If you’re a man who’s approaching the age of 50, you may have noticed that you just don’t feel like yourself anymore and low testosterone could be at the bottom of it. Hormone production — including the creation of testosterone — starts to go down as you age, and it can start to affect your overall health.
Just know that this is very normal, and over 40% of men over the age of 45 struggle with low testosterone levels.
Low testosterone can look different for many people, so our team at HealthStone Primary Care Partners located in Hollywood, Florida wants to highlight what it can look like for you to have low testosterone and how we can treat it at our practice.
It’s important to note that having low testosterone can present with a variety of symptoms for each person, but these are some things to watch out for that might signal a hormone imbalance:
Having low testosterone can also cause issues with infertility along with increasing your risk of developing health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, heart disease, and obesity.
It’s important to seek medical help if you suspect that you have low testosterone so you can regain your health and quality of life. When you visit our office, we perform a physical exam and do some blood tests to check your testosterone levels. If we diagnose low testosterone, we can create a treatment plan that best suits you.
One of the most common treatments used to address low testosterone is testosterone replacement therapy (TRT). This treatment has many different methods of delivery, including skin patches, injections, oral tablets, gels, and implanted pellets.
If it’s determined that you do, in fact, have a testosterone deficiency, we can discuss which method you’d like to use to raise your hormone levels. You should start to see relief from your symptoms in about 4-6 weeks.
There are some lifestyle changes that you can implement as well to help with your hormone levels. While these things most likely won’t make your symptoms completely go away, they should help at least a little.
Losing any extra weight, exercising regularly, and eating a nutrient-dense diet that includes omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, and antioxidants while excluding saturated fats can all help to slowly raise that testosterone.
If you have any questions you’d like to ask or to learn more about our men’s health services, contact our team for more information. You can do this by giving us a call or by using our online scheduler to set up an appointment with us today.