What are the signs and symptoms that will indicate somebody has low testosterone? one is low libido, which is very common. one is erectile dysfunction.
People are not able to get erection or they get an erection and they are not able to sustain it. There's no shame in the game because especially when you're in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, your testosterone level begins to decrease. So why is testosterone such an important thing for men and indeed if you are having or experiencing low testosterone, are there ways to improve your situation naturally?
Today's video is going to highlight all this and more. I've got a special guest joining me on the show today, his name is Selasi Kwame he's a family nurse practitioner who also has experience in mental health and practices internal medicine. I'll be right back [Music] welcome back this is my YouTube channel and my name is Jessica.
So how do you introduce or increase testosterone naturally? Joining me right now, David Kwami Selasi. David, so good to see you.
How are you doing today? I'm excellent how are you doing yourself ? Super!
I'm super can't complain. It's a great day so I mean let's let's just jump right into the topic without you know any um Frills. Why is testosterone such an important thing for men?
Testosterone is a very important hormone for men because it helps with their sex drive, libido, helps with the bone formation and it's what kind of deciphers a man from a woman. Although women kind of have a low a little bit of testosterone in their system, men need a full testosterone level to be able to kind of like function normally. It can kind of help with their energy levels and if we do not have a full level of testosterone it can cause depression.
It causes a lot of fatigue and it causes a lot of sleep issues for a lot of men. yeah so you need a testosterone for bone growth, libido, sex drive and a whole lot of things to kind of should I say to make you a full man. Right!
So how does it, how do men typically know if they they have low testosterone? Are there certain things that happen? Yeah there are a few indications if you if you have low testosterone levels.
Usually men who have concerns. . Sometimes they come and say 'I I think my my libido level is low.
. I think my energy level is low'. So for you to investigate all that as an outpatient provider, first of all you need to kind of like run a bunch of lab works.
So you run . . .
you check for their TSH, which is a thyroid to make sure it's not thyroid related. You check for the their sugar levels to make sure it's not sugar related. And you check for the testosterone level to make sure that it's not testosterone related.
And sometimes, when you check all those things and do complete blood work, Sometimes you check all those things, you might end up finding out that the testosterone level is low. Or maybe it has nothing to do with the testosterone, it has to do with the TSH which has to do with the thyroid because thyroid can fluctuate. All that can make you fatigued, tired and uh I feel like it causes a lot of sleep issues and uh with the Sugar.
Sugar too can cause the same issues and there are a whole host of things that could cause that well. Is libido the only way or indicator you know that would let a man know that he has low testosterone and when should he start to worry ? Is it normal for testosterone levels to just dip or increase from time to time depending on the stage of your life?
Yes uh testosterone levels begin to dip somewhere when you get into your 30s. yeah I don't want anybody to kind of get frightened. That is, it can begin to Dip by Point by Point by Point by your 40's, it begins to dip.
So as as you grow older your testosterone level begins to kind of drop a little bit. . .
on a gradual basis. It should not drop significantly, but if so at the point that it drops significantly, then you begin to have symptoms. So to answer your question, yes as we grow as men our testosterone level is expected to decrease gradually but not steeply.
Once it decreases steeply then we have to begin to investigate. Sometimes hormonal issues or hypogonadism which is a hormonal imbalance, could cause that. So .
. . the hypo what?
? ? ?
You're gonna have to take it slow for us. We're not in the same field as you. The hypo what?
? Hypogonadism. So it's just like, the imbalance of the hormones.
The production of the testosterone to the level that is supposed to be. So if it's not at that level so that is where we run the test the blood test and all that, to kind of identify that. And one of your questions was that, What are the signs and symptoms that will indicate somebody has low testosterone?
one is a low libido which is a very common. One is erectile dysfunction. People are not able to get erection or they get erection yet are not able to sustain it or they get an erection and um [inaudible] .
. . they call it 'soft erection'.
They are unable to penetrate with that erection, It's an erection but it's not, firm enough for them to go to penetration. And then there is fatigue. People get fatigued and tired a lot.
yeah and sleep disturbances comes into. . .
At night they are not able to sleep or their kind of restless, anxious ,and it causes a lot of depression too. And depression because of the hormonal imbalance which is because your testosterone level is low. So those are signs and symptoms.
So somebody coming to your office as a primary care provider ,reporting that you know what? my. .
these are the symptoms I'm having. The person doesn't have to have all the symptoms that I just listed, but the person might just have a few of those symptoms. As a primary care provider, you want to go out and find out what is going on and how do you do that?
You get a good history from the patient. Get a very good history from a patient. After you get a history, you order a comprehensive lab work.
You know? And usually the testosterone lab work. .
we order for you to do it before 8 am. And we tell you to kind of prevent/avoid sexual intercourse before uh the testosterone level and you have to do and you have to repeat it about twice for us to confirm that is true your testosterone level is low. What is the reason for.
. . you know.
. . the test like doing before 8 A.
M ? Basically such an early time because at that point we kind of . .
. it's presumed that . .
. there's an accumulation of the testosterone level overnight because men usually in early morning erection that is when your testosterone level actually kind of increases . .
. kind of boosts up in your system. So early morning will give us a better indication of where you are in your testosterone level and if there is an issue, we will kind of go ahead and address it.
Makes sense. . .
makes a lot of sense. So let's get into some of the lifestyle changes that men can make to increase their testosterone levels naturally. When I first chanced upon this um topic I thought.
. . oh wait so are there also ways that you can increase testosterone unnaturally?
Yes! Okay, and and what are those? Before we get into the natural ones.
We have the either AndroGel we have the androdem and we have the palette which is an injectable that you get but most people try to kind of avoid all that well we kind of encourage patients to do is that we want you to kind of try all the natural way to enhance and most people who are at the like a reproductive age of their life young men who are a reproductive age of their life and having a low testosterone we encourage you to do the lifestyle modification so that that will help kind of boost up the uh the testosterone level for you because most testosterone therapies reduces sperm count. you know, yeah it causes it reduces sperm count and you might not be able to produce sperm so if you're at a reproductive level, and you go right into testosterone replacement therapy, guess what is going to happen? You might not be able to produced children.
You might not be able to stay fertile going forward. Unless the person its affecting the quality of lifestyle or the person is up in age and is not worried about any kind of reproductive issues, then you can go ahead and kind of recommend all the the testosterone replacement therapy. Makes a lot of sense.
so let's come into the natural. . .
the natural ways to increase your testosterone. um from your experience and your knowledge, what are the best ways to go around this? Oh the best ways to go around this is .
. . one one strong way is a healthy lifestyle, healthy eating, lifestyle modification, you know those are very important.
you know I know some sometimes we kind of feel like eating all kinds of 'heavy food' uh fatty food, meat and all those things. For meat you want to eat lean meat . You know what I mean?
You want to wake up every morning and go for exercise and at least walk a long period of time. You know what I mean? uh drink more water avoid alcohol and people with poly substance use disorder.
Poly substance just means that, people who use drugs. . .
drug addicts. . .
the people who use uh illegal drugs on it you need to avoid all that. you know and you need to kind of sleep you need to get at least eight hours of sleep you know not every sleep is sleep you know? people can lay on the bed for 12 hours might not be able to get any good sleep but you need to kind of be able to kind of get a good sleep over eight hour period a night that kind of helps to rejuvenate your system rejuvenate your testosterone production and uh vitamin D level vitamin D level we encourage patients to kind of go out there first in the morning and take a walk you know what I mean so that they can absorb because vitamin D is only one vitamin that is synthesized in the Skin So if you're able to kind of accumulate the morning vitamin D in your system it's also help but if you're not able to do that you can pick up a supplement over the counter so the over-the-counter supplement will go along with to also help you out you know so those are the lifestyle modifications that we encourage people to do if you do all that you you might end up seeing good results it doesn't happen overnight it's a process because you did not get to that point overnight so it is a process.
. . okay so it's obviously like a a healthy lifestyle Journey that men need to really like undertake.
Going back on yeah yeah lean meat instead of you know cooking you can Grill the meat you know what I mean more vegetables and more fruits in your diet you know and water we need to push a lot of water instead of a glass of alcohol that you take three times a day you need to kind of reduce it significantly I encourage my pressure you know what every other day, fine if . . .
if it's something it's a habit that you have every other day is great but don't splurge don't binge on drinking yeah alcohol right yeah alcohol is a big big thing all right great so so um just coming back briefly before we wrap up this conversation um do we know what kinds of side effects like men could face if they decide not to rather shape up and put their lives back on track as opposed to actually going in and using medication to to bring back your testosterone levels up one is yeah if you are a man of reproductive age you might not be able to kind of produce sperm. sperm production kind of goes away. .
. becomes completely you don't produce sperm and it kind of causes atrophy to the testicle that when the testicle you know that testosterone is produced in the testicle so if you are if you get on those medications at the wrong dosage or the wrong route or you didn't go to the especially to kind of titrate the medication to the right dosage for you you can end up with all those side effects low sperm production, it can affect your your bone density and sometimes it can cause gynecomasia which is the development of breasts in some men you know what I mean either way yeah it can cause gynecomasia and it can cause a lot of uh uh enlarged heart you know what I mean if you're on the wrong route a wrong dosage a large amount which is so and the research is still out there that it causes enlarged heart so you need to be very careful instead of you just going over there uh that we call the black market you know to get a testosterone which you can get in this day and age everything that you can get out there in the black market but you might as well want to go to it especially because you want this to be titrated properly you know what I mean and you want to kind of repeat the lab work within every three months so that we know that your your testosterone level is getting to within normal level or is the numbers out of it and you have to realize that when you are on a testosterone replacement therapy your red blood cell kind of multiply it kind of like so you would want to kind of like keep that in control you don't want that kind of red blood cell count to be abnormal excessively abnormal all those things need to be checked that's when you're on that therapy you need to have your blood work done at least every six months or three months and if you are under close monitoring, it's every three months. okay all right well thank you very much for the insights there I mean I think it's been pretty straightforward um the message is clear what men need to do to be better but I'll take your final words on this I mean I have a lot of young men watch this channel um men between 18 and 45 I still call them young you know um what kind of advice what kind of advice would you give to um men of that age who just maybe are starting to experience certain symptoms like low libido and all these things that you mentioned what what are the better steps to take um to seek some kind of um I don't know solution you know so just to get to the point I don't want to kind of make race an issue black men and specifically people from ethnic background like me uh it's a conversation that most people do not want to have it's a very uncomfortable conversation to talk about oh I'm having erectile dysfunction or maybe I'm not able to get a full erection or I'm getting a soft erection or maybe my my duration is not like.
. . it's a conversation that is extremely uncomfortable but all these things.
. . there are solutions out there.
so I will encourage anybody who is Young out there who is experiencing a low libido or a sex drive or a fatigueness or do you feel like something is not adding up I encourage you get yourself checked out you know healthy lifestyle alcohol excessive alcohol in your system is not good for you everything in moderation everything in moderation and you need to kind of take a little bit of walk every day I tell my patient every day that you need to go for at least 30 minutes of walk on a daily basis it's really good for it and that 30 minutes of walk if your work permits you can go during the morning time that you need you can be able to kind of accumulate uh vitamin D from the Sun that your body could be able to synthesize that into to help production of uh testosterone and Ginger is something good which is an over the counter something that you can you know ginger in your phone maybe a blend of Ginger every now though you can use ginger in a in a tea it can also kind of help kind of stimulate your uh your your your testosterone production so I encourage anybody within the age period I speak with your primary care speak with your provider because that is the first the first line of defense the first point of contact if there is something going so we investigate it might not be testosterone level it might be that you actually need to see a mental health practitioner who is going to provide you guidance or a cognitive behavior therapy of providing medication to kind of help get over that harm. sometimes it's anxiety sometimes depression or sometimes you actually kind of have a little testosterone that you just needed that replenishment need that therapy to kind of get over that threshold so I encourage people from especially again as I said black and our ethnic people to kind of speak to their PCP this is nothing uh that there's no shame in the game because especially when you're in your 30s 40s 50s 60s your testosterone level begin to decrease . Thank you so much appreciate your time um and uh we're definitely going to be talking again .
But you know, for everyone watching this video if you have questions you know for my guest you can drop them in the comments below I'm going to find a way to get them to come into my comments and answer some of your questions and give you. . .
