My Transition Diary

It's that time of year again. Here are the results from my blood work a few weeks ago.

Standard ranges are all for a male in my age range. LDL is "bad" cholesterol, which is influenced by diet. HDL is "good" cholesterol, which is influenced by exercise. SGOT (AST) and SGPT (ALT) are enzymes found in the liver and are commonly measured as a marker for liver health.

Vitals:
Blood Pressure: 92/61 mmHg ("Low Normal")
Pulse/Resting Heart Rate: 68 bpm (standard range: 60-100 bpm, lower is healthier)
SpO2: 97% (healthy is between 96% and 99%)

Lipid profile:
Cholesterol: 252 mg/dL. Standard range: ≤199 mg/dL
LDL Direct Measure: 167 mg/dL. Standard range: ≤130 mg/dL
HDL: 57 mg/dL. Standard range: ≥40 mg/dL
SGOT (AST): 24 U/L. Standard range: 2-50 U/L
SGPT (ALT): 18 U/L. Standard range: 2-60 U/L

Hormone levels:
Albumin: 4.8 g/dL. Standard range: 3.7-5.1 g/dL
Sex Hormone Binding Globulin: 54.8 nmol/L. Standard range: 14.6-94.6 nmol/L
Total Testosterone: 530.9 ng/dL. Standard range: 123-814 ng/dL
Testosterone, Free: 77 pg/mL. Standard range: 47-244 pg/mL
Testosterone, Bioavailable: 199.0 ng/dL. Standard range: 130-680 ng/dL

I am surprised that my T levels are so much higher than last year. I was already a year post-hysto last year and my dose hasn't changed since then. Not sure what that's about. My cholesterol has me entirely unimpressed; my total cholesterol and LDL are the highest they've ever been, and my HDL is down slightly even though I've been doing 40 minutes of cardio a day for ages now. I know it's genetic, but my LDL went down to 143 mg/dL when I was six weeks cheese-free. I really don't eat that much cheese, but I haven't been super careful about my diet in the past few months so that won't have helped. But 143 mg/dL is still too high so it's going to be medications for me. I'll discuss that with my doctor in the new year. I'm pretty tired of being permanently scared of having a heart attack and I hear excellent things about statins. In the meantime, more exercise to get my resting heart rate down a bit and my HDL up a bit, and less crappy food in my diet! We'll see how that goes with Thanksgiving around the corner, but at least Halloween is out of the way and I'm very nearly out of my stash of sweets now.