@Keith Hanenian Esq Hi Keith, I really appreciate you taking the time to read and reply to my message. Thank you for your leadership and guidance offering so much information to help men over 50. I didn’t want to post too much into my past because I didn’t want to come across as an egotistical guy living in the past. I’m just under 5’4” and currently 180lbs. I’m a former Div I college athlete and I was always very muscular and was very strong. My Sr year in college I had a max bench of 350 and I could do 12 reps with 275. I had 17.5 inch arms with very big legs and calves. In HS I would have to buy jeans big in the waist to fit my legs and had to get the waist altered because they were too big. I actually had to get custom boots because my calves were too big to fit in the boots. So, I have fluctuated in weight at various times but I was always muscular even having not lifted in many years. Then, the last two years I started to loose lean muscle and it has continued as time has passed. It’s extremely humbling as well as depressing to see how much loose skin I have all over my body. It really seems like it continues to this day. My entire life I was viewed as an elite athlete and now I just don’t feel like myself. When my lean muscle seems to be melting away along with my identity. When I first discovered you and your videos, I immediately felt like I can do this. Thank you again for

Hi Keith, I can’t believe the attention to details when I’ve heard back from you. What means so much to me is you are taking the time to listen and not just talking back to men with a canned response or a form letter you just send out. I don’t want to be too repetitive, but it’s awesome and I’m sure it is to many of the men you help. To answer your question regarding TRT, I didn’t mention it, I’ve been taking it for around 15 years. About two years ago my blood work showed my blood was getting too thick and my hematocrit was too high. My Dr said I need to get therapeutic phlebotomy to get the thicker blood out of my system and I did. He ended up telling me to stop the testosterone for the time being and in 5 weeks I lost 10-12 lbs of muscle. When I got tested during the time I was off the shots my Testosterone level plummeted to almost nothing. I think it was around 50. After my hematocrit returned to normal I was giving blood every 4-6 weeks because I wanted to avoid this from happening again for obvious reasons. Being very diligent with giving blood, I gave too often and I became anemic. So, I had to go back to at least 8 weeks before I can give blood. I have to tell you that I used to give blood every 8 weeks because I’m O-neg and my blood is also viable for premiers, which makes it even more rare and in need. I go to to give blood and they make it so difficult it’s a major ordeal every time I try to go there. I have to have a prescription to have the blood taken and that requires a special appointment so I can never just walk-in and secondly, if I don’t have a prescription that won’t take my blood if my pulse is over 100. The script overrides that but you have to go through about a 30 minute ordeal to find out if you can or cannot give blood based on two criteria, hematocrit level and pulse. I don’t know if anyone else who may be on TRT has any similar experience? Next, I had another event occur that caused me to lose even more lean muscle. My wife started to take the GLP-1 shots and I said I would take it with her. At the time I could have used 15-20lbs less weight. I made the mistake of not doing my own homework and she was getting the medication online through some health spa with a Nurse Practitioner. It was compounded not the same as the Options straight from the MFG. I took it for maybe 5-6 months and lost about 17lbs. When I started I didn’t know that men often lost 40% muscle as part of the effects from the shots. I definitely didn’t have much of an appetite and find it difficult to eat enough protein when trying to meet at least 1 gram of protein per 1Lb of body weight. When I stopped taking the shots my appetite returned in a furious wave and I was eating like crazy, more than I was eating before I started on the shots and gained back 10-12 lbs at least. So the net result was I lost muscle and gained back nothing but fat. I would say lesson learned. There are no shortcuts and make sure the people prescribing the drugs are educated enough to give you guidance, support and they explain some of the possible side effects of taking these “so called miracle” weight loss drugs. Also, as a man, I would recommend dealing with a male Dr or at least an educated female Dr who understands the differences of how these drugs work for men vs women because they are dramatically different. As a final thought regarding my low T. I mentioned briefly about my chronic pain. I won’t go into too much detail because it would take too long. I’ve had over 20 surgeries and counting and have been dealing with chronic pain for over 30 years. I was prescribed opioids just before I turned 30 just before I had 1 of two fusions back to back. First I had a cervical fusion and after that I had a lumbar fusion. I was doing really good after they were completed and was on a much lower dose of pain meds. Then about 6 months after I was driving to work and someone made a left turn while I was driving through an intersection and totaled my car. I didn’t look injured and for a normal person it probably wouldn’t have any effect but for me, so soon after 2 major fusions, it was virtually like starting over. I’m only giving that brief summarization because I had to go back on higher doses of pain meds. I was using 100mcg/hr Fentanyl patch changed every 2 days and up to 8 pills of Norco which are 10/325. I was on this dosage up until 3 years ago or a bit less. I was never told the long term complications from taking this much medication for so long and that is the #1 reason my body was not producing enough testosterone naturally. To bring all of that to a conclusion over the last 5 years the Pain Management Field has been forced to reduce pain medication to all patients, even people similar to my circumstances that had been taking these high doses for over 25 years and there is no clinical or medical justification for reducing the medication for real chronic pain patients, like me, who actually need the meds. Over the last 12 years I have had 3 different Pain Management Practices that completely stopped writing any amount of pain meds and people like me have to try and find another Pain Management Specialist. I had long term relationships with all of these Dr’s and I never failed any drug tests or taken too much medication. I’m at my last resort, I only found 1 practice who will even write prescriptions for pain meds in the entire Chicagoland and suburban area. This Dr has me between a rock and a hard place because he knows there aren’t any other Practices who I can go to. He also holds me hostage to have procedures done repeatedly or he will lower or stop writing me for any amount of pain medication. This is also a huge reason for my continual reduction in activity because I know if I go and do things eventually I end up in more pain. These are not excuses, this is reality. To end this rant, I’m sorry to go on and on, this is so frustrating for someone in constant pain and the #1 reason this reduction in medication has happened because of the so called opioid crisis and the reduction is do to bureaucracy and politicians making laws to restrict Dr’s who take care of pain patients. They refer to a table that shows the Morphine equivalency of the meds and I was on 320 and now I’m on 82.5 that is a 75% reduction. It ends up having a huge impact for the patients that have always taken the drugs because they need them and now can’t get them versus people who became addicted to them many of whom should have never been prescribed in the first place.