Testosterone use and For Some The Parties
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Intro: Testosterone for my experience and what it did for me begs me to say this is a great drug. Why? I came down with colitis which in my case was an infection of my large intestines. A lot of cases like mine end up in surgery which means cutting the infection and part of your intestine. Even today, many years later you don't have a lot of meds to fight an infection down in that track besides surgery. If you give the patient pills they have to pass through the stomach and still be effective inside an instrument that is supposed to be the disposal of food or anything in the body that passes through. Now in my case to make things more interesting the Doctors knew I had an infection eventually, not at the beginning. Then they discovered it was somewhere in my stomach but didn't know where or what it was. I could not eat and they cleanse me out as if someone was going to have lunch in there.
Every doctor that saw me had to put on long gloves and would stick their hands inside feeling for a tumor or anything since now I was totally clean. How did I feel at the time? I loved it and kept saying more, and more( #W-NOO). I had been on a drip of morphine and I don't know what else. At the time I would not feel pain. My two nieces (Twins) got me to Bellevue Hospital from Staten Island. It was scary for the doctors because they of not find the infection which was not showing up in my blood MRI etc the solution was exploratory surgery, which is the most dangerous surgery there is because they don't know what they are looking for. There was nothing I could do but since I was kept doped up and feeling good I just put my faith in the universe and knew dying is part of living.
What scared me some was having the surgeon in charge come in that week after he was done on his shift (in what is now Langone Hospital, door to door to Bellevue, These are both great Hospitals with great physicians)He would come in and feel my stomach very gently and then I will see his eyes close and I would see his lips moving. I was supposed to be sleeping. "Oh shit, he is praying for me, I'm dead meat, at least maybe I see my mom".
Getting to the end of this story, they did find out what it was and I was lucky there was one antibiotic that killed it. Only one is available at the time. Meanwhile, from the time I entered the hospital until I left, I had lost 100 lbs. No mirrors in my room but the time I asked someone in the family to help me walk to the bathroom and I looked at myself in the mirror I did not recognize myself. I was all skin hanging down everywhere. But eventually, that is how they send me home.
When I went to see my own Doctor he knew what to do. He was a gay experienced Doctor familiar with wasting from the time of the AIDS epidemic in NYC. He got me on injections of Hormone. But I also got a prescription for the gel Testestrome. The injections together with the gel made me feel up and restored. My manhood came back and I was able to perform as well as before. I still take the gel sometimes. It has been safe for me. I'm not prescribing this to anyone. I still have a blood test to see how my liver and kidneys are doing. I'm telling you my story But be careful, any drug you abuse eventually will turn around and abuse you. Now the Story from "Them" Thank you for reading this. I condensed this story as much as I could to fit it here and not make you tired of reading it.
I found out about Silicon Valley’s latest biohacking obsession when a friend DMed me a recent article about the startup T Party and asked, “Is this slay yes or no?” And now, having looked into the phenomenon of tech men trying to optimize their testosterone levels, I can confirm that it is indeed “slay,” with some caveats.
T Party was launched this past Pride month by Jeff Tang, a startup founder who recently worked on the open-source note-taking app Athens Research. Since then, Tang has hosted a number of “T Parties” during which men gather to discuss their health and test their testosterone levels.
The tech bro obsession with testosterone is no new phenomenon: As a feature published earlier this month by The Information details, testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) startups have been enjoying a boom since the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) relaxed its rules for prescribing controlled substances in 2020. Cis dude celebrities across the political and cultural spectrum — from Dax Shepard to Joe Rogan — have all sung the praises of TRT.
What makes T Party different is that it aims to cut through the pseudoscience that characterizes so much of the frenzy around testosterone and provide social spaces for men to discuss their health, per the company’s website. Is that stopping T Party from pushing dubious notions like the idea that not cumming leads to higher testosterone? No, but it’s the thought that counts. (And for the record — yes, the theory of so-called “semen retention” has been thoroughly debunked.)
Also, unlike Rogan, who has suggested that trans people will cause societal collapse or other self-styled Alpha Males, Tang is low-key… an ally? In a July tweet, he wrote that trans people are “based” and expressed a desire to host a T Party for gay men. And yes, his professed belief that gay men unilaterally have higher T levels than straight men kind of gives weird fetish vibes, but doesn’t every weird tech bro fad kind of give weird fetish vibes?
In an August interview with the San Francisco Standard, Tang said that although he has no scientific credentials, “his research into hormone testing introduced him to physicians, wellness experts and genderqueer individuals who have focused on hormones as part of their transitioning journeys,” as the newspaper summarized. Usually, when we hear about testosterone from this crowd, it’s from guys like Rogan who also tout anti-trans talking points, so it’s refreshing to hear from a T obsessive who acknowledges that there are very few differences between HRT for cis and trans people.
The T Parties themselves also sound… weirdly wholesome, if a little deranged. According to The Information, topics of discussion at a recent San Francisco T Party included “where to buy the most efficacious supplements, why there’s no OB-GYN for men, why sperm counts are down globally, the difficulty of getting testosterone bloodwork, and how talking to ‘hot people’ has been shown to be a T booster.” Minus the sperm counts (and maybe the supplements), that easily sounds like any given conversation in a group of transmasculine individuals.
In between blood tests and dunks in $3,000 cold-plunge tubs, Tang told The Information that he’s trying to provide a space for men “to talk about [things] like, ‘What’s our relationship like with our father? What does it look like to be a good man?’”
Image may contain: Injection, testosterone bottle
Everything You Need to Know About Testosterone Hormone Replacement Therapy
Testosterone HRT, or hormone replacement therapy, can leave people feeling more confident, alleviate gender dysphoria, and in many cases save lives.
“At the end of the day, testosterone is just a number,” Tang continued. “High T won’t fix your problems or your relationships or make you a better person. But it will give you the drive and energy to make changes and [be] more willing to bet on yourself. It’s really about being the best version of you.” Again, that is something that I have pretty much heard said verbatim by trans dudes in my life, myself included!
There is something darkly ironic about tech bros destroying San Francisco — a historic hub of American trans culture and activism — while inadvertently recreating the FTM support groups that originated in the city in the ’80s. And I have to note the conspicuous lack of moral outrage over cis dudes taking T. When transmasculine people take testosterone to affirm their gender, conservative politicians panic; when cis tech bros do it for essentially the same reason, very few people bat an eye.
Ultimately though, I do not begrudge the tech bros their intricate rituals. I only wish that trans people could access gender-affirming care as quickly and as easily. And if Tang ever wants to join an original T party, there are about a million in Oakland he could easily attend.
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