Hormones

‘You oughta get yourself some hormones, honey!’ — said Jessica Tandy’s character in ‘Fried Green Tomatos’, Ninny Threadgood.

My hormones are all outa wack. I know: that’s something a woman would say. Women are allowed to have screwy hormones. Us guys are supposed to drift through life on a constant testosterone high. I assure you, that’s seldom the case.

The first inkling I had that there was a problem was in 1991. I’d just gotten divorced, come out as gay and moved to California and was paddling as fast as I could to make up for lost time. It was the only semi-promiscuous period in my life. (well, at the time of this writing it was. More, much more came later.)

All was absolutely fabulous until suddenly my weiner quit working. It seemed to yawn and nod a time or two as if bored, then it went absolutely and utterly limp. It happened rather quickly: over a 4-6 week period, and when it was done it was DONE.

I wasted no time finding a urologist to get to the bottom of this disaster.

He interviewed me and examined me thoroughly, pointed out that I had a couple of factors working against me in this area: I have hypertension and take blood pressure medicine and I used to smoke. But that didn’t seem to explain the rapid onset of my noodleness or the fact that it was so utterly and thoroughly complete. I wasn’t even waking up with a stiffy.

So, the tests began. First an ultrasound to make sure my equipment was capable of functioning. That was fun. Imagine being lubed up and massaged ‘down there’ by a guy holding an ultrasound wand while a woman watched the proceedings from behind a computer monitor. Anyway (!) there was a little leak here and there, but overall, my works were in pretty good shape. Still, the doctor was concerned that maybe, just maybe the leaks were indicative of sufficient damage to cause the problem. He asked me to come in for a proceedure that would show us.

He had me get into a gown and came in with a needle — gulp. Then he gave me several injections around the base of my rodlette. I can’t remember what the drug was but it caused the appropriate muscles to constrict forcing an uninspired but very effective woody. My sclong sprang to life! And with that, the theory that I was suffering from some kind of damage died.

Next path to explore was blood chemistry and as I cradled my now HUGE and heavy member in my lap, a significant quantity of blood was extracted from my arm and sent off to a lab for thorough analysis. The doctor had me get dressed and sent me back to work telling me to call him if my hard-on didn’t go away within 4 hours.

Well, 4 and then 5 hours later, my suit pants were still thoroughly extended as I walked around my office from meeting to meeting. I think I gained new respect and notoriety in my company that day. I didn’t know whether to be proud or embarrssed! However, after that long a time, I began to be concerned. I went to the Men’s room to check it out. Standing at a urinal, I unzipped and let the monster out of it’s cage and — GHASP! — saw that it was turning black and blue all over.

I called the doctor in a panic. He was concerned, too and insisted I come into the office as quickly as possible. There, he had me disrobe again and came into the room with yet another needle, this one gigantic. I trembled in terror.

He explained that he needed to get my dick down and the only way he knew to do it was to extract the blood that was keeping it up. He started by injecting a local anesthetic all over my weenie. It felt like fire but soon, it was numb. Then, he took the BIG needle and plunged it in over and over, extracting chamber after chamber of blood and squiring it into a pan. I sat watching in horror and fascination.

As I started to go down, he insisted that no permanent damage would be done, I’d heal, etc. etc. I went home exhausted and so bruised it looked like it had been run over by the weiner-mobile.

When the lab results came back they confirmed the bad chemistry theory. My prolactin levels were sky high and testosterone was low. Prolactin is a hormone that occurs in quantity in women and not much at all in men. It’s the factor that allows women to lactate — or produce milk — for their babies. And I was absolutely swimming in it, which was creating my problem. But why? Was I becoming a woman (heaven forbid!). Next stop: an MRI.

An MRI of my brain revealed an anomaly on my pituitary: a small tumor. It was driving my gland crazy which, in turn, was driving my hormones crazy, which, in turn, were driving my weiner crazy. Mystery solved. But I worried about the treatment: would they have to cut me open and poke around in my brain?

Turns out that several months of a drug called Bromo-Cryptine shrank the little booger and returned my blood to near normal. Slowly my prick regained its attitude and I became very appreciative of modern medicine. Happy ending. . . or not: there’s more.

Three years later I started breaking bones. In my feet. I was a runner and kept getting stress fractures. As soon as one would heal another would break. I was wearing the best running shoes I could get and was running mostly on the beach. Still I kept breaking. After the third one, I told my doctor that I thought something more than bad technique was causing my problem. I asked for a bone scan . . .

. . . which showed that my bones were disolving by the day. Osteoporosis. Really bad. The specialist I saw said, ‘You don’t understand; you have the bones of a 78 year old man. You could fracture just walking down the street.’ He explained that rarely can bone loss be reversed (these were the days before bone growing drugs), but that there were some rather unconventional therapies that sometimes produced results. My treatment: testosterone injections every couple of weeks.

I did them myself, in the butt. The drug was a thick golden liquid, like vitamin E, that moved through the syringe slowly and left a painful knot in my ass for a day or two. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. I was always beefy, but now became muscular. And I didn’t really do anything. I seemed to bulk up just by walking around my office. And then, as the weeks passed, I started to notice strange new feelings and problems with my mood.

I was becoming very impatient. And intolerant. And, actually, ANGRY. There grew a rage in me that I could feel in my throat. Soon I felt as if I was on the edge of exploding every minute of every day. This is one of those rare moments when my late 60s experiences with drugs proved helpful. I was able to maintain enough perspective to realize that the drug was causing the feeling, which gave me the ability to override the feeling and hang on until my next doctor appointment.

He explained that that’s what happens when you take large doses of testosterone for extended periods of time. Three months was really as long as anyone should do it. But my case was significant and he urged me to hang on as long as I could. The new bone scan showed me making progress, recovering some of the mass that had been lost.

I did hang on: for 9 months. My therapy ended when I beat up my boyfriend (for good reasons, I might add). I have never before or since experienced the kind of primal connection between feeling, impulse and action that occurred that day. All were in perfect synch and happening simultaneously. It was frightening for me. For my boyfriend it must have been terrifying. He was black and blue from head to toe the next day. (Believe it or not, we’re still together, more than 10 years later).

My MD explained that I had probably crossed the border into testosterone psychosis (oh, joy) and needed to ween off the drug. As I did, we took a final bone scan and discovered that I had regained about 25% of the bone mass I’d lost: a magnificent result. I was still fragile, still had osteoporosis, but was out of eminent danger. As the drug slowly flushed from my system, my mood improved briefly . . . but then I crashed. I went from a testosterone high to the utter depths of despair. I was depressed.

That was to be expected, or so I was told and the remedy was a course of antidepressants that took the edge off but never really pulled me out of the hole. I have taken them ever since.

It was about this time that everything in my life went haywire. My parents died, I got laid off my 17 year career job, and started commuting between San Diego and New York every week. Time seemed to speed up and I looked around and saw the new Millennium come. Then I was off the airplane and finished with the commute, starting a business and . . .and . . . suddenly HERE.

After 5 months of wrangling with my primary care physician (I’m in an HMO now; oh joy), I got myself referred to a couple of shrinks. The depression — which has never left me — has turned particularly ugly over the past two years. I’m older now and as some of the doors that have always been open to me begin to shut, the hopelessness of depression has turned more real.

I see a great psychologist who calls me on my bullshit and is working with EMDR to reprogram me. Her partner is a young psychiatrist who sees my current state as the logical next step in the saga that began with that tiny tumor on my pituitary. He thinks my osteoporosis was a direct result of the prolactin problem and the depression was a direct result of the hormone therapy. He suggested that for a guy my age (hey, I’m not that old; and everyone thinks I’m at least 10 years younger than I am!) supplementing the antidepressants with a little testosterone often does the trick. So I’m on the patch: Androderm, every day.

It’s much more predictable and reliable than when I was shooting up 10 years ago. And the shrink insists I won’t experience the Incredible-Hulk-like episodes I did last time. The good news is: 10 days into it I can really see the difference. It’s not so dark anymore. I’m excited about stuff. I’m happy in general and very happy at times. I went out this weekend and bought the car I’ve been lusting after since I was 18 — the one I never let myself have because it was impractical and I probably didn’t deserve it anyway.

So I guess what makes you a man can make you a monster; or it can make you a happy man depending on the dose. All I know is it’s great to be where I am today: blasting along life’s freeway with the top down and the radio cranked up, listening to Michael Bouble and passing Porsches, one by one.

This was written in 2004. It is 2026 and I’m still supplementing testosterone. Years ago, my endocrinologist explained that my original course of testo destroyed my body’s ability to make the stuff, so I’ve taken 1mg every 2 weeks since. Some interesting things about this journey: I got pecs. Like I said, I’ve always been beefy, but my time with prolactin gave me a little bump that quickly turned into muscle when I started the testo. I also became hairy, all over. There are two desirable looks for gay men today, you’re either entirely smoothe or bear-hairy. Evey hook-up, flirtation and romance I’ve had since then has started with my big chest and hairy body. People think of testosterone replacement as a sexual stimulant or libido restorer. I guess that’s true for some, but not me. I noticed very little in that department. What I did notice was my mood. Testosterone keeps me happy, fit and optimistic. When I go off the stuff as I’ve done a few times, I, well . . . .turn into a big old blubbering girl!