Low testosterone • Diagnosed hypogonadism • Monitored treatment
Important Safety Information
Around R2,000 gets you to an answer. We would rather say that plainly than have you find out at checkout.
Testosterone is highest in the morning and falls through the day, so an afternoon sample can read low in a man who is fine and normal in a man who is not. A standard panel usually measures total testosterone and nothing else, but much of it is bound up and unavailable to your body, so two men with the same total can be in very different situations. And "normal" is a wide range built from a population, not from you. A reading at the bottom of it, in a man with symptoms, is a conversation. It is rarely treated as one.
Total testosterone, the headline number. Free testosterone, how much of that total is actually available to your body, since much of it is bound and inactive. SHBG (sex hormone binding globulin), the protein that binds testosterone, this is what determines how much ends up "free." Prolactin, screens for a pituitary cause of low testosterone. Oestrogen, how much testosterone is converting to oestrogen, relevant to side effects and dosing. PSA, a prostate baseline taken before treatment starts. Hb (haemoglobin) and haematocrit, your baseline red cell levels, since testosterone treatment can raise them.
Seven markers, one draw.
No, and the difference is the whole point. Anabolic steroid use means large doses that push levels far above normal, usually without a diagnosis and without anyone measuring anything. Testosterone therapy means restoring a measured deficiency back to a normal range, at a dose your doctor sets from your blood results, with your bloods rechecked and the dose adjusted as you go.
It is the same substance. The purpose, the dose and the supervision are not remotely the same. And if your results do not show a deficiency, we will not prescribe it. That is the line and it does not move.
If you have prostate or breast cancer, untreated severe sleep apnoea, an already raised red cell count, or if you are trying to conceive. And if your blood tests do not support the diagnosis, however much you would like them to. Sometimes the honest answer is that something else is going on. That is still worth knowing, and it is still a useful assessment.
If treatment is not right for you, your doctor will tell you so and explain why. You still get the assessment and the answers you came for, and if your doctor does not put you on a treatment plan, we will see you again free of charge in six months to check whether anything has changed.
Only you and your doctor. Your consultation, your treatment plan and your deliveries are private, your information is confidential, and your packaging is plain and unmarked. Nothing on the outside says what is inside.
Cover varies between schemes and depends on the treatment, so some plans may contribute and others will not. Speak to your medical aid before you assume either way.
It might, which is exactly what the consultation is for. Come prepared with a list of everything you take, including anything you bought over the counter and anything you only take occasionally. Your doctor will ask, and the answer can change what they are able to prescribe you safely.
A lot of men have thought about it. It is cheaper and nobody asks any questions. But every risk listed above is managed by measuring something and then acting on it, and if you buy it yourself nobody measures anything. You are also trusting a substance of unknown origin, prepared by someone unnamed, to a standard nobody has checked, injected into you weekly for years. Testosterone is a Schedule 5 medicine in South Africa. It is scheduled because it needs a doctor.
