Watch out - All Testosterone Pellets are not the Same!
Channel: BioBalance Healthcast
Date: 2018-11-16

Read all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com

I was asked to sit on a panel of experts at the Age Management Medicine Conference and while I was answering questions, one of the experts who uses pellets asked me about side effects I had never had using pellets for 16 years total and 14 years treating men.  He asked about men’s testosterone pellets because he told us that he never takes care of women’s hormones, and said, what do you do about abdominal bloating and nipple pain, as well as anger in your pellet patients?  He has three offices in Manhattan and has been treating patients with modes of testosterone as long as I have, but he posed 3 side effects I couldn’t remember hearing from my male patients.  I was perplexed and answered honestly, I don’t get those side effects in my patients, so I can’t tell you how to troubleshoot.  We both shrugged our shoulders and went on, but I can’t get it out of my mind---what was he doing differently than I was?

Bloating of the abdomen can be many things such as slowed bowel movement, low thyroid can cause that.  Bloating can also mean high estrogen in men, as well as women.  Poor bowel function and retention of fluid is all I can consider would be the problem, but the pellets I give my male patients don’t cause that!  I thought about the fact that we sometimes use Arimidex in our pellets but not always, and that we treat our men with thyroid dysfunction with thyroid replacement and iodine orally, but just a fraction of them.  What was the difference?  

After the panel was over Dr S told me that they also get very hairy and greasy with lots of acne.  I do see acne sometimes but usually as the testosterone is wearing off and the adrenal androgens kick in, but generally not right after we give pellets.

So, I went to the physiology of the symptoms and broke then down to these hormone imbalances:
• Excess estrogen, either estrone or estradiol
• Excess Dihydrotestosterone DHT
• Suppression of the thyroid gland or iodine
• Suppression of motility of the gut

These are the side effects I see in patients on transdermal and injectable testosterone but not on pellets, at least my pellets.  These are the symptoms I look to avoid by using pellets, not just because they are irritating and unpleasant but because too much estrogen and too much DHT cause prostate enlargement and gynecomastia—man boobs—severe body hair and balding, high lipids obesity and weight gain!  These side effects are unhealthy, instead of making men healthier!

I had a flash as I coincidentally reviewed a chart of a woman coming across country to see me. She had been to a franchised doctors office –the same franchise that Dr S mentioned were doing his pellets—and providing them too.