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Luke - is German
I had anything. Plenty of friends, lots of success in school and sports – football, tennis, golf, skiing, just nothing but a happy life. When additionally puberty started, this was almost a bit too much. I was deeply impressed by the beauty of this life here and the kind surprises it brought with it. The sensations I felt when just imagining to lie in bed with my girl of choice, when just watching her dancing, when just being near … not to speak of the sexual phantasies which kept me going. All these were some of the numerous passions and pleasures I was able to take part in. I loved my days, my friends, my sport, the girls, partying.
The first changes weren`t heavy. If it would only have been limited to the somewhat growing at my breast I noticed in autumn 97 for the first time! Nothing to worry about of course. There are many boys which suffer from gynecomastia at puberty, they say. But generally, it`s a difficult thing for a 16 year old. Although I always knew that finally there was surgical correction possible, I felt odd taking off my shirt and of course, lost a bit of my impulsive character. Now I had a vulnerable point. I stayed at home when others went to sea and beach in summer. But I got along. It was not so hard at all. In fact noone ever saw it. I even started to talk to friends about it. This helped much. There must be worse things in life than a gynecomasty. No reason not to know them too, though...
The sad thing is that with my ongoing problems it is too easy for most people to interpret further changes in a complicated region with an underlying psychological problem from the gynecomasty, some kind of post trauma, whatever. Friends can`t help, and people who officially can, unfourtunately didn`t know me before. What I think? It`s funny. It doesn`t matter. Wouldn`t a psychologically ill person say the same?
They do so because one year later another thing started to happen. My sexual interest was decreasing with high velocity. I was just enjoying it for some years, was really near at finally find someone to let him know how much love I had inside and how much sexual desire I was able to enjoy…and now… it was taling off. It happened unexplainable and unevitable. Yes. If there would have been one single change in tendence, the slightest hint that it would depend on my state of mind – I would keep my mouth shut. Forever. But the frequencies of anything which I delightedly loved to do before, slowly disappeared. Whether It was dates with girls in reality, dates with unknown ones in television, but also the basketball training, where I didn`T go regularly anymore. From being Captain of the team and topscorer in 1994 I had converted into being a shy bench warmer, who was happy to play more than a quarter. I had always been able to compensate being the weekest - with my speed. This was over now. I missed energy. My body just didn`t develop as the others did. Without working out I never should gain muscles, my shoulders should never grow wide, and it was till 18 years that I found a single hair in my arm pits. There was another thing happening in autumn 1998: I resumed to sleep after coming home from school. I did the same for the last time about 15 years ago. But now I was about to be 18 years old!
When You start losing Your sexual interest at 17 there are roughly two logical conclusions.
I was about to graduate from school. But times had become more difficult. Success was nomore there. For two years now. My graduation work was a tragedy. I hardly approved. I almost had become a bit scary of my teacher, who was a very serious person in fact, whom I had known now for 9 years. In Sports I had loved him. Now in mathematics, I had severe problems to get along, although I liked the subject very much. The work about complex analysis was just very demanding. My self management failed. Me and he wondered where my “killer instinct” had gone. I rather got lost in philosophical interpretations than clear proves.
For the first time in my life negativity seemed to overdominate my life. Graduation from school was an experience of desillusion. Interest in girls was no more strong. My social ativities were decreasing. I didn`t love anyone in my class anymore. There were more teachers and pupils, which I had problems with.
There were also other things. I became an agressive guy. After working 7 days at a festival of wine, I decided to drink myself. What a mistake. I woke up in the train and a sunny morning, having missed to get out of the train at my station for seconds. The man at my side wanted to see my ticket. He said it was not valid. Yes, it was already Monday morning! I had a secondone. One moment. This wasn`t valid either, he stated. Because I was already one station out of my area. God dammit! I had to pay, in spite of 70 Euro of tickets worth in my wallet. When I came at home and told the story to my father, I was completely going crazy. I threw my wallet against the wall, cried terribly, and screamed loud to kill this guy! I needed to sleep for another 5 hours to calm down.
Whenever I drank alcohol like my friends I was sure to lie on the floor before 3 pm, whether in a chair, whether on big speakers, whether on the dancefloor or just in a train. Just to avoid falling asleep at any party, I had to stop drinking alcohol.
The breast had finished to grow. This was my chance. I wanted the correction. In May 2001 I found myself in a waitingroom, around girls which must have saved up for years to blow the same thing up I was going to replace now. The operation was a big success (before I was warned several times doing so, there still seem to be surgeons which are not capable of correcting it satisfyingly). It was a happy day. But although life seemed to start again in some way, although now I was able to take part in anything my friends did, although I began to buy clothes which I liked from now, I knew exactly that these two cuts were not enough of a general solution. They didn`t change the fact that on almost any invitation to play football I replied “Today? No...I think I will have to sleep.” I didn`t go skiing anymore. And golf? The iron set which I had been looking at for happy hours and weeks in a Fazer prospectus around christmas 1995, was now getting dusty in the basement.
It all went on. The more all went downwards, considering conclusion 1, the more sad I got. But as it didn`t stop, as it went on and on, from an intuitive point of view I reached to finally being forced to decide in the favor of conclusion 2. This was the heavier alternative, but the only one with a little of hope the things having happened to be reversible, as my state was definitely different than the one of close friends. .
In Mai 2002 presented at an endocrinologist to check my hormones again. I had took this decision myself as only the hormonal regime, to my understanding, would be able to explain my hurting sexual loss. My libido had vanished almost completely now. By the way my sleeping problems had worsened, I was a basketball trainer now instead of a player and the motivation for my studies were low. All this was not to be mentioned. What the hell had sexual problems in common with ceasing general energy and motivation?
I was talking frankly. “My libido is down. I need help.” The endo checked my blood levels. And asked me. “Do You still have morning erections?” “Yes”. “Are there any social problems” “No.” “Do You have concentration problems?” No (I had just recieved a good Preliminary diploma in Physics) “What about sleeping problems” “Well...sometimes I have the feeling I can`t get along with my friends rhythm, although not partying or drinking a lot I feel like I can`t get enough rest over the night, I am getting up quite fucked up in fact..” “This is normal getting older. Even I feel differences at my age” he said. (It was funny. We were trying to synchronize our impressions of our ceasing partying energy and he was already 35. But how should I have expressed my complaint in order him to realize, that mine was way worse than his???)
It was the biggest disappointment of my whole life. This man told me that there was nothing to do about my vanishing libido. I was now determined to never enjoy again the pleasure of feeling attracted by girls in general and the female body in particular.
At home I was taking a look at the sheets. Behind the number 3.2 ng/ml (or 11.4nmol/l or 320 pg/dl in US system) there was a bracket [2.2, 9.2]- this was supposed to be the normal range for all men at any age. To my statistical understanding it was a bit ridiculous. Especially the exactitud of the frontiers. Who doesn`t know that the Gaussian Normal distribution is a symmetric exponential, which isn`t reducible to an interval at all! Not even by his majesty doctor! But instead of going back to him and again receive this “You are a crazy physics studying oddball” look, and to discuss with him deeply the justification of using statistically induced brackets, which would rather likely to be a pseudodiscretizatzion of a highly continous matter, especially regarding my age and the presence of the gynecomasty – I preferred to leave my hormonal “obsession”. Although there was nowhere else to look for a solution I decided that it was better not to go on like this. Last but not least, because I trusted the guy and his work there. I behaved politely, and this generally should be honoured, shouldn`t it…? In my dreams. Yes.
I needed distance from all these problems. Maybe changing my life and know different sourroundings would be a good idea. I didn`t have many desires anymore. But one of the surviving ones was: to leave Germany. Needless to say: I was sick of my home. Traditions bothered me. I couldn`t enjoy parties and sports anymore, girls were rather frustrating me when thinking of former times. Falling in love or founding a family seemed miles away. What was it, that I had made out of my life? I was still living at home, and anything but grateful, even easily upset with my parents, no more interested in amusements and retired from engaging socially. I wanted to stop this. I couldn`t help feeling, that it could equally have been my house, my wife, my kids, that I would have run away from, too. My own house and family, that I would have left. Luckily I was still independent and hadn`t founded a family during my early happy teens ;-) In this time I had been prepared, yes….But nomore. My plan? Cuba, one year. One can study, there, too. This was the change of climate I needed.
The fact that one easy flight wasn`t solution to all my problems either, was nothing then confirming an health issue. Retrospectively. However I still had to arrange myself and couldn`t identify all the changes that happened to myself with this hormonal problem, which I was thinking quietly about for years now….
Of course learning to dance salsa from nice universitarian girls, speak Spanish, take Taxis without the driver identifying me as a rich foreigner, was fun. But the interesting changes around me finally were nothing than a time offset for my problems to arise again. And they had reached a higher level. When the whole class wanted to change a final exam on my birthday, I was the only one voting against the whole crowd. I would never lose the feeling, that the class would consider me despectively from now on. Was I only imagining the dislike in their eyes? Or was it reality? Did it make a difference? Nevermind, I kept missing feelings for girls, anyway. When I was sorrounded by cuban and german friends, that had visited me, simoultaneously, an inner tension started to bother me. Translating I got a bit panicky, felt responsible for anything both sides would say… and there were all talking to me, at the same time! Aahhh! Help! After half a year I had more fear of the professors than the very first day at university. They kept me feeling like shit and suffering sweating attacks when reminding me of my several absences. I became unable to get critisized. A girl that I liked a lot, and with which I would have fallen in love for sure...in my first life, told me once: “Lukas, You are getting upset by anything!” I wouldn`t believe that she was right. But she was right. Even more. Tough problems were no more necessary for me to cry. I cried like a kid, didn`t know what was happening. There was this exam in thermodynamics, which I was in fear of. Thermydynamics had never been my favourite field and now I felt completely incapable. After the exam a friend of mine, who had realized my fear of this day, gave me as a present a sheet on which she had printed a comic, with the subtitle “Lukas passed the exam of thermodynamics”. This was too much for me. I cried a river. I had converted into an emotional pussy. My scientifical confidence was lacking that intensively, that I started my presentation of a project work in the “jornada cientifica” with the words “Well, I don`t know if this is enough to be presented, but as my tutor said it is, I will do so”. My answers to the professors questions on the topic were only complicated variations of one short sentence. “I just don`t know”. Finally I got the worst mark of anyone participating.
There were no spare time activities anymore planned by me. This might be normal for people I don`t want to be like. But not for me! Luckily there was a powerful person managing them for me: Fidel Castro. Whenever he called for his people marching against Bush, Aznar, Berlusconi, whomever – I took part. Although I had to sleep whenever I came back to the house I lived in. I was exhausted. Even after university. But even there I felt like not having made any friends. And really, many friends once made had disappointed me badly. They all were in their relations. Wouldn`t hang around with me anymore. I felt alone. I had to admit a thing, which really was hard to do, as I always had disliked this sort of people: I showed all the signs of a strong depression. I knew it. I had done anything to avoid it, gone to doctors, tried to get used to my sexual loss, engaged in playing football for the faculty, without success, in singing at the festival of culture, without successs. There was nothing to do anymore. I slept long and when I opened my eyes I felt like shit.
A trip to the end of the world was my mental inferno. In Baracoa, a small hole at the cuban east coast, I was attacked by the most existencial crisis ever felt. It was the complete isolation of the site from so called “civilization”, the sourrounding jungle, the nature all over which depressed me incredibly. The bad concience not to study for the final exams, which my classmates were doing right now! And me? What the hell was I doing there? Where had I gone? I was unbearable. I preferred staying in bed and watching a ventilator for hours than going out and explore nature.
The social problems which I was about to explore during my last lone weeks in Cuba had one centre: the house where I had lived. The same woman I benignly had paid months without being in her house, which already had made a whole lot of money out of me, which had recieved grateful presents from my mum – This woman didn`t know, what the state of her guest was like, she had been lying to, she had taken away precious things, she had fooled, she had betrayed, she had taken the money as if he were an anonymous foreigner, in one word - she had just treated bad. I couldn`t help hating this bitch now. As time went by I came to understand all her games. She provocated me with her smiling face the same time, with her lies, with her superficial comments which only had one well thought target: to catch my money! Her cheats were all that obvious! She must have thought I am an idiot. The rage in myself was growing and growing, without getting discharged, and she was lucky, at the same time I had became anxious and nervous. I finally never told her my mind frankly, was even snapping at other persons who prevented me from doing so. But never did. My sanguinic agression lasted till the last minute in this land and further. She was lucky that I could control myself with the last bit of strength in a horrible state. In general. I had reached a decieving point. It`s not easy to state, but life in Cuba became the same bullshit now for me than it had been in Germany. I had converted into a negative person, which has not a single idea, which direction to take. Engaging in a job? Even getting up at seven o clock was a disaster. Falling in love? Forget it. I was unbearable to anyone near. Building a family? Just how?...this requires insemination!
I think there are too few hints to assume we have much more in our hands than this life. Whether its good or bad. We never will be in the position to be sure that it won`t be possible to change it for the good. I had to find the root problem of these heavy things, which had changed my life from being the sweetest thing ever desirable to being a mess of bad experiences.
Back at home in Germany, Google was to help me. I found our forum www.globalandropause.com . And the androids site. It all gave sense now. Good job Nick!!! I got tested again and this time I was again at 3.2 ng/ml with this “normal“ range [3.0-10.0] – the intuition of my deaf grandmother would have been enough to call this a borderline reading which maybe could take profit from therapy, especially reagarding my age and the symtoms. Not so as found the doc. “You know Sex is rather a head, than a hormonal thing”. He was lucky that I never had taken boxing lessons. If so, he would still keep searching his teeth on the floor of his clinical practice. But no reason to beat the shit out of him, I had now plenty of cyberfriends in the forum which commented on my difficulties and shared their experiences with me.
His words were the start shot for a long fight for treatment. I reached docs who wanted to send me for psychiatry, others want to feed me antidepressants, others want to cut off my nuts (see the forum at 23/12/03), others again want to help me but know less about this condition than I do. (this might sound snobbish. But prescribing pure Testosterone to a 22 year old guy who still has gonads, or HCG at three times 1500 units per week (way too much!) is a bit unprofessional to my understanding. One doc has said to me three days ago, that they only give Testosterone, that HCG, the best and cheepest alternative for treating Secondary hypogonadism, can only be prescribed for fertility reasons...:-( )
First treatment was Testogel 5.0. Which definitely had effect on my libido. For 3 weeks. Afterwards anything was the same again, even the reading (13.1nmol/l before, 13.4 later, it is evident because own production got supressed – Afterwards one doc should state that this prove that it all was a placebo $&%/!!!!).
Second one was HCG (injectable input of a molecule very similar to LH), which worked brilliant. Started on 5th of Jan 04. On 22nd I began to note changes. Any symptom disappeared! I even found myself appreciating the tutor of my quantum mechanics problem class being changed by a nice girl. But again. After four weeks my new puberty was over again. A bloodtest revealed a tripled Estradiol level, apart from an elevated to average T-level 22 nmol/l or 6.2 ng/ml. I changed for Clomide, had thought this was the ideal drug for me, as emitting LH and FSH feedbackless and so the “most natural way” increasing Testosterone, I only had to reach the 20s again and anything would be fine.
Funny: Even a skyrocketing T level of 34nmol/l or 9.52ng/ml didn`t make a difference. The already tripled estradiol reading was now even doubled! The conversion from T to Estradiol (E2) – this could be my problem. But even experiments with the Anti-Estrogen Arimidex and the Anti-Prolactine in combination with a very low dose Clomide, which still was enough to boost T to a satisfying 26 nmol/l didn`t change anything. I decided to leave Clomide finally (moodiness went on!) and switch back to HCG.
With the experience that I have now, for me, there is no doubt anymore, that I have to keep on searching in this very region. It`s funny. When I said to one endo after being denied treatment once more “Come on, with the gel and also HCG I really noted changes, wouldn`t You please...” he said “But this was clear! It was testosterone!”.%”&/%()§($ ???? They don`t seem interested in helping me, as they don`t always say things consistent with themselves. On my first meeting with one doc he said “Yeah, this 13 is a ridiculous reading, it`s evident”, and the second one, when he already tried to get rid of me “Your 14 now is a good reading now, no reason to do something”. Of course I want to admit, that I am not an easy patient. I must admit that I am not an easy patient. That they don`t like me either. They look at me and find me confuse. Find me impertinent. Find me mentally ill. Find me nervous. Find me aggressive. Find me obsessed with the hormones. Is it a wonder??? It`s all like that, as it is like that. Life is skewed for us. As Nick stated once.
Still there is not one single doc who wants to confirm me suffering from any kind of hormonal problem. Sadly illnesses are finally business. A borderline case which doesn`t fit in the structure is in a difficult position. And his problem: he counts also ONE life.
There can roughly only be 2 reasons why HCG didn`t work longer than 4 weeks in my first trial:
To find out which one is right, I have started HCG from May 2004 in very very low doses. And now for two months slowly increasing the dosage quasistatically. If there are no changes even at my initial dose from January, I will have to assume interpretation 2. This will require more experiments with the “Antis”. Right now I am still below half of my orginial dose. Mentally I already feel very sharp. The crushing tiredness and all the mental issues are nomore there. The rest…maybe I am near.
There are many problematic topics regarding the subject. First of all, here in germany this illness is thought not to exist. Over big populations there was found no correlation between T-levels and sexual performance. Nevertheless I am aware of just interpreting, that it doesn`t affect it considering one single individual. Unfourtunately, the docs do so. Moreover they are fond of “determining”. But the subject is not that easy. A single number is not necessarily linked to a particular way of feeling. For this we are just too different. The “normal” range is nothing than a statistical product over many many individuals and contains the inner 90 percent of the whole male gaussian distribution of T levels in the blood, and watch how different healthy people can be. !!![3-10]!!!
There are infinite reasons to prove most docs argumentation wrong. A good doc treats a person, not numbers. But they don`t listen to my symptoms and always want to put me down being a psycho (not that I have a problem with this! But for this issue it`s just the wrong approach - in my case!). And even playing the numbers game, they are on the wrong track sometimes – in my case!. Over the day ones Testosterone level goes down, for about 40 percent. For my case, enough to dive in the „should treat“ condition. Boys in my age are expected to be around 25, twice as much of my original reading.
Blood concentrations of essential hormones can be as different as the colours of our skin or the amount of hair on our bodies. It`s a, as it seems, unjustifyable claim to find out about ones “individual” hormonal health. (doc: “if I did, I would have to do so with anyone of my patients”) The heavy and life threatening symptoms I am suffering from are not important to them. It is just difficult to “determine” a single individual by one number. Without knowing levels from healthy times and without even trying out different forms of treatment it is all a probability thing, a black box. And unfourtunately docs preferred to send me to further experts without willing to make experiments, as, yes, He: “You`ve got a 13nmol/l, this is normal” Me: “So with wich level would You undertake treatment” “Well, we always say, from about 12 downwards”. When I get pissed then, they get even more sure, that this boy can`t be helped with hormonal therapy.
I am still in search of a doc who is delighted about having the chance to give back the smile to a young victim of an dangerous illness, sometimes called the “andropause”. He would do so with a lot more people. Would help less confrontations with my loved ones to be caused, and last but not least, would also make the crazy girls happier, who are willing to take the decision to try to get along with my fisical and mental problems.
After exactly one year spent almost completely on looking for my solution, I realized that I have to go on living. The processes last long, the changes take time. I have stopped to think I can be healed in one day. I have learned to accept that I am likely never to feel the same sensations as at my teens. Nevertheless I am quite okay right now. Maybe I will change more in the future that I am assuming right now. And maybe I am only quite confident today because HCG is already doing it`s job. We will see. These days I feel desires for vacations again. After one year. I will have a blast, for sure, this one week...in Cuba.
Editor's Note Lukas' website Er spreche Deutsch.
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