Dangers of Taking Testosterone Replacement Therapy Drugs

A recent news article from the Wisconsin State Journal takes a closer look at the dangers associated with taking testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) drugs. With the amount of advertising produced and purchased by the drug companies that make TRT drugs, many think that taking testosterone can only help and can’t hurt them.  This could not be farther from the truth.

A doctor featured in this article said a patient came into his office requesting the doctor order a blood test to check his testosterone levels.  This patient was around 30 years old.  Low testosterone is not normally an issue seen in a man that young unless he has the relatively rare disorder known as hypogonadism.The doctor asked him why and he said he was having trouble getting an erection.  He saw so many commercials on television that he was convinced he could benefit from TRT.  He was specifically asking for TRT in a gel form, which can cost as much as $350 per month and is not likely covered by an insurance company for a patient that age.

As our Boston testosterone injury attorneys have seen, the drug companies and their marketing departments have pushed TRT so much that it now comes in a lot of different forms.  You can get testosterone replacement therapy drugs in gels, of course, but also in pills, sublingual films, injections, skin creams, and even a stick deodorant that is actually applied under the arms.

However, despite the fact that testosterone replacement therapy drugs are making the drug companies billions of dollars, there is a major question as to whether they actually do anything beneficial for the patients. Doctors cannot agree on what it means to have a normal testosterone level, and that is a major problem.

Not only that, they do not even know if there is any benefit to raising your testosterone level through the use of TRT medications.  They do not know if it will actually help with a loss of libido, weigh gain, fatigue, or loss of muscle tone.  All they really have is commercials based upon academically suspect studies from the drug companies and anecdotal evidence from patients.

Many people still want the drugs for two reasons.  The first is that they don’t know there is no real evidence TRT works, and the so-called low T clinics certainly aren’t going to tell them that.  The second reason is because they think that it’s a no-harm no-foul thing, and this is simply not true.  What doctors do know through actual peer reviewed studies is that taking testosterone can increase your risk of suffering a stroke or heart attack.  There is an additional, but related risk of a blood clotting disorder.

This doctor also noted that there has been a large increase in the number of patients complaining about erectile dysfunction in recent years. This is likely because all of the commercials for erectile dysfunction or  “ED” (both terms created by drug companies because they are more marketable than impotence) telling us it is very common. However, as the doctor points out, there is a difference between actual ED and a desire to have sex multiple times in a night.

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Additional Resources:

Dr. Zorba Paster: Testosterone has side effects, January 27, 2017, Wisconsin State Journal

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