Low Free T - Depression, No Motivation/drive, No Energy Etc

[Cirion]

Hey all... I'm sure this is a super common post so I'll be post #1000 but here goes....

I doubt anyone really cares about my life story (if you do, I can always expand on it) so I'll basically keep it to the important highlights. I'm absolutely fed up of my quality of life and looking for help anywhere I can find it! Low T is really starting to piss me off - I'm a man, I want to dominate, not wallow in depression all day every day. I'm way too young to have no drive to succeed in life and no sex drive or anything. (30, 31 later this month)

The Problem:
Have experimented a lot with working out, supplementation, nutrition, and most the standard stuff. Have had stints of limited success (More motivation and drive, higher libido etc). About halfway through a recent relationship, through the breakup, and 3 months later - have had persistent depression, no motivation, no energy, little to no sex drive. Total Testosterone is not bad, Free test is fairly low and what I suspect is the problem. I have no desire these days to maintain a social life or do anything productive. I can barely even get my work done, and I'm even afraid that I'm so unmotivated that it could get me at trouble at work. Need at least 200 mg caffeine to function most mornings, despite 10-12+ hr of sleep the previous night. Rarely get morning wood anymore, even on nofap.

Fairly recent lab results:
Just a few of the results, let me know if there is something else that you want me to list and if I have it I'll list it. These results were taken just before my breakup, so they could definitely be worse now as an after-effect.

Prolactin: 7.4 ng/mL
Total Testosterone: 582 ng/DL
Free Test: 71.7 pg/mL
Bio Available Test: 156.7 ng/DL
SHGB 37 nmol/L
Vitamin D: 120 ng/mL

Note that the vitamin D was actually too high (interesting). I was mega dosing vitamin D to improve my thyroid, dosed too high lol. Now I take less than I did before. What sort of surprises me is my total test is not super low (but free isn't great), and still I feel like it's super low (I've had depression bad enough to occasionally even feel like I don't want to live anymore, ugh, not looking for a pity party, just letting you know I'm not making up the symptoms)

A few things I have already tried:
Sleep (a lot) - because my motivation and energy is so low this is pretty easy to do. I'm averaging 12 hrs of sleep a night these days. Sleep in a fairly cold room, with blackout curtains etc... it's worth noting here that I have moderate sleep apnea, but I use CPAP so it's reasonably managed.

Water intake - I aim to get at least a few clear pees a day

Nutrition - I've tried many different diets, ranging from full on Keto, to High fat / Low carb, to equal split Fat/Carb, to High carb / Low fat. I've had varying degrees of success from playing with Macros and also types of foods to eat, and a couple of times I actually thought I had found "the secret food/Macro combination" because I'd briefly feel really good, and then things would go downhill again. Frustrating.

Workouts - I have found that because my recovery is poor, that often reducing workout intensity helps me. However, even after quitting workouts entirely for 2 weeks, I only saw limited improvements.

Supplementation - at any given time I'm always taking at least some supplements, sometimes I've wasted money on other crap that didn't help. Multivitamins, D, C, zinc, magnesium to name a few.

Nofap - This *used* to be the number one thing I did that worked for me. I still nofap, but I'm seeing limited success on it these days. I'm like 90 days nofap now, with a nearly non-existent sex drive or desire to pursue girls. I do have random boners, but they're quite rare, compared to how many I've recalled having in previous nofap stints.

Tanning bed (since it has been winter and cloudy a lot) 3x a week

 

[Andman]

All good bro, nice to have you here!
Seeing as this is the ray peat forum, have you done any thyroid labs maybe? Or even temps/pulse to get an idea about your basic metabolism currently

 

[Cirion]

Thanks for the reply.

By thyroid labs, does this differ from what I've already done and posted? Sorry for the ignorance.

What are the best apps/devices/times you recommend to check temperature/pulse, and for how long to get a general picture?

It's probably often pretty low, on a rare occasion I'll feel my temperature go up after eating (noticeable sweating and whatnot) but usually I feel kinda cold these days. Of course, that's subjective, and I couldn't tell you the actual temperatures off the top of my head.

 

[Andman]

No worries. You posted the androgen levels your doc probably tested (although he apparently didnt feel the need to include dht, estradiol etc).
Thyroid would be tsh, t3, t4, rt3, antibodies etc.

Any thermometer will do, i guess the oldschool mercury ones are the most accurate. Pulse can be taken by using any watch (or stopwatch on phone).
Waking temp/pulse is probably the most important, maybe midday and evening too for a better picture. Optimal temps should be anywhere from 36,6 - 37+, pulse about 80-90

 

[boxers]

Those labs look good to me, prolactin a tad high

 

[cihans]

maybe untreated depression is your problem, or the calories are lowish? what is your daily calorie intake... height weight.

poor recovery you mentioned under-eater and working out does not work well in same boat. I had exactly what you have right now and fueling myself 2000-2800 calories per day feels good.

 

[Dhair]

The free levels of hormones dont really mean anything. Haidut has a few good posts about this. You obviously don't suffer from hypogonadism, so I'm not sure why you think low T is a problem for you.
You should ask your doctor for a thyroid panel . TSH and reverse T3 are the most useful tests.

 

[Cirion]

Hey all, appreciate the replies...

No worries. You posted the androgen levels your doc probably tested (although he apparently didnt feel the need to include dht, estradiol etc).
Thyroid would be tsh, t3, t4, rt3, antibodies etc.

Any thermometer will do, i guess the oldschool mercury ones are the most accurate. Pulse can be taken by using any watch (or stopwatch on phone).
Waking temp/pulse is probably the most important, maybe midday and evening too for a better picture. Optimal temps should be anywhere from 36,6 - 37+, pulse about 80-90

Cool, let me get back to you on this. I may have some older panels I can dig up for at least some baseline numbers, and I can work on getting some temperature and pulse readings as well.

Those labs look good to me, prolactin a tad high

Probably because it was before the end of my relationship, we had sex fairly often so that would probably explain that.

maybe untreated depression is your problem, or the calories are lowish? what is your daily calorie intake... height weight.

poor recovery you mentioned under-eater and working out does not work well in same boat. I had exactly what you have right now and fueling myself 2000-2800 calories per day feels good.

Depression is nothing more than a side effect of poor hormonal panel/thyroid, is it not? Unless you have something more serious going on (like a mental illness, for example). I always use things like depression/moodiness/lack of horniness as a quick gauge of my hormones being poor.

I can never seem to figure out the Macronutrient / Calories that my body needs. Damn, 2000-2800 calories? I would have clinical depression with calories that low all the time lol. Plus zero recovery. I have no doubt this is part of my problem. It's my bane. I'm always tweaking it. I seem to often need quite a lot of calories on some days (I've had days I have had well over 4000 calories). I try to keep calories around 3500 these days to avoid getting fat. Some of my highest confidence days have been when I was ultra high carb (upwards of 700g), so I have absolutely no doubt that calories/macros have a direct link to mood for me. Seems like sometimes I just eat up calories like a sponge (can easily eat 4500+ in a day if I don't watch it lol). However, eventually I started packing on body fat so I had to tone it down, and my mood went down along with it. I'm not super fat, but I'd like to lose a little if I can (but without really "dieting", as I know low calories trash my mood even more). maybe around 15% BF. I'm 6'0'' about 200 lbs. I only workout 3x a week now. (Upper body twice a week, lower body once a week).

Currently, I'm going back to a higher carb, lower fat setup to see how it works out for me... since it kinda worked in the past... consequently, this seems to be what Peat preaches as well. I'm trying to limit PUFA, grains, gluten in general. If I do eat grains, it's generally gluten free. I am dairy free also, but it seems Peat seems to like dairy. I'm a bit surprised about recommending fruit juice tbh. Milk I can understand. But fruit juice is just sugar mostly with little nutrients, no fiber or anything. Better off eating fruit instead no? I eat lots of grass fed beef and eggs for my protein, with a little fish here and there, and protein powders (probably not the greatest... but it's convenient to mix that with some carb powder too for a quick shot of carbs as well). I used to eat chicken a lot, but stopped because it was too hard to hit my fat targets with it. Seems that Peat does not really approve of chicken breast anyway (at least grass fed beef has more nutrients).

The free levels of hormones dont really mean anything. Haidut has a few good posts about this. You obviously don't suffer from hypogonadism, so I'm not sure why you think low T is a problem for you.
You should ask your doctor for a thyroid panel . TSH and reverse T3 are the most useful tests.

Can you link me to some of these posts? I am genuinely curious, this is the first time I've heard that free T doesn't matter (I've always thought the Free T / Cortisol ratio was the main indicator of health).

Like I say, I'm not sure why I feel the way I do. Prior to my relationship, I was super horny a lot as a result of nofap, lots of confidence, asked girls out a lot etc with no effort as such (hell, I asked out a girl on the beach on vacation, if you knew me, you'd know I NEVER do that normally lol), other markers of high T, wet dreams every 1-2 weeks regularly. Now? Significantly less confidence, significantly moodier, need more sleep, can't wake up without caffeine, not nearly as much interest in girls (certainly not enough to ask any out), not one wet dream since earlier in 2017, not as much motivation/lazier etc etc.

Keep in mind, the panel I posted was BEFORE the breakup. It's highly possible the breakup dramatically trashed those numbers lower, so it might not hurt to do another test...