The Armor Men's Health Show

Bonus Episode: Want to Maximize Your Health? Dr. Mistry on the Benefits of Balanced Hormones and How to Find the Right T Supplement for You!

• Dr. Sandeep Mistry and Donna Lee

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In this episode, Dr. Mistry and Donna Lee answer listener questions about the impact of testosterone therapy on other aspects of one's health, such as heart disease, sleep hygiene, and even mental health. Many patients have had bad experiences with testosterone supplements or are afraid of potential side effects. Dr. Mistry reassures listeners that not only is hormone therapy safe, low T is actually a risk factor for heart disease! While there are many treatment options, our team at NAU Urology Specialists ensures that every patient gets the ideal hormone therapy for their needs.

The most common low T treatment method, injections like TriMix solution are convenient and affordable. For patients wanting to avoid needles, never fear--there are pills, creams, nasal sprays, and pellets, too! And while everyone knows good sleep is important aspect of health, most don't know that sleep apnea--a life-threatening condition that disrupts breathing during sleep--can actually cause low T; however,  testosterone supplementation in patients with undiagnosed sleep apnea can actually exacerbate this condition, so it's crucial to eliminate sleep apnea as a potential cause of low T before starting any supplementation regime. If you or someone you love has low T and would like to learn more about these and other safe, minimally invasive hormone therapies, please give us a call today!

Voted top Men's Health Podcast, Sex Therapy Podcast, and Prostate Cancer Podcast by FeedSpot

Dr. Mistry is a board-certified urologist and has been treating patients in the Austin and Greater Williamson County area since he started his private practice in 2007.

We enjoy hearing from you! Email us at armormenshealth@gmail.com and we’ll answer your question in an upcoming episode.

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Speaker 1:

<silence>

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Armor Men's Health Show with Dr. Mystery and Donna Lee.

Speaker 3:

Hello and welcome to the Armor Men's Health Show. This is Dr. Mystery , your host, as always, gifted by my wonderful co-host Donnelly. Mm ,

Speaker 4:

That's right. I enjoy these nice words now that everybody likes me better than you.

Speaker 3:

And you may wonder why Donna is my co-host because she was my office manager. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And now she's our business development manager. That's right. But her true credibility comes from the fact that she is a professional comedian.

Speaker 4:

I try real hard . I was the seventh funniest moment in America, you

Speaker 3:

Know, seventh funniest voted by whom?

Speaker 4:

By Nick at Knight . It's legit. I got street cred.

Speaker 3:

She has street cred. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Uh , you deleted all the YouTube videos though, right?

Speaker 4:

I did. I have one, but I deleted most of them . But I have new videos coming up soon, so I'll be on the lookout for that. I'll promote it shamelessly later.

Speaker 3:

And I'll tell you, her ego is tremendous <laugh> . So if you email us and she will get you a free shirt, she will make sure that you are AVIP status when you come to our clinic. That's right. And if people wanna see us , uh, the show is brought to you by NAU Urology Specialist. The Urology Specialty Clinic that I started in 2007. How do they get ahold of us?

Speaker 4:

You can reach out to me directly. I'll give you a free T-shirt if you mention it. And it's armor men's health.com. That's our website. But you can submit your questions there and you can call us during the week at 5 1 2 2 3 8 0 7 6 2. I forget that somebody told me to slow down when I do that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah , slow down. Slow down. So , uh, when we're doing this show, we talk about many different topics. It's a podcast too, correct? Correct.

Speaker 4:

Everywhere you listen to free podcasts, check out our podcast,

Speaker 3:

A-R-M-O-R , men's Men's

Speaker 4:

Health

Speaker 3:

Health Show. That's where you look. And so , um, if you want to find our past episodes, but we love the fact that we can connect with our listeners through the radio. And so we often see patients , uh, with a multitude of different men's health issues. But Donna, what is one of our big ones that we see all the time,

Speaker 4:

Aside from erectile dysfunction, what do we talk about all day? Every day ? Testosterone,

Speaker 3:

Low testosterone. That's right. And so , um, we do an amazing low testosterone clinic. Uh, we have thousands of patients on testosterone that we treat. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Uh , and we'd love your questions on it. So, Donna, do you have a question? Well, I

Speaker 4:

Have a question directly, and then we also have a question from a listener. But what does testosterone do? Why don't we break it down? 'cause we haven't talked about testosterone in a while . Why are men obsessed with it? Why are women scared of it? What , why do we treat it?

Speaker 3:

So, generally speaking, testosterone is of hormone that is made primarily by the testicles, but also the ovaries. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And in men, it, it results in secondary sexual characteristics. So, very early in our fetal life, there's a spike <affirmative> that gives us nuts and penis. Oh . And then later we have another spike that gives us genital hair growth and sperm production. Okay . So both those spikes are very important. And then as we age and as we get beyond our reproductive Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , the body starts treating testosterone a little differently because

Speaker 4:

It, it's mad. It's body gets mad.

Speaker 3:

It's mad. And that's why so many things end in our lives once we, you know, stop trying to have babies. Right. If you're not, your prostate gets ruined. You know, your testicles can get smaller. And our bodies want us to procreate. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . But you know what? If you're 50,

Speaker 4:

You ain't procreate

Speaker 3:

And you've had all their children and you already had the mystery vasectomy, <laugh> , you know, like, perhaps this is not the time for your body to worry about you proc. Right. And if you're sick, if you're fat, if you have high cholesterol Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , if you have high , uh, blood pressure, your body's not like, Hey, you know what, let's go make a baby because you're gonna be dead soon. No. And so that's not good. Wow. And so being healthy keeps a good testosterone, working out, keeps a good testosterone, you know, continuously having sex keeps a good testosterone. These are good things to make things better. Sorry to your husband. I

Speaker 4:

Know. Can't we just do injections instead?

Speaker 3:

That's okay. At least he's rich <laugh>. So what's the question? He's cute .

Speaker 4:

Oh, yeah . We have a question from a patient who is concerned about testosterone. This gentleman who sent us an email says, hi, Dr . Mistry . I'm in my fifties. I take high blood pressure medicine and I have high cholesterol. Last year I had some surgical issues and had open heart surgery. So I'm wondering if testosterone is a good option for me.

Speaker 3:

So the first issue is whether or not testosterone therapy contributes to cardiovascular disease. And about 10 years ago when I first got into practice, maybe 15, there was a study released that suggested that men on testosterone had more stroke and heart attack. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And so it scared a lot of cardiologists and primary care doctors and a lot of people away from testosterone therapy. Right. Just this year, a new study was released that showed that there was no association between testosterone therapy and what we call major advanced cardiac events, MACE events. And so that has shown or proven to us as urologists things that we've known forever. It's not the testosterone therapy that causes heart attacks, it's the low testosterone in the first place. Oh . So when you have a low testosterone referral , great number of years, you're at a greater risk for developing stroke and heart attack. So for us, we believe that low testosterone contributes to these type of adverse events. And so it's important for us to identify men that'll do better on testosterone therapy. There are certain men that do really well on it . Men with depression, the hope men with anxiety. Really all of our , uh, irritable bowel patients. Why are patients with colitis like , uh, Crohn's disease?

Speaker 4:

Why are those particularly good on testosterone?

Speaker 3:

There is something about the growth potential or the growth impact of testosterone. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> that leads to better urinary and bowel health. Oh , we see it time and time again. So if you have ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease and you haven't had the level measured , uh, that's important as part of your treatment regimen. Okay. Another group of patients is those on chronic opioids. So opioids is a bad word nowadays, but there are millions of people out there who are on chronic opioids for chronic pain. Okay? And so, opioid use leads to low testosterone epileptics, people on epilepsy medicines. They also have low testosterone very frequently. So by supplementing testosterone in this patient group, we end up with better outcomes for these patients. And so, if you have had a cardiac event, could you imagine you're weak. You're trying to gain muscle mass, you're trying to walk again, you're trying to exercise. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . But if your testosterone level is 200 normal is between three 15 and a thousand mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , then it's probably gonna be harder to gain that muscle mass back to get that energy, to get that motivation to do things to make yourself healthier. So if your doctor is against testosterone, then you're not gonna be offered testosterone. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And so in our clinic, we are very concerned with making your life better. Right?

Speaker 4:

We offer everyone testosterone, even the small children and the cats and dogs .

Speaker 3:

We do not do that. <laugh> , we do not do that. But if they roll around on the cream, then who knows?

Speaker 4:

No . You never know what

Speaker 3:

Happens . I think a cat on testosterone would be weird.

Speaker 4:

That would be weird. I have cats. And that would be strange.

Speaker 3:

So if you have a concern about low testosterone, you come to see us and you don't just get a testosterone level, right? That's what you get at one of these pop-up low T clinics. And so I didn't

Speaker 4:

'em to pay a lot.

Speaker 3:

And when you go there, you just get a testosterone measurement. And that is such a unit dimensional way of looking at you, right? We wanna make sure that your cholesterol is normal, your thyroid's normal, that you're not depressed or have anxiety issues. We wanna make sure that you don't have sleep apnea, that your sleep patterns are normal. We wanna make sure that your blood pressure's normal. And then when it comes to weight and weight management, we also help with that.

Speaker 4:

Hmm . What do we do with that?

Speaker 3:

Well, you know, <laugh> , we do a lot and we do a lot with it. So we have a health coach in-house that helps to give you advice on supplements and natural ways of improving your testosterone. And we also do medication management. Uh, many popular weight loss medications are offered by pop-up weight loss clinics at a high rate of pay. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And we offer it at very low rates because in the end, what we want is for you to feel better. Right? We're not here to make money off you losing weight. We want you to leave here thinking to yourselves, man, I lost weight. My testosterone's better. My erections are better, my energy's better. These guys did a really great job for me. All covered in our insurance , uh, when it comes to the clinic visits. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And many of the costs that we have for our compounded drugs are very cheap.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. I mean, I've seen the prices recently for some other wellness clinics in the area. And I mean, that's a lot. People are paying thousands of dollars a month.

Speaker 3:

I think that people get desperate. Uh, they want a quick fix solution. Right. Which there's no quick fixes in life, especially affects your

Speaker 4:

Health. I don't know . I'm on semaglutide. That fixed me real quick. <laugh>.

Speaker 3:

Well, you were , you were beautiful before. Aw . But you can never be too thin or too rich. That's right. And so , uh, when it comes to testosterone management, it is something that we do quite a bit of. And for this particular listener, mm-Hmm .

Speaker 4:

Don't be scared.

Speaker 3:

It is better to be with a normal testosterone level for your cholesterol and for your blood pressure and for your cardiac disease than it is to be without a normal testosterone. Mm-Hmm . We will do it safely. We'll monitor you carefully and we'll make sure that you are getting the best care

Speaker 4:

And you get lots of options

Speaker 3:

And you have lots of options. And so, testosterone management is a catch-all term. But understanding the right way to fix your testosterone is what we are experts at . And we have an amazing, you know, array of doctors and nurse practitioners and PAs that can take care of your testosterone issues. So if you're looking for the next level mm-Hmm , <affirmative> of your T ,

Speaker 4:

The T, the

Speaker 3:

T, how do people come and see us?

Speaker 4:

You can call us regarding your T and testosterone at 5 1 2 2 3 8 0 7 6 2. Visit our website and send in your questions just like this one. And we'll answer them anonymously to armor men's health.com. And you can check out our podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. We're in central Texas, round Rock, north Austin, south Austin , and Dripping Springs.

Speaker 3:

Hello and welcome to the Armor Men's Health Show. This is Dr. Your host, wonderfully greeting you to an amazing show that we love to deliver to you. I am joined by my co-host, Donna Lee.

Speaker 4:

I know now why you were so nice to me in the earlier segments. Why is that? Because I have all your secrets.

Speaker 3:

You have all of my secrets.

Speaker 4:

<laugh>,

Speaker 3:

Donna and I have been together for how long?

Speaker 4:

We've been doing the show for four years. We've been together seven years, almost seven years. But we've known each other nine

Speaker 3:

Years. Every year you're with me, you get a sperm pin on your jacket and you have six sperm pins.

Speaker 4:

That's right. I am loaded with the sperms on my lapel.

Speaker 3:

She has more sperm on her clothes than Monica Lewinsky. Oh ,

Speaker 4:

Absolutely. That's right.

Speaker 3:

That's a joke. That is a recurrent joke on this podcast and radio show

Speaker 4:

About retrograde.

Speaker 3:

Retrograde. It's one of my favorite things . President Clinton. I'm a urologist, a board certified urologist. That means that I take care of things between the nipples and the knees. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And we'd love to take care of your urologic issues. And Donna, how do people get ahold of us? You

Speaker 4:

Can reach out to us during the week. You can even ask for me 5 1 2 2 3 8 0 7 6 2 . Our website is armor men's health.com where you can submit your amazing questions and we'll answer them anonymously. And we're located in Round Rock, north Austin. South Austin in Dripping Springs, Texas.

Speaker 3:

So this last week I was joined by , uh, a patient. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And he was on testosterone.

Speaker 4:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

And he told me that his insurance stopped paying for it. And I said, okay, what symptoms did you have? He goes, I had low energy, poor mood, I was overweight, low libido and erectile dysfunction. I'm like, man, that's terrible. How'd you do on testosterone? He goes, oh, everything got fixed.

Speaker 4:

So he's been off for how long?

Speaker 3:

Two years or 10

Speaker 4:

Years . Wow.

Speaker 3:

And I said, why'd you get off? He goes, my insurance stopped paid for. I said, do you know how much testosterone costs costs ? $20 a month. Are you sure you can't handle it <laugh> ,

Speaker 4:

Unless you go to a pop-up clinic that it's $60 a week.

Speaker 3:

And so it, you know, made me realize that my listeners need to know that good health does not have to be super expensive. Right. We offer so many amazing options for testosterone therapy that cannot break the bank even if you don't technically qualify for testosterone therapy with your insurance. Right. And if you are an insurance company, Donna, would you make it hard or easy to get something?

Speaker 4:

Yes. I'm going to not want you to do things that benefit you and I'm not gonna wanna pay for it if I'm an insurance company. Like

Speaker 3:

It's for sure. Like , you have to understand that your insurance company is not really there to help pay for what you want or what you need. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And so when it comes to cash pay , testosterone issues , uh, that's what I really wanna talk about. Okay. Uh , and so we offer many different forms of testosterone therapy. And Donna, I'm gonna let you tell our listeners all the different ways we do testosterone therapy

Speaker 4:

Because I am Dr . Donna.

Speaker 3:

Dr . Donna.

Speaker 4:

I used to get the injections, but now I'm taking the testosterone cream. I apply it to my forearm every morning. I feel pretty great all the time. But we do offer the injections. That's called testosterone cate . And that's what you were referencing is the $20 a month because we have an amazing compound pharmacy that provides testosterone recipient eight . The injections you can do at home for roughly $65 for three months. So that's

Speaker 3:

Right. Really 20 injections for a standard dose. Right. Which is about three months for $65. That's right. With a needle. If

Speaker 4:

You're scared of giving yourself an injection, you can come to our , one of our locations on certain times of the day, between eight and eight 30, and between four and four 30. And you can get your testosterone injection with us. And we'll do it real

Speaker 3:

Quick. And if you do it yourself, meaning you bring your own testosterone, we charge you $20. Yeah. We should give you the

Speaker 4:

Injection. Raise that price.

Speaker 3:

That's neither everybody tells me I should raise it, but that's, that's for the chickens out there. Yeah. I shouldn't charge chickens out there.

Speaker 4:

Okay . We're not charging the chickens. Oh , and then there's also these other options too. Like nasals gel. That's a testosterone, right? Yeah. And then there's, what else is there? What am I forgetting? You're

Speaker 3:

Forgetting so many. Oh, let's start from the head to the toe. Okay. Okay. So you can get a nasal gel called NATO that is a prescription agent that costs several hundred dollars a month.

Speaker 4:

Several hundred dollars

Speaker 3:

A month. Yes. Oh , but that's a prescription agent.

Speaker 4:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

There's a sublingual testosterone you can take a little bitty pill that you put under your tongue that dissolves in it .

Speaker 4:

Oh, that's right.

Speaker 3:

We have testosterone that you can do as a gel. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . You can do it under your arms, you can do it on your chest. And there's even one that goes on your testicles.

Speaker 4:

Oh, really?

Speaker 3:

And that's all psychology. There's no difference between the skin is that some guys liked the ones they rubbed on their nuts.

Speaker 4:

They just like to rub their nuts.

Speaker 3:

I think it's because when it comes to gels, people are concerned about transference, getting it on somebody. And you know, if your husband had gel on his nuts, he wouldn't have to worry about it . Again , I'm transferred to You never transfer . You haven't seen them once a year on his birthday. Maybe.

Speaker 4:

That's right. Meanwhile , maybe,

Speaker 3:

Maybe, you know what I'm saying? It depends on how big the purse was. <laugh> That's right . For your , for his birthday <laugh> . And so then we have under the arms , um, which , uh, can be used so that there's less transference risk on the chest if you're walking around bare chested all the time. And if you don't want that, let me That's right. Then we have injections, but we also have the pellet option. Mm ,

Speaker 4:

That's right. The easy one And done.

Speaker 3:

The pellet option we offer is called Biot. And fascinating to me is that Biot thinks they're only a company for women.

Speaker 4:

That's right. They're mostly geared towards women.

Speaker 3:

They think they're only for women. They even have a flower on their logo.

Speaker 4:

Oh yeah. They dot

Speaker 3:

But we offer pellet therapy for men. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And the pellets are amazing. What's great about pellets is that you put 'em in every six months. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , it costs what in our office, six 50 mm-Hmm . <affirmative> six 50 for six months of therapy. You never have to inject. And it gives you a constant level of testosterone during that time. Right. And then we can manage other issues with you, your sleep apnea, your cholesterol issues, your weight issues, and then of course stuff that you think a urologist does. Your erectile dysfunction and you're in large prostate, your kidney stones and everything else between nipples and knees. And so the pellet therapy, in my opinion, is the best option, especially for younger men who don't want to inject, who don't want to come into the office and who want a stable level. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Okay. Now you had pellets at some point.

Speaker 4:

I did. And it's easy breezy, but tell everybody listening how easy it is to apply. They just put it where on

Speaker 3:

There's a small incision, it's less than a centimeter in size. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And we tunnel it under the skin into the area of the buttocks for a man. Like right where your belt buckle would go maybe like three inches below that kind of over one of your buttocks. And then we insert these pellets underneath and it dissolves slowly. What you get as a benefit is you don't get the spikes and troughs of injections. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . If you're a man out there and your protocol is to inject one cc of testosterone every two weeks, you need to come in and see me because that is the wrong regimen. It is too high of a dose, it's too low of a trough, and you are going to get complications like elevated red blood cell count. So if you're out there and you are donating blood regularly because your blood cell count is too high because of testosterone, you need to see us because the lower dose done more frequently helps reduce that pellets, help reduce it. And managing your sleep apnea also reduces it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , a lot of our patients are curious why we ask about sleep apnea when they come into our office. Mm-Hmm.

Speaker 4:

<affirmative> , they sure do,

Speaker 3:

But they don't know, or they may not realize that sleep apnea contributes to high red blood cell counts. It contributes to fatigue, weight gain, high cortisol levels, which is a stress hormone in our body. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> that makes us not heal well and makes our blood sugar not work well. And also gets us up at night to pee more often. So there are so many reasons why an advanced men's health program can help benefit what you need or what you want as a man. And when it comes to testosterone therapy, we offer so many great options that don't think that you're handcuffed by your provider. We would love to see you as a patient. I

Speaker 4:

Have a quick question. Yeah . About the biot pellets. Tell the listeners why you prefer Biot rather than some of the compound pharmacies or other pellets that are out there.

Speaker 3:

It's a great question because cost is important. And if you're a listener of ours, I always tell people cost. I'm transparent. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , because I don't want you to spend more money than you need to spend. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . But when it comes to testosterone pellets, you can either get them from a certified regular compounding pharmacy like Biot in which you get a good pellet every time. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , and this is not me selling, this is me telling. Right . If you get a drug from a pharmacy that does fewer pellets, every pellet can be a little different. You could run into these sterility issues because it's something that put, you know , in your body, it needs to be sterile. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And they're cheaper, but they break, they, they're not as like, you know, solid of a pellet and you cannot get reliable results. Hmm . So I decided that for my patients, we're going to take a more expensive pellet. Something that is tried and true Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And that we know it's gonna work even though it costs a little more. But our pelting rate is 90%, which means that our patients are so happy that 90% of them get pellets again. Wow . And if you don't like it is no, no skin off our nose, we will switch you over to injections. Right. There'll be no harm to you and no, you know, we're not gonna get mad at you for not doing the pellet. You won't

Speaker 4:

Hurt our feelings. We

Speaker 3:

Want you to get what's best for you. And that's really the hallmark of our practice. We are have a very proud practice with amazing practitioners. And Donna, if you , uh, want to tell a patient how to become a patient of ours, how do

Speaker 4:

They do that? That's right. You can call us for more information and to learn more about testosterone and Biot at 5 1 2 2 3 8 0 7 6 2 , you can check out our website, armor men's health.com. And remember, we're in Round Rock , north Austin, south Austin in Dripping Springs, Texas. And check out our podcasts wherever you listen to free podcast. Thanks, Dr. Mr Street . Thanks

Speaker 2:

Tyler . The Armor Men's Health Show is brought to you by NAU Urology Specialist. For questions or to schedule an appointment, please call 5 1 2 2 3 8 0 7 6 2 or online at armor men's health.com.