I’ve been supplementing about 3-4g of creatine monohydrate every 2 days for a few years now (not every day due to laziness).
my doc keeps ordering blood work for my hypothyroidism and low test but she keeps nagging me about my high levels of creatinine (hasn’t said what it’s at). She was worried I’m in renal failure. I know its nothing for me to worry about as I’ve got a lot of muscle mass and supplement creatine, but what do I tell her to get her off my back?
I’ve told her what it’s from but I don’t know how to explain that it’s okay… she’s been nagging me to stop taking creatine for over a year now.
It’s important to remember that you, as a patient, see / “hire” a general practitioner for consultation and advice on your health, not unlike hiring a lawyer for legal advice. You see them and pay for their advice, which you are free to take, or not.
Without knowing all the details about your medical history and evaluation thus far, we obviously can’t comment on your specific situation. However, there is ample scientific evidence on the safety of creatine monohydrate (e.g., https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/arti…970-017-0173-z , assuming you are taking a non-contaminated supplement), although it is doubtful whether your GP will care to listen to this. If not, that isn’t necessarily your problem. If your physician is concerned that you may have chronic kidney disease, there are specific things that would be necessary to further evaluate this and confirm the diagnosis or to rule it out. If there is persistent concern over your kidney function, perhaps this evaluation may help to provide reassurance all around.
Thank you for the link! I’ve got no symptoms of renal failure and she doesn’t seem concerned at all… she just nags me to stop taking it so my creatinine levels won’t be high on my blood tests. Though she didn’t seem to worry about my low test either which I found odd. I’m only 33 and my levels were as low as 105 on one blood panel! We’re guessing the hypothyroid is the cause of that though.
I’ve had about 6 tests now, over the past year and all readings have shown testosterone fluctuating between 105 and 200… the highest reading was about 250 but that only happened once… we’ll see how synthroid (25mg/day) treatment goes but she’s also started me on 50mg of enanthate once every 2 weeks and my last test showed 105 so not really sure why that would happen. I can’t help but feel like she’s being extra cautious with her dosing but I guess that’s better than too much.
i had another blood test yesterday. Finding results tomorrow so we’ll see what the creatinine/TSH?/and testosterone shows. My workouts have been going well in the past few weeks so I’m curious what the numbers are.
sorry for all the info, I just don’t have any medical professionals/fellow lifters to discuss this with that understand things quite like you guys do! Thanks again for the creatine link!
My Doc just recommended the same thing. I am going to recommend (nicely) that the Doc read the referenced study. For my education, if a blood test shows abnormally high creatinine levels, what is the follow-up test to confirm/refute renal problems, urine test? If so, what would the urine test having a high creatinine level indicate, it is being filtered out and things are OK?
Overall, I’d want to make sure your symptoms are well-managed and numbers are within the normal ranges. However, I would recommend disconnecting workout performance and hormone levels, as I think this can lead to some issues that are difficult to manage.
There are many ways to work up suspected renal failure. That said, yes an elevated urinary creatinine that is relatively proportional to the high serum creatinine -with no other markers of renal disease- tends to suggest the kidney is functioning normally.
Resurrecting this old question thread as I’ve been having some GP/Endo issues as of late.
My test keeps showing very low and I’m only 34. Repeated AM testing is showing numbers as low as 3.1ng/dL or 89 nmol/L! I had an endocrinologist referral and test showed same numbers. She said she wasn’t that concerned because my SHBG ratio was “decent” and that most of my total testosterone was bioavailable…
So between my GP and endo they’re basically saying carry on. Everything else came back good including my thyroid which is being treated with synthroid. However I’m confused how these test levels are at all satisfactory? I get it may be more bio available but when you don’t have much to work with I can’t figure out how that’s better than someone with more total testosterone and a worse SHBG ratio. For example, if someone is getting 50% bioavailability from 300 nmol/L (still low-ish) that’s 150 they’re still using. Even if I get 100% of 89 nmol/L that’s still significantly less… I feel she may not have been explaining things well and I was hoping for some insight from the good doctors at Barbell Medicine. Am I misunderstanding something she’s saying? Trust me I tried asking lol.
P.S. I’m having all the symptoms of low test as well.