I want to put down some thoughts about testosterone replacement therapy — not the clinical details, but what it's actually done for how I show up in my own life.
I've been on TRT for several years now, and for most of that time it's had a good, steady effect with no real side effects to speak of. But about three months ago, life stacked up in a way it hadn't before. My family was moving back to San Francisco after four years in Southern California — my son had just finished high school down there. The house in San Francisco had sat empty and fallen into disrepair, so there was a lot of work waiting for us. At the same time, I was cleaning out and moving an entire household myself, and starting a new job. All at once.
So I thought: maybe I could use a little more. A little more energy, a little more focus, to get through all of it. My provider offers an additional protocol on top of my existing medication, so I added it in. At first, honestly, I didn't notice much of a difference.
Then, within the past couple of weeks, something shifted — and I want to be upfront that adding more wasn't free of tradeoffs; it affected my vitals enough that I've since talked to my doctors and scaled back the dose while we keep an eye on things. That part matters, and I'd tell anyone considering something similar: monitor your numbers, stay in close contact with a doctor, and don't assume more is automatically better.
But here's the part I actually wanted to write about. For years, I'd wake up stupidly early — 3, 4, 5 in the morning, which I know a lot of us start doing as we get older — and I'd get up, make breakfast, sit down on the couch, and tell myself I was "just eating breakfast and starting my day" while I watched a pile of YouTube videos. Breakfast would end, and I'd still be there, watching videos or scrolling Instagram or some other version of the same nothing.
Right now, I feel a real shift in how I actually move through my day. This morning I was up at 3am with a full slate of work ahead of me, and instead of the couch, I got moving. Over the past couple of days I put together a complete, step-by-step plan for all the work the house needs, contractor references included. I got up early, assigned my son his chores, told him I'd be gone for the day, and just started hitting things — one after another. It feels good to be motivated again. Motivated to actually do the things I always knew I should be doing: repairs I'd been putting off, conversations with my wife and my son that needed to happen, things at work I'd been avoiding. Sitting here today, all of it feels attainable in a way it didn't a few months ago.
I don't know for certain how much of that shift is the treatment and how much is something else going on in my life. But I do know this: if you're a guy who feels unmotivated, who feels like you're not doing the things you know you should be doing — which I think is a lot of what depression feels like for men — and you haven't talked to a doctor about it, I'd really encourage you to. As we get older, our bodies stop producing some of the hormones they used to make naturally, the same way our wives go through their own changes with age. I'm not saying hormone therapy is the answer for everyone. I am saying it's worth finding out, medically, whether there's something that can help. Because right now, for me, it feels like it's working.