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Opioids Opioids Reducing Testosterone Levels Significantly

Ideally, as long as you haven't abused heroin for years, or been on methadone for maintenance therapy, I am 100% confident, for an otherwise healthy adult, your testosterone levels should return to normal if you were to quit using them.



They both will have some degree of effect.

Have you gone to an endocrinologist in the past? Ideally, you could measure your testosterone levels while on opiates, before, and afterwards as well, to track the effects it had on your testosterone level.

If you are at least in your mid 20's then your levels shouldn't be doing much other than 'plateauing'; opiate use of oxycodone/codeine, 4-5 times a week, at a recreational dosage, probably won't have an "extreme" testosterone diminishing effect like 200mg oral methadone / day would, but it could have some effect.
Excellent. Thank you very much for this insightful information! I'm 29 years old, and my opioid dosage is low (I don't need more than 30mg of oxy to get off). I have once asked my doctor to check my test levels but he refused, as he stated there is no need for such a test. I didn't want to tell him I was abusing opioids and hence I am worried about decreased test levels...
 
Buprenorphine doesn't have a comparable effect to the full agonist opiates which cause this.

According to people I have talked to about this, methadone is the worst culprit; worse than heroin. I'm assuming to some degree the effect is dosage-frequency dependent, which is why the wikipedia article mentions chronic opiate use leading to this effect.

Yeah, good call. You're right about methadone being pretty bad about it... Here's a pretty good post by Tchort on the topic:

http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/...evels-in-men?p=9553752&viewfull=1#post9553752
 
I just wanna chime in here...I've been on sub maintenance since 2005...I've also injected heroin and cocaine on and off since then...I've detoxed several times off the subs and each time it got worse and worse...anyways, last spring I tried to detox myself off of the subutex and all HELL BROKE loose...ill premise this by saying I injected subutex for 18 months prior --2mg 4-6x a day..and also got high a few times a month...anyways, I tried to take it sublingually with no hope. I could feel the hot flashes in my brain..I lie to u not, it was nasty and I'm still not fully right...my test went to 249 then I switched to methadone and it went down to 189..I wasn't on a high dose methadone but I felt better after a couple months on it than the sub...anyways, my LH(luteinizing hormone was < 1) my prolactin was > 60 4x higher than normal...I also developed two auto-immune disorders from the stress that I put on my body...I've had 2 doctors, a urologist and an endocrinologist tell me to get off the opiates...they also told me just to be safe, to get an MRI of my pituitary gland to make sure I don't have a tumor...It's taken me some time to get off the opiates and I haven't got the MRI yet but it's been about a month and At times i still feel like I got hit by a freight train...my libido--eh, maybe a little bet better, but still not NORMAL by any means..I've been on opiates everyday since about the year 2000 with the occasional rehab stint few and in between....but I would venture to say that in most cases, the worst culprits of dropping your T are subs and methadone due to them being synthetic and having such a long half life...people that due just heroin always seem to rebound faster in my opinion and can "stay clean.." However those of us that treaded into maintenance have to have a little bit more perseverance and motivation because this w/d and paws is no joke...If I could advise people, only use maintenance as a last case last resort scenario or be prepared to possibly be on it for your life...there's some stats behind this...u will find a very small amount of people that have been on maintenance for years that can get and stay off...In my opinion, just use it to detox...synthetic drugs may not kill as much as heroin, but its a long & slow suffering coming back to life getting off of them and getting 100% clean...
 
From the literature sexual activity does increase testosterone levels. To what amount/effect I don't know. I tried to increase my levels with a morning cleaning of the pipes so to speak b/f I started Testim and it did make a small but noticeable difference. There are ways to increase testosterone without taking the substance itself, as many above suggested many ways to do this. I don't know if someone posted above but supposedly the precursor to testosterone DHEA helps. It did jack crap for me. It's OTC in the US and sold as a "supplement", GNC and places like that should stock it. It's an oral tablet or capsule.

do not take any dhea, it's not something you can stay on and it's actually toxic to your body. prohormones and oral steroids are no substitue for real testosterone replacement.

if you feel like you absolutely couldn't live without the opiates for the rest of your life because of whatever reason, you might want to think about getting on a testosterone replacement therapy... that'll work, but it will also probably be for life.

when i'm on real traditional opiates like morphine and oxy i don't think i can build muscle and get stronger like normal. i haven't tried this in years though. however i'm switching back and forth between tramadol and tapentadol these days, and these pills seem to not affect my progress in the gym in anyway. i have heard that suboxone also doesn't affect testosterone levels like traditional opiates. you might want to think about switching to one of those opioids if results in the gym are important to you. sometimes i actually feel like i'm able to crank out a few more reps because i don't really feel the burn as much.
 
I'm 33, in pain management, and take hydrocodone as well as oxycodone. I was feeling like crap and went to my family doctor and my testosterone level was tested. My
level was at 80. Normal is 300-900. They put me on weekly testosterone injections.

I'm with you on that. Mine tested at 90 and I started the gel immediately. Didn't take long before I felt immensely better. It's not just the libido, it's more a general feeling of well being; does that make sense? I'm not too sexual at my age but if I'm regular with the gel use (I forget all the time), I do notice a little tingling every now and then. Sort of like my weiner saying, hey don't forget about me down here! But to summarize, yes opiods do seriously lower T levels and every male pain patient should have it checked as a matter of course. Thank goodness modern medicine has a decent answer to the problem.
 
I'll likely be using opiates continuously for the rest of my life, for chronic pain. I'm concerned about maintaining my fitness level and libido, but I'm female. I know there's some precedent for using testosterone therapy in women, though it's rare. More common is progesterone, but I can't tolerate most progestins. Any thoughts on this issue as it regards to females generally or me specifically?
 
I'll likely be using opiates continuously for the rest of my life, for chronic pain. I'm concerned about maintaining my fitness level and libido, but I'm female. I know there's some precedent for using testosterone therapy in women, though it's rare. More common is progesterone, but I can't tolerate most progestins. Any thoughts on this issue as it regards to females generally or me specifically?

The only thing I can think of is to make sure to get all your hormone levels checked regularly. I'm not certain what effect opiates have on the female form (which I personally love!) but it may have an effect on them just like males but IDK. Better safe than sorry, right? Good luck with that from a fellow life-long pain patient who can relate.
 
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