u/59apache01

Note this is NOT asking for medical advice, but rather how you got into the door for a medical evaluation and how you found a qualified provider to take you seriously. I apologize for the length.

I'm a 47 year old male who has osteoporosis with a history of fractures and a variety of symptoms that make me just not feel like myself. For years, I've been battling constant fatigue, lack of motivation, poor sleep quality, inability to gain or keep muscle mass, bone loss, abdominal and chest fat deposits, and brain fog that sometimes can make me feel like a dementia patient. Libido is nonexistent and I've had severe ED for years.

I've had several labs done. The obvious stuff like thyroid, parathyroid, cortisol, glucose, etc., etc. all came back ok. The one that was questionable was testosterone, which came back at 270. My doctor told me to wait 30 days and check it again. It was slightly better the second time at 332. Neither my family doctor nor my current urologist sees a problem with these numbers and honestly, I'm not even sure if that's the cause of it. But a lot of the symptoms I'm having seem to go along with a testosterone deficiency. Especially the bone loss, which from what I've read can be caused by many years of low testosterone.

What's frustrating is that it seems like nobody is even trying to help me. I've been trying to see an endocrinologist, which my primary care doctor has written me a referral for. Here's the kicker - I've called probably 20 endocrinologists and none of them want to see me without a firm diagnosis and treatment plan. If I had a diagnosis and treatment - what the Hell would I be going to see an endocrinologist for??? Some have told me to see a urologist instead. Other endocrinologists have said they won't see me because I'm not diabetic.

I'm running into the same thing with urologists. None of them are comfortable with my condition and the offices that haven't flat out refused told me to go see an endocrinologist. So I'm caught in an infinite loop. My family doctor isn't comfortable with treating androgen deficiencies and I can understand why - that's something you'd want a specialist for.

I don't want to go to one of these online men's health clinics for multiple reasons. One is I take several other medications and am not sure that or my medical history would be taken into account. Also, I'm not even 100% sure that testosterone is the problem - it just seems that way by process of elimination.

Has anybody else experienced something similar? Have you had challenges finding a doctor who is willing to help you? Were you given any medications or treatment to resolve the issue and if so, how well did it work?

I'm a 47 year old male who has a variety of symptoms that make me just not feel like myself. For years, I've been battling constant fatigue, lack of motivation, poor sleep quality, inability to gain or keep muscle mass, bone loss, and brain fog that sometimes can make me feel like a dementia patient.

I've had several labs done. The obvious stuff like thyroid, parathyroid, cortisol, glucose, etc., etc. all came back ok. The one that was questionable was testosterone, which came back at 270. My doctor told me to wait 30 days and check it again. It was slightly better the second time at 325 if memory serves me correct. Neither my family doctor nor my urologist sees a problem with these numbers and honestly, I'm not even sure if that's the cause of it. But a lot of the symptoms I'm having seem to go along with a testosterone deficiency.

What's frustrating me is that it seems like nobody is even trying to help me. I've been trying to see an endocrinologist, which my primary care doctor has written me a referral for. Here's the kicker - I've called probably 20 endocrinologists and none of them want to see me without a firm diagnosis and treatment plan. If I had a diagnosis and treatment - what the Hell would I be going to see an endocrinologist for???

I don't want to go to one of these online men's health clinics for multiple reasons. One is I take several other medications and am not sure that or my medical history would be taken into account. Also, I'm not even 100% sure that testosterone is the problem - it just seems that way by process of elimination.

Has anybody else experienced something similar? Have you had challenges finding a doctor who is willing to help you? Were you given any medications or treatment to resolve the issue and if so, how well did it work?

There was a group of four guys who ran around together in high school back in the mid to late '90s, one of which was me. After graduation, we all scattered, which unfortunately happens all too often and we slowly lost touch with each other. As the old saying goes, life gets in the way sometimes.

The first one died while deployed in 2003. Not as the direct result of hostilities, but accidental. Heard about his death almost immediately after it happened, but I was not able to attend his funeral.

The second one that I knew about died of a heart attack in 2020. He had just gotten off work and had made it to his truck. He got inside the cab, slumped over, and was found a few hours later. He was gone when they found him. I hadn't talked to him in several years, but his death still hit me pretty hard. His family did a direct burial, so there was no funeral to attend. This was right around the time the Covid stuff started.

The third one went under the radar for a long time. I hadn't talked to the guy since the early 2000s, as he had moved away from the area for work and eventually lost touch with everybody. I found out over the past weekend that he had been killed in an industrial accident back in 2011. Even though that was 15 years ago, it hit me like it had just happened.

It's a strange feeling knowing that you're the last one left of the crew you ran with. If I were a betting man, I would have expected this to happen in my 70s or 80s - not at 47 (technically 42 since the last one died in 2020).

Didn't want to bum people out with this post, but did it to serve as a reminder to those of you who are still in contact or semi-regular contact with the friends of your youth, check in with them when you can. It's amazing how life gets in the way. You're going to call or email or whatever the case may be. Then something happens and you think "I'll do it next week". Eventually you run out of weeks.....

I was sitting up late last night, like I do a lot of nights, and I got to wondering something. Is a sexless marriage mostly a Western phenomenon, or is it a problem all over the world?

Here's what makes me wonder. Most of the studies that have published numbers like 15%, 18%, 20%, etc., of marriages being sexless have come from the US, Canada, UK, and a little bit from Western Europe. I haven't seen figures from any such research taking place anywhere else in the world. Maybe it's similar and the research just hasn't been done, I don't know. But it would be an interesting metric to see and to be able to compare the two. I don't know why, but I have a feeling the percentage would be lower just about everywhere else assuming study participants were being honest.

Most of the posters in the subs related to sexlessness are from Western countries. I see the occasional post from India or some other area, but by and large everything seems to be centered around the West.

If it turned out that it is more of a problem in the West, then I'd be curious as to why. Is it something environmental, something in the food or water supplies, psychological conditioning/corruption, or a combination of these? I might be sounding like too much of a conspiracy theorist, but I sometimes wonder if a lot of people in the West might have been exposed to something when they were young to turn them into LL adults, or in the case of women, been exposed to something that triggers an internal "off" switch when hormones start to change.

Also, an anecdotal data point but I feel like needs to be said, I have three buddies who married non-Western women. Meaning they did not come to the West until they were adults. I've casually asked these guys if they've ever had problems with their bedroom dynamics without going into detail and none of them have, I've known all three a long time and I feel like they're being honest. These guys' wives came from South Korea, Ethiopia, and India - countries with a lot of distance between them. They all appear to be very loving couples on the surface. Not like my wife who despises all forms of affection now.

So what are your thoughts? Do you feel like something is happening in the background in Western countries that is causing sexlessness to be more of a problem than in other parts of the world? Or that it's a worldwide problem and the research just hasn't been done? Curious to see what everyone thinks.