"I heard that it could cause the testicles to shrink and you could lose hair"
My mom would say "rglassva, you are cutting your nose off to spite your face!"
If you have a medical condition, you should have it treated. Besides "quality of life issues", low testosterone untreated can impact your body negatively. By that I mean your organs and tissues and so on (not just muscle mass)
Let me address those two concerns:
Hair loss: not everyone losses hair. On the other hand what is more important to you?
- A healthy body and mind?
- or having a head of hair with low life quality and a deteriorating body?
Testicle Shrinkage: your testicles are struggling, when you begin HRT they will relax and shrink
My feeling is "Who cares about the size balls if the bat is hard" Seriously I am much happier about having a libido and a hard dick than I am concerned that my testicles are smaller than they used to be.
If you are concerned about fathering a child, you urologist can easily wake your testicles up so that you can produce sperm.
(Along these lines - you say you were on testosterone for a year. 1. you might not have gotten your dosage correct. It took me a while for my doctor and I to get the dosage correct for me 2. your balls would have shrunk as much as they were going to shrink after the first couple weeks. 3. I wonder if your balls ever got "woken up", because typically you will need to take a medication for a little while to do that.
===========
I am going to link to a pre-screening questionairre put together by some doctors. It is a standard pre-diagnostic. If you "fail" it is doesnt mean you have low testosterone, it just indicates they need to look further. We already know you have low testosterone, so I am mostly linking it to list some of the symptoms of low testosterone:
Endo Pharmaceuticals | All Products of Endo Pharmaceuticals
Take the ADAM Self-Test
ADAM (Androgen Deficiency in the Aging Male) questionnaire is adapted from Morley. Metabolism. 2000;49:1239-1242.
ADAM Self-Test
1. Have you had a decrease in libido (sex drive)? Yes No
2. Have you had a lack of energy? Yes No
3. Have you had a decrease in strength and/or endurance? Yes No
4. Have you lost height? Yes No
5. Have you noticed a decreased "enjoyment of life"? Yes No
6. Are you sad and/or grumpy? Yes No
7. Are your erections less strong? Yes No
8. Have you noticed a recent deterioration in your ability to play sports? Yes No
9. Are you falling asleep after dinner? Yes No
10. Has there been a recent deterioration in your work performance? Yes No
If you answered yes to question 1 or 7 or any 3 other questions, you may have low testosterone. A complete medical exam and blood test can determine your testosterone level.
Print out the results of this survey and bring them to your next doctor’s visit. Remember, only your healthcare provider can determine if your symptoms may be due to low testosterone.
====