Monitoring testosterone

Twice a year visits

You should aim to meet twice a year with the healthcare professional. This will help to ensure your levels are accepetable. This is aprticularly the case with your haemoglobin levels which can make your blood more viscous (and thick)

Blood tests

This can be done once a year once stable. However, when adjusting doses, this may need to be done every 3 months. Bloods need to be done 2 hours after gel application. If you are on injections you can do it midway through injection aiming to get your levels in the upper half of the normal range. This should ideally be between 15 to 20. Please note that the aim is not to get you to top of range..The levels do drop with age.

Levels

Normal ranges vary with laboratories. If we assume range is between 9 – 26 nmol/l, aim to get levels between 15 – 20nmol/l. This might be challenging if you are overweight, unfit or genetically have low SHBG levels. Free androgen levels can be in the upper quartile ( top 25%),