The origins of HRT: Hormone Replacement Therapy is an all-to-common medical approach meant to stabilize a woman's metabolism after menopause. Menopause is characterized by a significant change in the production of sex hormones – steroidal hormones – that cause a woman's ovaries to stop producing eggs, the end of her reproductive life. Menopause is normal and every woman that survives into her fifties and certainly her sixties with her female organs (ovaries, uterus, etc) intact, will experience menopause. It's natural. Nature meant it to be that way.
Not so for men.There is no built-in shut-down for male hormones; there is no automatic end to a man's reproductive career. Actor Tony Randall, most famous in my mind for his role as Felix Unger on the 1970s television show
Odd Couple, remarried in 1995 at the age of 75 – to a woman of 25. Gotta love that guy. He fathered two children with her, the second being born when he was 78. This guy was still screwing – pardon me, making love – at least until he was 77 with sufficient sperm density to sire a son.
Randall, of course, is not the only one. Any man still capable of ejaculating – erect or not – is still producing sperm and remains, absent a vasectomy, to some degree fertile. The quality, viability and concentration of sperm may vary, but that's a discussion for another time.
The production of sperm requires male hormones – predominantly Testosterone – and those hormones continue to be generated throughout our lives.
When a woman enters menopause – or has has her hormone-producing ovaries removed surgically – the levels of her hormones become out of balance. There are three big-gun hormones in female metabolism and their relative proportions are essential to her health and mental acuity. Outward signs of imbalance may include a variety of symptoms from the growth of facial hair to wild and aberrant mood swings.
Pharmaceutical firms seized upon the opportunity and leaped into the breach. Their researches suggested replacing a woman's natural hormones with industrially manufactured versions. HRT was formulated, and an insane price tag was put on this essential treatment that would make women “whole” again. Doctors all across the country (world) were treated to fancy dinners, cocktails parties, and golf weekends that are so important to their education in this new modality.
The application of HRT spread like wildfire, but even a controlled burn can have devastating unintended consequences. They fucked up a lot of women. Our women. So few actually had a clinical requirement for this drastic type of treatment that the majority suffered more from the side effects than from the initial condition. HRT has fallen into disfavor except in the most needy cases.
And now they're trying to do the same to men.
Low “T.” Their damn commercials don't have the balls – there's an irony there – to call it Low Testosterone, though they do mention that term just once... quickly... you gotta listen for it.
A digression:
I was watching television with my parents. A commercial came on promoting the use some medication for PMS. The ad went on for some time. My parents married at the end of WWII and led a traditional lower-income life, with two children. My mother was moved to comment that while she was a young housewife, raising two boys in the 1950s, she didn't have the time or resources to have PMS. Nor could any of her friends. It was unheard of. If a woman felt lousy – whether it was her period or the flu – she just toughed it out... just like so many men do when they can't miss a day's wages or cancel an important business trip just because they're hurting.
PMS is real. There are women – a relatively few women – whose hormone swings are so severe that clinical symptoms ensue; they truly suffer. But there are those women – and some men, too – who take full advantage of every sick day they accrue from work, and wring every bit of sympathy from family and friends just because they've got a few pains. They are self indulgent. They're wusses.
Like PMS, "Low-T" is a mythical disease manufactured by Big Pharm for the purpose of selling you high-priced pharmaceuticals regardless of the many side-effects which you may suffer, including a shrinkage of the membranes around your wallet.
End of digression.
Here are the symptoms that Big Pharm wants us to believe are signs of Low “T:”
Reduced sex drive
Decreased energy (sitting in chair with image of golfer in the background)
Body changes: weight gain, belly fat
Mood changes: depression, etc.
Sexual dysfunction
Just as Madison Avenue and corporate America are pounding you with the notion that men have to use body wash instead of soap – a personal peeve of mine that I've mentioned before – and are emasculating men in every other way possible, now they want us to think that we have hormone problems and we have to take some expensive medical treatment so we can play golf and screw like we used to.
Wake UP! You're not 25 anymore and you can't screw like you used to. As far as golf, you probably could play better than you ever did if you just got your fat ass off the couch in between rounds on the course.
Allowing for that small percentage of men – like their female counterparts – who have a real condition that can be clearly medically pinpointed – or have been castrated – there is nothing wrong with your hormones that a decent diet and some exercise can't cure.
You eat like a pig, drink like a fish, and lay around like a sloth. You're a fucking zoo all rolled into one bag of crap.
Of course, blaming the hormones is an easy way out. A trip to the doctor is a lot easier than using the gym membership you're still paying for. Blaming Low-T is far less offensive than eating a damn salad a few times a week instead of Nachos Supreme for lunch.
“I'm sick. I have a condition.” Yes, you're stricken with Wussyitis. You're a twat with testicles.
I repeat. There is nothing wrong with your hormones. Clean up your act. Work with your woman and both of you can get back some of the youth you think you've lost. It's not gone. It's just hidden under layers of self-indulgence and self-pity.
Oh – and about your erectile dysfunction, whether intermittent or perennial, that will go away, too, when you start to eat healthier and get off your freaking ass.
Just to make it a bit easier, some specifically designed, high-quality supplements may help. I'm working with a Naturopathic Doctor, and if her formulations prove helpful – and affordable – I'll be writing more about those later. So, if you're not “following” this blog, sign up and you'll get that information when it becomes available.
I've put together a cafeteria plan of actions you can take to rejuvenate and address those "symptoms" the commercials associate with a make believe disease. You can pick and choose, find a few that suit you, and implement them immediately. Your life will change.
2nd Edition updated May 2012.
HARD! Maintaining Potency, Eliminating Erectile Dysfunction, and Enjoying Healthy Sex for Life is
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Available at
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