You would still be considered prediabetic until the A1C crossed over to 7.0 in the UK and Canada.
The drug companies pushed for the guidelines shift in the USA.
This is well known in the anesthesia community, and it is now a standard of practice for most folks to withhold the GLP-1 meds at last 7 days prior to an anesthetic. Even then, many practitioners take additional precautions for those on GLP-1 drugs, and treat them accordingly.
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Totally. And some of these are easily fixed. A simple testosterone test (along with the acceptance that healthy women need some testosterone) can save relationships. A T deficiency and the libido effects it causes can be insidious for the patient because they typically don’t feel any deficiency–a lack of libido can be a total blind spot. Many male partners, of course, have a hard time understanding this.
I am diabetic and was prescribed Ozempic about 5 years ago. It stabilized my A1c but I have lost about 40 pounds and my appetite. I did live to eat, cook almost every day and have the same intellectual interest in food that wabi references. Luckily, my partner needs to eat, so I still need to cook. No loss in interest in wine, however. I have decreased my dose and I am eating more and have stopped losing weight.
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While it may be a comforting thought to believe that all it takes is upping testosterone levels, it ignores the manifold factors impacting female desire (or lack thereof) in LTRs.
But getting into those would veer so far off topic we’d have to charter a Concorde to get us back on track, stat. Plenty of literature / podcasts on the subject in any event, for those interested.
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Fascinating! Thanks for the gift link.
I haven’t read through the entire discussion here yet – has anyone talked about naltrexone + Wellbutrin, aka Contrave?
A doctor friend of mine, who had a lot of good things to say about injectables, was also praising it.
I saw this article recently about Ozempic and aging: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce81j919gdjo
I have experienced temporary disinterest in food, cooking, and eating when tapering onto certain meds. That side-effect was never permanent, but I did lose 5-10lbs each time. It can be hard to maintain without lifestyle changes. I’m hopeful that continuing with regular exercise + a good antidepressant + going more plant-based might work for me…this time.
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You’re describing #lifegoals
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Oh, wow. That’s scary and unexpected.
Speaking from personal experience, and recent conversations with doctor friend – one of the best ways to boost testosterone is weight loss, if you can get there. The trouble with supplementation, I’m told, is it can potentially throw other things out of whack (such as causing natural T production to dip even further). It’s complicated and I haven’t reached a solid conclusion yet.
ETA: and there’s the chicken and egg question – did you gain weight because of low testosterone, or did putting on fat cause testosterone to dip?
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I’m not ignoring anything. Assessing T levels in women is low-hanging fruit. I did say “some” of these issues are easily fixed, and HRT alone gets it done for many women and their relationships, and without any feared masculinization.
It IS complicated, so complicated that many endocrinologists don’t try to do anything besides diabetes and cancer management.
HRT with test is no panacea, and you can throttle your own endogenous production by taking too much for too long. Six weeks on and 2 weeks off has worked for me for many years. And you need to test (no pun) for total, free, and DHT.
If you’d like to read a heavily-citated treatment of the subject for both men and women, you might find “The Testosterone Solution” by Dr. Aubrey Hill interesting.
Once you scratch the surface, you’ll learn that there are statistically wide ranges of “normal” testosterone levels, and these vary by age groups. Unless you find yourself completely out of your range, most primary care doctors won’t even consider HRT. Fortunately, there are some (and specialists, including MD sex therapists) who understand test’s role female libido.
I encourage people to think of HRT with test as finding your optimum level, not what the tables may say is “normal”.
Happy to PM a bit if you want to learn more.
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Fortunately we have one of those here! Sorry to detour the convo…
FIFY
That might be true, but that’s not how she phrased it.
Sounds helpful but all that doesn’t sound “easily fixed” to me!
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Well, in the cases I’m aware of personally, it wasn’t that hard. The speech to the doctor usually goes like this:
“Look, let’s test me. I’m telling you right now that I will fall 5 points into the extreme bottom end of my age bracket. I’m not happy with that. I have X, Y and Z symptoms of hypogonadism. I want to be higher within the range, at levels we can agree are healthy and optimum for me. If you’re not in philosophical agreement with that, let me know now, so I can find someone else.”
In the cases of female libido deficiency I’ve been around, sadly it’s taken desperate situations (divorce, infidelity, etc.) either experienced personally or through family/friends to cause the sufferer to actually give herself permission to see someone about treatment. In those cases where there was T deficiency and HRT was tried, my anecdotal experience is that it worked quickly and well.
I think the biggest hurdles aren’t the physicians. They’re getting the patients (and partners) to understand and accept that “normal” includes some of the hormones associated with the opposite sex.
white coat syndrome likely
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It would make it hella easier to lose the weight though! I’m not taking any meds. My diet since Sept has been pure calorie restriction.
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I don’t know what that means.
It sure seems to.
