Luteinizing Hormone 13 on 1.7-8.6 Way elevated. What's happening to me?

August 29, 2017 11:44 AM

Male - 30s, Blood test was done following a car accident. TSH 0.809 on 0.450-4.5000 Reference Interval. Luteinizing Hormone 13 on 1.7-8.6 Reference Interval. Prolactin 11.2 on 4.0 - 15.2 Reference Inrerval.

Doctor is super concerned. Can someone tell me some things about this because one Google Search and I find out this means my 'downstairs area is dead'? What? Am I infertile? (Would explain lots of sex with no condoms and never any scares with all my ex gfs)..

Note: They told me I also suffered a severe concussion that left me with mild congnitive impairment. Not taking anything for pain except Gabapentin and Diazepam for PTSD/anxiety. My memory loss is terrible and I am extremely fatigued. I often forget to eat and it feels like someone is taking memories out of my head day by day. Vertigo as well.

posted by cheero to Health & Fitness (4 answers total)

This is important but not about the hormone: Gabapentin can produce bad, serious side effects like you're describing. Someone in my family was prescribed it for pain and became very foggy and fatigued as you describe, to a frightening degree. Symptoms resolved when the gabapentin was discontinued. If you continue to be foggy, talk to your doctor about whether you can try an alternative to the gabapentin to see if that helps, or even try discontinuing it. (It's often ineffective for pain and some doctors no longer prescribe it because its effectiveness-to-side-effects ratio is so bad.)
posted by Frowner at 11:56 AM on August 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I've taken Gabapentin before -- 6 years ago for nerve pain following another rear-end collision but I never had any of those symptoms you speak of. Even a year on Gabapentin (1800mg) per day I did not have a withdrawal so I can't say anything bad about Gabapentin as a medication. It worked.
posted by cheero at 12:00 PM on August 29, 2017

Best answer: It sounds like the website you read is talking about low testosterone. Luteinizing Hormone is a signal your body sends to your testicles to get them to make more testosterone. So really high LH levels sometimes mean your testicles aren't producing enough T on their own, and your body is cranking the LH way up to try to get more out of them, like a driver flooring the gas pedal in a car that isn't putting out enough power.

Here's the thing. There is a lot of scare-tactics bullshit online about low testosterone. Lots of companies want to prey on men's insecurities by convincing them they have low T and then selling them some snake-oil placebo "supplement" to fix it. So I would be really, really cautious about getting your information about this online.

If you think you have low T, your doctor can test it directly. If they haven't already done a testosterone test, ask them to do one. If you don't feel like your doctor is taking this seriously enough, or if they're stumped, ask for a referral to an endocrinologist. That's a kind of doctor that specializes in all kinds of hormone problems, so they'll be able to tell you more about what's going on with your testosterone and what's going on with your LH and prolactin.

In the meantime, don't assume you're infertile. Some guys with low T still keep producing viable sperm, and you don't even know if you have low T. Your good luck with past girlfriends could be because you're infertile, or it could be because they were, or because you just got lucky.
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:25 PM on August 29, 2017 [3 favorites]

Best answer: If you are concerned specifically about low T, and particularly if you ever care to have children in the future, you might consider seeing a reproductive endocrinologist. They deal with this all day long and can walk you through your options. Difficulty: they are generally not covered by insurance (though blood work usually is) and they are usually booked 2-4 months in advance for first consultations. You could book an appointment just to get on their schedule and then cancel if you feel your GP or insurance-covered endo is handling the issue well.
posted by vignettist at 5:33 PM on August 29, 2017