← The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #148: The TRUTH about TRT (Testosterone Replacement Therapy)!! Do You REALLY Need TRT? Is Testosterone use "dangerous"? What blood markers should you check? Is it "cheating" and more!!
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So claim your free Aging muscle protocol guide and free sample of Might Appear gummies From timeline@timeline.com Dylan it's the science backed breakdown of exactly what's happening to your muscles as you age and how to fight back. Why does everybody now think that you have to be on TRT to be healthy? Why does everybody think that if you're on TRT that all of a sudden you're cheating or you're going to be this mass monster or have this huge advantage over everybody else? Why is it the biggest thing at every single clinic you go to where they're putting everybody under the sun on TRT whether they need it or not? First of all and foremost, I am well known as being one of the biggest TRT advocates on the planet, meaning that if you need it, if you have a hypogonado condition and your body absolutely needs to be on it, then yes, yes, yes, it will improve your quality of life. It will allow you to feel rejuvenated and alive again. But if you don't need it, if your body's producing testosterone, okay, and for some people, optimal range is going to be a little bit higher than others. And some people are going to be just fine at a little bit lower range. But if you are doing just fine, there's no reason in the world to try to fix something that's not broke. And there are other ways to boost testosterone levels if you just need a small boost as opposed to just going full blown trt. Now I will say this. Steroid users, which a lot do watch my channel. I'm not going to tell you to get on testosterone boosters to fix anything. I think we all know at this point in time that if you have used steroids that chances of a testosterone booster helping you are pretty damn slim. You could always use it as a, you know, secondary or even third look to try to give you a little bit extra bump. But to totally rely on it is just, it's not accurate. I went through years of that with different companies and people trying to feed me studies and convince me and, and made me look qu. Foolish, to be honest with you, where I'll never sit up here again and tell everybody, well, use this for your PCT or this is going to cure you. No, it's not. Now, if you're a non steroid user and you don't have a severe condition or a woman that may have a lower condition, then we may want to look at it first just to try without jumping on. But then again, we need to temper our expectations and realize that a lot of it is lifestyle changes, foods that we're eating, etc. And that might just add a little bit to it. But there are so many things that people need to look at before just jumping right onto trt. Let's start with the blood panels. This is the most important part of all aspects of our life. This is how we know what is going on within our bodies or not. So whether we're looking at trt, whether we're looking at diagnosing any sort of issue that we're having symptoms of, the blood panels and the blood work are going to tell us everything. The first thing that we have to understand is, especially when we're getting our testosterone tested, is how do you go into the test? Because you can have a skewed number if you're not fasted, if it's not first thing in the morning, if you've been working out, if you've been doing something stressful, these will skew your numbers. So oftentimes when I have clients, I'll tell them, okay, it's good that we got this test. Now we need to go back and just make sure before we do something that we may not need to do, that's step one. Step two is actually getting the proper panel. When you go to a regular doctor or practitioner, generally speaking, they're going to give you a basic panel which is going to be a CBC and they call that a complete blood count, which it's not complete, but it is helpful. And then a cmp, which is a complete metabolic profile. Once again, not complete, but it will cover some of the bases. We need liver, kidneys, sometimes it will hit different electrolytes that we need to look at depending on where you're getting the testing done. And it'll look at some potentially basic cholesterol parts, too, as well. Not always, but sometimes you'll have to add those in extra. There's a slew of other tests that we need to look at before and as we get started. You need to know if you have prior family history and conditions. You need to know if you may have an elevated psa, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. These are all very, very important markers to look at before you jump on something like testosterone. And you need to know these in general. You need to know your family histories, and you need to check to see if, like, for me, I didn't know I had an. An LP gene. That is an inherited thing. I went through life testing, but never testing that, only getting basic cholesterol numbers when those are not foundationally. What we need to know if we have an issue. Thankfully, I still caught it, but it was at a point where I developed some plaque in my arteries that probably more than likely could have been avoided. So don't fall into this, oh, I'm only 20. I don't need to ever test. Yeah, you should. Now, as we get older, we need more maintenance, more testing, ensure that we're not having problems, creep up out of nowhere, because before you know it, boom, they hit you. One day you wake up and you're going, well, what the hell just happened? And it was sitting there the whole time, but you never took the time to actually look and check. So we need to get very extensive blood work done, covering all the bases. We need full metabolic profiles, cardiac iq, which is that full cholesterol panel. We need to look at your prostate, we need to look at estradiol, progesterone, prolactin, all of these things that are never looked at. I want to see all of those. You also want to see your heavy metal exposure, different tests that nobody often looks at when you're going to a basic doctor. But now more than ever, functional medicine practitioners, they're all looking at these panels because now we have a better understanding of mercury mold toxins. Our environments are creating a lot of the problems we have, and low testosterone feeds right into that. I want to try to figure out, are you highly stressed? How's your sleep patterns, Are you drinking, Are you smoking? These are all factors that play into a low testosterone level, and we can work on these and try to fix them before putting somebody on trt. That's one big issue right there is a lot of these clinics now especially they're putting people on TRT that don't need it. Everybody's different. So some people may have a total or free testosterone number that looks okay on paper, but they may still feel and have all of the symptoms of low testosterone. So that we want to look at, okay, what are the root problems here? Are there other panel markers that may show why you're feeling this way? And can we try to fix those first? And let's say I have somebody in that does show a low testosterone number. I still need to be doing my due diligence trying to figure out, wow, your shbg, it's highly elevated. If we fix that, we can free up bound testosterone and shoot that number back up and wow, maybe we'll fix this, maybe we won't. But there's panel problems that could show their ugly heads that we could fix and avoid putting you on TRT itself. So finding somebody that actually knows how to read a blood panel. And what does that mean? Well, if you go do your own blood panels, which I do encourage people to do, the problem is, if you go to Quest, LabCorp, any of these places, these ranges now, they're, they're this far of a gap where they're telling you that something's average and it is not. I see people teetering on the red line and it's saying that they're average and like one bad morning or something, that they ate or slept bad, and that thing could slip right into a danger range. These ranges are insane. We want optimal ranges. And you have to find somebody that understands where optimal ranges are anymore because. Because they've widened these gaps so much based upon public average. Well, guess what? The world, especially where we live in America, is the unhealthiest it's ever been. So basing it on average is not what we want. We need to find optimal standard ranges and then look at those and find somebody that understands where those are. And there's plenty of places out there that do. There's functional medicine, doctors, and there are different types of companies that I can recommend to people that will help you find those proper ranges. There are people out there that actually care, that try to teach people the right way to do this. We are too quick to try to just treat everything instead of prevent. We need to try to find root causes and prevent before we just treat, treat, treat, treat, treat. That's embedded into everybody's head. Now, what people call alternative medicine, like peptides, for example, and other different kinds of. I mean, even Chinese medicine, these are called non conventional. No, non conventional. Is our medications where we're taking these, we're making them synthetic, we're altering them. We're taking natural things that God put here for us to use, and we're altering them. That is non conventional. So let's kind of address that as well. We need to try to alleviate problems and not just treat them. So there could always be things hidden in your blood work that will show, wow, if we fix this, boom, no testosterone problem anymore. Now as we age and as we get older, we put our bodies through things. Yeah. The likelihood of that happening does lessen, but there certainly are different ways and means of going about this. Then I see another big issue, which is people going to regular doctors, not, not understanding that they're gps, which is a general practitioner, and not really well versed at all in what they're doing. And I see so many people getting put on the strangest injection cycles, for example, and their testosterone levels are all over the place. They feel like crap because the esters that they're being put on, it doesn't make any sense. They're peaking and troughing. So when you peak, yeah, your testosterone hits a certain elevation, you feel great, and then a week later you feel terrible because your injection cycle's off. So this is another issue that I see people running into constantly. We have a lot of confusion here. Blood panels, because you oftentimes are not getting the right readings. And then when you do get the right readings, they're not being given to you properly because you're being told something that may or may not be true. You're not getting enough reading, you're not digging deep enough, and then you're not looking for the actual problem or cause. And a lot of this comes down to having the right doctor to question you, to get into your family history to figure out your lifestyle and things that need to be changed. My goal here is to not scare people from trt. Not definitely not tell people to not use it. It's to avoid people from using things needlessly. Just remember something here. Anybody can tell you whatever they want and that's fine. And you can always try to test this out yourself the minute you get on TRT and you start using it for a long time, and the longer you use it, the chances of you actually recouping your natural testosterone production are slim to none. And I know some people are going to bitch and complain and argue about that and say, oh, no, can recover it. I didn't say that you can't. Not once did those words come out of my Mouth. I said the likelihood is going to lessen and lessen and lessen. And the older you get and the longer you use it, it's going to shrivel up into the lowest of nth degrees of the likelihood of you getting it back. That does not mean it's impossible. I know people love to put words in people's mouth and get all pissed off and angry. Get angry all you want. I am simply trying to pass on everything that I've seen and observed for all of these years. I'm not here to scare anybody. I'm certainly not here to confus anybody. I'm here to help you overcome all of the obstacles that can interfere with your personal health, growth, and journey. I've seen way too many people do things needlessly and go through things needlessly. Other markers we want to make sure that we're looking at throughout really get deep into your cholesterol, APOB lp particle sizes. These are all so important because testosterone use can certainly have an effect on your cholesterol. Now, we can get into a whole LDL total cholesterol debate later because there's a lot of misinformation about that and people trying to. Doctors trying to get you to drain your LDL so low. Your, Your, your body relies on cholesterol in so many ways. I mean, fuck's sake, think about your cellular membrane, which is. I know, and I've said this to. The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. But if your cellular membrane, which is protecting your cell is not healthy, your mitochondria is rather useless because it's not protected. So I would think that we want to make sure that the cell itself is protected. And that may be the most important part of the cell, because there is no cell without the protectant layer. And that's where cholesterol comes in, because the cell relies on cholesterol to protect, and that's why healthy fats are so important. So these misconceptions out there, they are insane. And so we have to be very careful. Let's talk about the testosterone dose itself and the use. The first problem that I see is the dosing standard. You will take five to seven times your dose, and that should be what your number ends up being for total testosterone. So let's say I'm running a hundred milligrams a week. You should be in the 500 to 700 range. Now, if you have a severe condition, you're probably going to be on that lower end, but most people are going to be closer to that seven times range, so you'd be closer to 700. Now, I see too many people using way too much. I have no problem getting the testosterone levels high. But there is a certain point where it's too high and it's too hard on your body. It's too much. And I know, I know, I know the guys that want to say, you got to use so much to get big and huge. That's not the goal here. That's not what TRT is. TRT is not running a cycle. TRT is not about as getting as big as you can. That's not going to make you live longer. The goal here is to live longer, not try to get as big as we can and live shorter. Because the more size and weight that you carry, the shorter you're going to live. And the higher levels of testosterone that you have for too long is too much stress and strain on your heart and body. It will take years off your life. So there's a fine line. You know, when you start getting over the thousand range, that's unnecessary. That's where we're starting to, okay, this is too much. You can always go too high or too little on anything. It's not as though there's a range where you can just go forever. You have to stop. That's why I try to temper these and tell people, look, you're going to do this, you're going to do it forever. You want to make sure that you're doing the right proportions to what your body actually needs to be the healthiest. You don't go take 75 different pills that you're given. Let's say that you're given a painkiller for your teeth. You don't go take a hundred of them. You take one, the one that you need. That's not how it works. If you get put on amoxicillin, you're not taking the whole jar in one setting because you want to get fixed right away. You're not taking the whole pill bottle in one setting because you want your sickness to go away immediately. That's not how it works. So there is a fine line. So you got to be careful when people say, oh, I'm going to blast and cruise. That's not trt, my friends. That's you running steroid cycles and then cruising back on testosterone and then blasting again. TRT is just staying on it, taking care of your body with what it needs. Most people do perfectly great with 100 to 150 milligrams. Like you said, one size fits none. Everybody's different. Everybody's got different conditions. That's for you to find out and figure out. But you have to continuously monitor your blood work, see how it's affecting you. See how it's affecting your. Not only your testosterone levels, your estrogen levels, because the, you know, you take testosterone, it converts to estrogen. You need to see, is it affecting my prostate, is it affecting my blood pressure, my liver, my kidneys, my cholesterol? Everything needs to be closely monitored because it's all tied in together. And the way that you live, the way that you eat, I assure you, just because you take TRT doesn't mean that you're automatically going to become some mass monster, be able to lift some. Everything. In the gym, people have this misconception and they're being told all of this. This is nonsense. You will be able to get lean muscle again because if you have low testosterone, you're going to have an inability to do that. You will get your libido back, you will feel alive again, you will get your energy back, but you're going to be living how you're supposed to be living. But you go too high, that's when you're going to run into problems. So that's why it's fine tuning and seeing what your body can and cannot handle. But monitoring is essential. And that's why I say you have to get full panels. You got to get a real good understanding. I'm going to do a video later and just do a rundown of all the panels that one needs to be doing and checking. I would recommend, at a minimum, if you're on TRT three times a year, anybody that you start getting into your 30s and 40s, you should be doing blood work twice a year. So this isn't just for trt, this is for anybody in general. Make sure that you're monitoring yourself. But especially if you're on trt, there's so many things that can come up. Just because you're doing well with it now doesn't mean you're going to forever. Certain things can happen, and that's why if you stay on top of it, you can fix something right away. And then another thing, like I brought up earlier, the way that you eat, the way that you sleep, your levels of stress, these are all going to contribute. So just because you start taking it, if your environment around you doesn't change, it's not going to help. It'll help a little bit, but you'll never get fully healed or acclimated properly. Because you're not living the proper way. I know some people don't like some of the things I say because it's not rainbows and unicorn all the time. So what I'm trying to do is make sure that you're getting more rainbows and unicorns in your life, more happy days, more joyful days, more days of energy where you're not worried and stressed about your health, where you feel great, but you have to put in the work and the effort and the time to do that. These things, they don't just magically happen. So I'm trying to teach you how to do it, and I'm trying to help you avoid causing yourself problems, creating new ones, saving your money, saving your health, saving your sanity. So, that being said, stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Gemelli signing off. Sam.