Firstly, I would like to personally thank Dr. Baraki for suggesting to me to get a sleep study on a recovery forum topic a while back. Found out I have sleep apnea, got a CPAP, and my quality of life is much higher.
I am 6’0, 215 pounds, 22 year old male.
I recently got a fasting blood lab, and my Prolactin levels were incredibly high, above the highest reference interval by almost 11 mg/L. Everything else was fine.
My sex drive has tanked these last few weeks, which is incredibly unsettling, and next week I’m getting an MRI to see if it’s a pituitary problem.
Do you think that my libido has tanked possibly because of high prolactin?
Do you think that this is negatively affecting my recovery?
Anything I can do to fix the libido problem fo the time being?
Prolactin can inhibit the production of GnRH, which can have downstream effects on testosterone (and thus libido). But this would require additional testing (either by an experienced primary care doctor or an endocrinologist) to figure out.
I moved to a new town, got a new health insurance plan, and thus got a new primary doctor. I wanted to get a fasting blood lab because my libido has tanked the last four months, and despite normal testosterone levels (serum 713 ng/DL, and free testosterone 21.4 pg/ML) I don’t feel like I normally do in that category.
My new doctor told me “I won’t die if I don’t have sex”… which I totally understand. But at the same time this is something that is incredibly disturbing for me personally to lose my sex drive. It has been this way for 3-4 months out of nowhere.
I don’t understand why or how this could possibly happen to myself at this age.
Sorry to hear that, man. With a normal testosterone level, it’s hard to tie the prolactin lab to your symptoms. There are numerous other factors that could be involved here that should probably be investigated, as I mentioned above.