Here's How To Lower Hematocrit While On TRT

Are you on TRT and having increasing levels of hematocrit may you have to donate blood all the time and. Worried about the impact of this high hematocrit on your health? In this video we look at some of the cause of hematocrit while on TRT and what you can do to manage that and how to lower that risk of elevated hematocrit. In this video we're gonna talk about how to lower hematocrit while you're on T R T. TRT if you don't know, is also known as testosterone replacement therapy, and it's a very effective treatment for treating men with low testosterone. With this treatment, there's oftentimes improvement in symptoms such as fatigue, libido issues, erectile issues, and sometimes issues with mood too, like depression, anxiety. Problem is it can also lead to elevations or rising levels, of red blood cells and corresponding hematocrit. So what is hematocrit? So hematocrit is the percentage of red blood cells in a given volume of blood, and it's the percentage of red blood cells as compared to the percentage of the clear fluid or the watery part of your blood. So typically the percentage of red blood cells is gonna be less than the percentage of the watery fluid. So less than 50% would be red blood cells, and, that's kind of a rough range to shoot for in terms of the hematocrit is less than 50% or right around 50%. When you're on TRT High levels of hematocrit or increased amounts of red blood cells can increase the risk for things like blood clot and potentially other problems. The reason that it could potentially increase the risk for blood clot is because. , there's less fluidity there. So things are moving slower. You can think of it like cement, you know, if you keep cement moving it can never actually solidify. Same thing with blood, as there's more particles or more red blood cells, in other things in the blood, that slows down the movement, then potentially is when you can get an actual clot. So this is why if you're on T R T, it's important to monitor your hematocrit levels and correct elevated levels or make sure you're staying in a somewhat optimal range. So when we're looking at this question how the lower hematocrit levels, while you're on t r t, we wanna look at. What's actually causing the increased production of red blood cells and hematocrit? There's a couple things to think about with this. So we know that testosterone stimulates the production of EPO, Also known as erythropoietin, and this molecule or hormone stimulates the bone marrow to make more red blood cells. We also know that D H D or dihydro testosterone is like 10 times as strong as actual testosterone. This is true for much of the functionality of testosterone versus DHT. So I believe that part of what is triggering some people that have higher hematocrit levels when they're on TRT versus others is a increased level of DHT or dihydro-testosterone. And so that may be playing a larger role in what's triggering your high hematocrit levels. Now, DHT is also responsible for much of the benefits of testosterone replacement therapy or TRT as well. So we wouldn't want to take the D H T number down to zero. but with this in mind, we can look at how we could potentially lower your hematocrit while you're on TRT. the first obvious thing to look at in terms of how to lower your hematocrit while you're on TRT, is to potentially adjust your dose. so this isn't really me saying you should adjust your dose if you have high hematocrit, but you should talk to your doctor to see what the appropriate steps should be for you. There is a critical point or threshold at which the testosterone and replacement therapy and the corresponding DHT is not gonna stimulate your bone marrow as much. as you make those adjustments, it's, it's important to continue to monitor the hematocrit red blood cells. and other things to really see what the rate of change or the rate of increased hematocrit is doing. So instead of it going up by five points every month, maybe it goes down to going up by four points or three points every month. you also have to make sure you're checking at the same interval every time in relation to your blood donations If you are doing blood donations, checking, at a certain time interval before the blood donation or after the blood donation is gonna be important. So you're comparing apples to apples as you make these adjustments to your dose of testosterone. The dose adjustment that you make is gonna be dependent on how high your hematocrit levels are and how high your testosterone DHT levels are. All these things are gonna be helpful in making that decision, it's not a one size fits all kind of thing, so you do have to kind of customize it to your own body and what's going on with your hematocrit levels.