It was right around December, 2009, that things started going south on me. I had about 5 months and 40 lbs. of weight loss behind me, and was averaging about 16 solid training sessions a month. People at work were telling me "Wow - you've lost so much weight - you must feel great!" - But I didn't. I felt lousy, and I was now training only half as much and struggling with that. I was struggling all day long with being tired and fatigued, lack of focus, memory issues, muscle weakness, etc., and when I got home from work it took everything in me to not fall asleep at the drop of the hat. This made training tough - and general family life even tougher. I'd fall asleep next to the girls putting them to bed. All I wanted to do was sleep - and I was cranky. Really cranky. Ask my wife.
After a few visits to my doctor, and an unsuccessful trial of anti-depression meds (it was a long-shot), some blood tests finally showed low (T)estosterone so he started me on a 'T-patch'. A few months went by and no change. By April my total training (if you could even call it that anymore) days a month had dropped to about five. My doc sent me to an endocrinologist in April - who did more blood tests and they showed the same low levels. He put me on Androgel - Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). My wife was nervous about that, and I was too, but I wanted to give it a shot. We had tested for pretty much everything, and I was almost hoping it way thyroid related just so that I had a conclusive answer - but it wasn't that. I had a bone density scan done too - which would indicate if I had long term low T, or just short term. That scan showed osteopenia in my right hip. Not really bad, but it was there and it had potential to get worse. That meant that the low T wasn't really something I had an issue with long-term. Mid-term maybe, but not long-term. The osteopenia was potentially reversible. I needed to take large doses of Vitamin D (I was deficient there too), which would help with calcium absorption - so that was an easy fix at least - hopefully.
HRT might have perked me up a tiny bit, but it also perked up my rage after a while too. I was warned by both of my doctors to be careful of the rage that could come - and come it did. Road rage = The Incredible Hulk was how they put it I believe. Small little things would make me snap in an instant and it scared my wife, my kids, and me. We tried to get it regulated and get the T levels down because now they were through the roof, but that took time. I had to stop taking it. I wasn't myself and I didn't feel like myself. I was losing control. By this time it was late August, 2010, and I went to my endocrinologist and told him - "I'm done with the HRT. My family is afraid of me." The only option he gave me was HRT and he generally seemed pretty disinterested in finding the root cause, so I was done with him at that point as well. Testosterone was not my major issue in my and my wife's opinions.
I had kept going to my regular doc during all of this and he was looking at things like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Chronic Epstein Barr Virus (since I had an elevated monocyte count and a history of mono in college). After dropping my endocrinologist I was feeling pretty discouraged and while I appreciated everything my regular doc was doing and trying, no answers were forthcoming.
Since stopping HRT in August, 2010, though, things actually seemed to slowly get a little better and while I had good days and bad days, my workouts started to increase and average out to about 13 a month. Decent workouts now though. What was strange, was that though I generally felt tired, fatigued, etc., but to a lesser extent than before, when I trained I usually felt pretty good and felt good afterwards. I went to a different endocrinologist (one that my wife's doctor pals at work recommended) in November, 2010 - and my T levels had regulated at 'low normal' since stopping the treatment - so he recommended doing nothing - just ride it out. And so that's what I did and continue to do. My new endocrinologist thought that how I felt was strange too. "You feel fatigued and want to sleep all the time, but you can ride your MTB for 25mi?". Ya. Strange.
At that point I was mostly just mountain biking - either on the trails or on the trainer in the basement. A little dabbling in running on the treadmill, but that was pretty unsuccessful. In late November, 2010, I got my minimalist shoes, and was running on the trails by December. On January 17th, 2011, I did my first unofficial 1/2 marathon distance out on the trails. Since then it's been about 98% running, and 2% riding.
I still don't feel like I'm 100%, or even 90%, and I still have what seem like good weeks and bad weeks, as opposed to days, but I think I'm on the upward and onward track. I wonder now if I should have gone to a Sports Medicine Doc instead, or in addition? And I'm still considering doing that. I might be way off, but maybe my system was just really out of whack from going from zero activity and weighing 210 to an average of 16 solid workouts a month and 170 in 5 months? Nutrition could be a part of it, or over-training/burnout even... but I'll touch on those in future posts.
Thanks for listening, and if anyone has any ideas, similar issues or experiences, then I'm all ears.
Disco
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