Brian asks:
“I am 56 year old male who has been on TRT 200mg bi weekly for about 15 years after being diagnosed with hypogonadism. I am wondering if there is a herb or combination that I can take to come off the Testosterone shots for awhile. Thanks!”
Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor and therefore I am not allowed to make recommendations regarding drug use, testosterone replacement being included in there.
That being said, here are my thoughts on the subject.
I don’t know enough to answer with confidence. So instead I’ll ask some questions:
WHY were you diagnosed with hypogonadism?
Was this properly diagnosed? Meaning did they just look at total or free testosterone and go from there? Or did they look at many other hormones to get a more complete picture?
Regardless, recognize that replacing testosterone is a band-aid approach.
There is often no investigation on WHY you have hypogonadism.
Note that the myth that testosterone falls with age is not the answer. Time itself is not toxic. Instead, you have to look at what happened during the time to cause such change?
Is it a genetic predisposition?
Is it because of environmental factors? (Probably involved…and if so what are the likely culprits? Some were mentioned in the Deck is Stacked Against You.)
Is it because of a sedentary lifestyle including obesity, metabolic syndrome or other confounding variables?
Lots of possibilities.
This is the Western approach. Something is wrong, let’s fill the gap. Never mind that it is a symptom rather than a root cause.
And this same approach can be done with herbs.
Now, the herbal approach is often a better approach, in my opinion. More holistic in nature (i.e. not simple replacement of testosterone but helping the body to ramp up its own supply). With this, you tend to get fewer side effects (like the 21% greater risk of heart attack TRT was recently shown to have and I wrote about the other week.)
The strongest herbs we have for this that are likely to help are Pine Pollen Tincture. Many people take these together, also sometimes with Pine Pollen Powder too, and get great results. Or check out Cistanche vs. Tongkat Ali.
We have heard stories from customers about them coming off TRT…but for all the possible reasons listed above, your mileage may vary. (Again, this is not intended to be medical advice.)
I say that herbs are a better choice as a band-aid…but still a band-aid.
Without getting to the root cause, it’s near impossible to know that they’ll work for you or for anyone.
And if they do, that’s great in the moment…then you should continue to work on the many different factors at play so you wouldn’t even need them.
Want help in doing so? That’s what my new Virtuous Vitality program is all about.