No matter how many years you might removed from school, tests are still intimidating.
That goes double for medical tests. The results aren’t always clear if you don’t have a background in medicine, which most of us don’t, and even if you can understand them, they don’t necessarily point to any one answer for treatment.
At the Men’s Clinic – Madison, we aim to take the uncertainty out of testing. For guys who visit us suspecting they have low testosterone, we start out with a blood test, just to see where their levels are sitting at that moment. This is helpful first to determine if Low T really is the cause of their symptoms, and second to create a baseline for any further hormone treatment.
So that’s the reasoning behind the test. The actual process is pretty simple and involves a routine blood draw—preferably done in the morning when testosterone levels tend to be highest—that we then analyze in our lab. With this, we’re looking at your total testosterone level, a number that takes a full measure of the hormone in your blood. Testosterone can either be “attached,” which means it’s traveling in your blood connected to special proteins, or can be “free,” which just means it’s unattached. Most of your testosterone will be attached, but the amount that is free or in a bigger category called “bioavailable” is an important clue in diagnosing Low T.
There’s actually a lot of variation in what most consider to be a healthy testosterone level, and, as we hinted at earlier, your levels will naturally rise and fall throughout the day. Generally, a testosterone result within the range of 270 to 1,070 nanograms per deciliter (ng/dL) is considered OK. If you fall toward the lower end of this range, you’d probably benefit from some basic lifestyle changes to bring up testosterone production. But if you’re landing under the scale, it may be time to start discussing hormone replacement therapy to correct the imbalance.
Either way, we’re with you through every step. Our office is as comfortable a medical setting as you’ll find anywhere, and our doctors will explain your results in simple, plain English to help you understand where you’re standing and what we can do to help.
Tests can be intimidating, but they don’t have to be. Call us at 601-607-7869 to schedule an appointment at the Men’s Clinic!