drtbear1967
Musclechemistry Board Certified Member
Most doctors don't measure testosterone. Historically, it just hasn't been part of the standard health panel, but it should be. If they do measureT levels, they'll almost always measure something called total testosterone, which is a measurement of the total amount of T flowing through your veins. The numbers might range anywhere from 300 to 1100 nanograms per deciliter of blood. The trouble is, it tells you almost nothing about your hormonal status. For one thing, blood values of T vary by the minute.
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The only way to get a reasonably accurate reading would be to collect urine over a 24-hour period and have the lab use it to measure T and its metabolites. Alternately, you could donate at least three blood samples from different times of the day. The lab would then pool the samples together and test that sample. But those ways are more expensive, time consuming and inconvenient. And even if you did pool multiple blood samples, it still wouldn't tell you much. Even though the results might indicate that you have normal T, it might not be normal for you. Maybe you had a reading of 1,000 in your twenties, but now you're getting by on a comparatively low level of 400. While 400 is considered normal, it might not be an optimum level for you. The only way you'd know what was normal for you is if you'd established a baseline reading before you turned 30.
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Then there's the issue of SHBG which literally binds up the sex hormones, including about 60% of your T. That percentage keeps climbing as you grow older. The more SHBG you have, the more of your testosterone is bound up, leaving less of it free to do all the good stuff. So while your T level may be as high as 600, a good portion of it could be locked up. That's why, when trying to determine your T levels, doctors should ask the lab for your total, free, and bioavailable testosterone levels.
That way you can get a little bit better of an idea of what your situation is. Determining normal T levels is tricky, so regardless of what your lab values are, and given the problematical nature of the lab tests, you have to instead rely on symptoms.
.
The only way to get a reasonably accurate reading would be to collect urine over a 24-hour period and have the lab use it to measure T and its metabolites. Alternately, you could donate at least three blood samples from different times of the day. The lab would then pool the samples together and test that sample. But those ways are more expensive, time consuming and inconvenient. And even if you did pool multiple blood samples, it still wouldn't tell you much. Even though the results might indicate that you have normal T, it might not be normal for you. Maybe you had a reading of 1,000 in your twenties, but now you're getting by on a comparatively low level of 400. While 400 is considered normal, it might not be an optimum level for you. The only way you'd know what was normal for you is if you'd established a baseline reading before you turned 30.
.
Then there's the issue of SHBG which literally binds up the sex hormones, including about 60% of your T. That percentage keeps climbing as you grow older. The more SHBG you have, the more of your testosterone is bound up, leaving less of it free to do all the good stuff. So while your T level may be as high as 600, a good portion of it could be locked up. That's why, when trying to determine your T levels, doctors should ask the lab for your total, free, and bioavailable testosterone levels.
That way you can get a little bit better of an idea of what your situation is. Determining normal T levels is tricky, so regardless of what your lab values are, and given the problematical nature of the lab tests, you have to instead rely on symptoms.
