risk.

Treatment is provided through Jonathan Larson MDPC. Prescriptions require a clinical evaluation; medication is dispensed only when deemed medically necessary. Information here is educational and not a substitute for medical advice.