Thursday, January 9, 2014

Lab results

I got my lab results back from the blood drawn on Monday. For the last month and a half, I was on Finasteride and 4 mg Estrace. Before that I was taking 100 mg Spironolactone per day instead of the Finasteride. I could definitely feel a difference, and the lab results verified it. I could tell that my testosterone was higher for a couple reasons: my running was improving (I was running a bit faster) and the dysphoria seemed to be raging. I also felt a lot more anger. So in talking with my endo, we decided to go back on the spiro for the next few months. My testosterone was 124 (5 times higher than before) and estrogen was halved to 70.

Back in October, my lab results indicated a high amount of AST. It was twice as high as the highest it should be and about more than three times higher than it normally is for me. But the ALT measurement was within normal, healthy range. AST and ALT are indicators of liver health (see Apartate Transaminase on Wikipedia). But AST is also present in cardiac and skeletal muscle, the kidneys, brain, and red blood cells. ALT is found in those other types of tissue but not significantly. ALT is focused mainly on the liver. The endo was worried about my liver and suggested that maybe I had drunk some alcohol the night before causing the spike. I did the research and found that the AST sometimes spikes after intense exercise. My blood was drawn Monday morning, a couple days after I ran the Ragnar relay. I remember still hurting a week after since I ran hard and covered for another runner that had dropped off of our team. So for now, I attribute the elevated AST to the weekend of fun with fellow Ragnar teammates. I'm glad that the AST result with the latest draw is back to normal.

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