One Year Later - Open Heart Surgery

One year ago today I was lying on an operating table with my chest open on bypass surgery with a surgeon stitching a new mechanical Aortic Valve and root onto my heart. I did not know at the time if the operation would be successful or not. The team of doctors had informed me that there was a possibility that I may need a heart transplant if my heart did not start working again on it's own after the bypass surgery. I was also told there was no way to know for sure as to what extent my heart would recover after the new valve and root where replaced.

Before the operation my heart was double the normal size and my Bicuspid Aortic valve was barely working, resulting in an injection fraction of 18% combined with an aneurism above the valve that made it double the normal diameter to 6cm. All very bad and if untreated, I may have only had weeks to live.

Jump ahead now one year and I would have to say I can only explain my recovery as a miracle. My Cardiologist has reassured me that my heart is in perfect working condition now, and I can expect a long healthy life. My heart has now returned to normal size and my injection fraction tested a few months ago was 58%.

I am officially back to regular life and doing everything and then some that I was doing before, but now feeling so much better doing it all. God is good, life is good, and friends and family mean so much. Thank you to everyone that have been supporting me along the way with words of encouragement and positive thoughts. It has meant so much to me and I will never forget it.

Finally Starting TRT - 8 Months Post Operation

It's been a real journey in terms of how I feel. There have been ups and downs for sure and I know I am very blessed to have what I have, even if I am not optimal at this moment. There is nothing wrong with trying to feel and be better, to optimise ones health not just for the body but also the mind.

I was fortunate enough to have my appointment with my endocrinologist moved up a couple of weeks and the appointment went well. My doctor was concerned with my low Testosterone and enlightened me that some of the heart drugs I am taking can also affect Testosterone production making it low. This was news to me! I am not sure if this was a big contributor but it is worth mentioning...

As my Testosterone has been fluctuating between 1 and 1.2 nmol/L I have been put on a TRT (Testosterone Replacement Therapy) to get me to a target range of 20 nmol/L which will hopefully allow me to feel a lot better and get my life back.

I am not looking for huge muscle gains from the TRT as a level like this is right about in the middle of what is natural and normal. Rather I just want to feel good and have more motivation and energy so I can do the work it takes to achieve the fitness level I aspire to.

So here we are at the beginning of my TRT! in this video I talk  more about the specifics and also show you what I am looking at these days, could be a lot worse for sure but hoping to make some improvements over time...

 

7 Months Post Operation - Short Term TRT

Here we are just over 7 month post Open Heart Valve replacement back in January of this year. If you have been following my journey then you will know I am doing pretty good overall considering I almost died. My Testosterone levels on the other hand are almost non existent as I have been completely off of TRT since early January. My last bloodwork results came in at 1 nmol/L which is lower than some women.

In my last video I talked about hoping on a quick round of Testosterone to get some of my life back as I was really struggling in many areas but my main concern is how that will affect my upcoming bloodwork right before seeing an endocrinologist. My plan was to get on something fast acting that is in my system in and out quickly so I can come off of it about two weeks before and hopefully not affect my bloodwork too much but it will no matter what.

In this video I talk about all of this and go into more detail about what I am doing and how it has affected me.

 

No TRT For Me! - What's Next?

Last video I mentioned that my doctor wanted me to go one more month to see if my natural Testosterone levels would bounce back at all and then the way I understood it, we would look at the possibility of me going on TRT. Well that's not how it turned out. My Testosterone levels from my most recent bloodwork show that they have dropped again by a fair bit and rather than bouncing back it looks like my Testosterone is just crashing harder now, almost 7 months after quitting TRT cold turkey back in January.

So when I had my latest doctor consultation I was expecting we were going to talk about a game plan on what kind of TRT we should consider but instead my doctor wants me to see a hormone specialist which will not be for another couple more months... That was a hard pill to swallow "yah I know" as the last month has been a real challenge and I was hoping some relief was coming soon, but that is not the case. Another two more months of this and then maybe my new specialist will put me on some sort of TRT program?

To be honest I am at my wits end and all I want it is to feel normal. I have been doing everything the right way and not trying to produce an outcome that I am looking for, but I feel enough is enough and sometimes you need to take your personal health into your own hands ( I am not condoning or recommending anything). That said, I am contemplating getting on a fast acting Testosterone for a month just to get me through to my specialist appointment but the problem is that is going to affect my bloodwork to some degree, even if I make sure to get my Testosterone levels back down to their low level before my bloodwork, I am sure a hormone specialist would be on to me looking at all the bloodwork results. I will most likely just tell my specialist what I did as they need to know what is going on to be able to figure out a plan moving forward, I do hope they will see my 6 months of being off TRT and come to a conclusion that my natural Testosterone is probably not coming back.

Well what do you think I should do? Tuff it out or do what I need to do to get my mental and physical health back?

 

6 Plus Months Post TRT - Current Testosterone Levels

It's now been over 6 months since my last Testosterone injection back in early January of this year and if you have been watching my channel you already know I had to go down this road because of my Heart issue. As it turns out not dying is more important than aesthetics! My Testosterone has been slowly going down for a while now and it does not look like it will recover any time soon or even at all as this month is my lowest Testosterone level result since I went cold turkey (About the same as a woman's now).

I was in the 4-6 nmol/L and should have been in the 8-28 range to be within normal levels. I am now even lower and I can feel it in some ways but in other ways I think my body has gotten a bit use to the lower Testosterone.

I spell it all out in the video but to summarize... Sex drive sucks, mental cognition has gotten a bit better, maybe, motivation and outlook on life is about the same, body aches are still bad, ability to add muscle has actually improved but so has my workout frequency and intensity.

Next week I have a doctor consult and will be going over my results, my last consult about a month ago we talked about doing one more test to see what my bloodwork shows in terms of Testosterone and if it is not improving then we both agreed perhaps looking at TRT would be a good option. I will let you know how that all goes.

Ultimately I want to do what is best for my health and what also gives me quality of life.