Articles Posted in Testosterone therapy

Despite what the many commercials and magazine ads tell us, there is very little known about how testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) affects older men.  These ads tell us that taking testosterone will increase sex drive, increase energy, stop weight gain, increase muscle mass and even cure depression.  Essentially, the drug companies tell prospective patients that if you take testosterone replacement drugs, you will feel like a much younger man.

The truth is that most doctors do not really know what a normal hormone level is for a man in his 60s.  The reason for this is because there haven’t been many studies.  They did not have to do many studies, because testosterone hormone was never approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat these signs of normal male aging, as the commercials suggest.  In reality, the drug was approved in the 1970s to treat a relatively rare medical condition known as hypogonadism.  This is condition where a young patient has an extremely low testosterone level and is having developmental disorders. Continue reading

Testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) has become increasingly common over the past decade.  In the past, there had been little interest in giving patients testosterone hormones unless they had a relatively rare medical condition known as hypogonadism.  This condition involves a patient with an extremely low testosterone count caused by a defective hormone gland and is causing developmental disorders in younger patients.  In fact, this was the only medical condition for testosterone hormone was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and still remains the only approved use.

While the vast majority of the millions of men taking testosterone replacement therapy on a regular basis do not suffer from hypogonadism, the reason they can get the drug involves a gray area in FDA regulations that allows a doctor to prescribe a drug for what is known as off-label use.  While this is technically allowed, we have seen recent cases where doctors are being fined and subject to discipline for allowed these so-called Low T clinics to prescribe patients testosterone hormone using their respective DEA numbers without them having actually examined the patients. Continue reading

Every time we turn on the television or use the Internet, we are hit with a seemingly endless stream of advertisements for prescription medications. If we are watching a sporting event on television, many of the ads target male viewers. One of the frequently advertised drugs in these ads is testosterone replacement therapy hormones.

Testosterone therapy drugs were first placed on the market in the 1970s to treat a relatively rare medical condition known as hypogonadism.  This condition involves a young male patient who does not have enough testosterone for normal development.  The testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) drugs were shown to work, but it is important to understand that a patient with hypogonadism will have an extremely low testosterone count.  Continue reading

Over the past decade, testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) has become a one of the most prescribed medications available, with hundreds of thousands undergoing the therapy each year. However, it should be noted that the vast majority of these patients are not taking the drug because they have the medical condition for which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug to treat.

When hormone replacement therapy drugs came on the market in the 1970s, it was labeled for use with a medical condition know as hypogonadism.  These patients who suffered from hypogonadism had very low testosterone count and were typically diagnosed at a fairly young age. This is still the only medical condition that FDA approved the hormone therapy to treat. Continue reading

There has been a great deal of debate about whether there is any medical benefit to taking testosterone replacement therapy (TRT). It should first be noted, we are talking about men who do not suffer from hypogonadism. Hypogonadism is a rare medical condition characterized by an extremely low testosterone level, especially during a time when the patient is still developing.

This condition is the reason testosterone therapy was created, and it is currently the only condition for which the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved TRT in the 1970s, and this has not changed. This is not to say that the many so-called T clinics around the country are prescribing testosterone replacement therapy illegally, but they are administering for an off-label use. Continue reading

While it is getting impossible to watch a sports even on television without seeing an add for testosterone replacement therapy, doctors do not know that much about the so-called medical condition of low testosterone, new research is suffering that a patient is significantly more likely to experience lower testosterone levels when he is taking prescription opioid based pain medications like Percocet according to a recent article from Renal & Urology News.

First, it should be noted that researchers at Janssen Pharmaceuticals, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of giant drug manufacturer Johnson & Johnson, conducted this study. As we have seen too many times in the past, some of these major drug manufacturers have been more interested in making huge profits than they are in patient safety. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that failure to warn patients and doctors of a known danger and defective design of a drug have been the basis for thousands of dangerous drug lawsuits. Continue reading