The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

It makes your voice deep and it makes your penis big. It's testosterone.

I've always suspected I have low testosterone. I have all the symptoms: low sex drive, depressed mood, fatigue, moodiness and irritability, difficulty putting on muscle. Even at school, my testosterone was probably low. Most of the other boys, high on testosterone, happily ran around the field chasing a ball, while I and a few other low-testosterone buddies hung around at the bottom of the field, discussing Pokemon.

Then again, I can grow a beard, to some extent. I also have "very good sperm" according to a doctor who does IVF. So maybe I have normal testosterone after all.

In uncertain situations like this, one must remain scientific. You can't let vague symptoms buffet you about like the wind. Tests must be done.

So a few days ago, I did a testosterone test. They took a blood sample and then saw how much testosterone was in it.

And here I have the results.

• Total testosterone: 524 ng/dL (reference range 240-871 ng/dL)
• Free testosterone: 7.1 pg/mL (reference range 8.3 - 40.1 pg/mL)

Total testosterone

At 524 ng/dL, my total testosterone is normal. Or at least, it's within the normal range.

BUT according to artofmanliness.com, I have the testosterone levels of the average man aged between 65 and 74. Fuck.

Free testosterone

My free testosterone (7.1 pg/mL) is below the reference range (8.3 - 40.1 pg/mL). So that's bad. It's fallen out the bottom of the reference range and is lying underneath, like the putrid juice you sometimes find under the bin bag at the bottom of your bin.

According to artofmanliness.com again, the average free testosterone level for someone my age is 12.3 pg/mL, with a standard deviation of 2.8 pg/mL.

This means:

• 68% of men my age have a free testosterone level between 9.5 and 15.1 pg/mL (12.3 pg/mL ± 2.8)
• 95% of men my age have a free testosterone level between 6.7 and 17.9 pg/mL (12.3 pg/mL ± 5.6)

I'm not a mathematician but I think this suggests I'm roughly somewhere in the bottom 10% of men when it comes to free testosterone.

Why is my testosterone low?

I don't know why my testosterone levels are low. I'm not fat, I don't smoke, I don't drink alcohol, I eat a healthy diet. I take vitamin D supplements. I exercise 6 or even 7 days a week, including weight-lifting. I also sleep naked (it's supposed to help your balls produce testosterone), not that you wanted to know that.

So I don't know what's going on.

I should probably show these results to some kind of expert in health and medicine. A "medical professional" if you will. I think people call them "doctors".

That would be the sensible thing to do.

Whereas the non-sensible thing to do would be to self-medicate with testosterone-enhancing drugs. Which is what I'm going to do.