The Army is getting testosterone screening. Whooora!!!

[sfkid]

Mandatory screening for low T, and replacement on request for men and women past 30.

Military.com: Hegseth orders mandatory testosterone screening, with optional TRT for troops aged 30 and up



First beards, then body fat, then fitness tests, and now hormones. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth keeps remaking the force.

www.military.com

 

[lastresort]

I am on TRT myself, but this is a dumb idea. Testosterone has nothing to do with how competent a soldier actually is

 

[Mochizuki0124]

lastresort said:

I am on TRT myself, but this is a dumb idea. Testosterone has nothing to do with how competent a soldier actually is

Plenty of servicemembers are already on gear, so why not just make it free where its needed. Also, pulling people back to baseline has been shown to help with cognitive function, recovery, weight loss and so on. If I had to pick between a Low T guy and a High T guy as my battle w/out knowing anything else about either of them, im taking the high T guy 10/10.

 

[randompersonrandom]

I am so tired. My brain read that as "tret coming to the US Army," and I thought — wait, are the enlisted wrinkly? Are we bothered by that? Or are they? And do they get sunscreen? They really should, whether or not they are using tretinoin....

 

[lastresort]

randompersonrandom said:

I am so tired. My brain read that as "tret coming to the US Army," and I thought — wait, are the enlisted wrinkly? Are we bothered by that? Or are they? And do they get sunscreen? They really should, whether or not they are using tretinoin....

Is the skincare crowd joining the military next?

Mochizuki0124 said:

lastresort said:

I am on TRT myself, but this is a dumb idea. Testosterone has nothing to do with how competent a soldier actually is

Plenty of servicemembers are already on gear, so why not just make it free where its needed. Also, pulling people back to baseline has been shown to help with cognitive function, recovery, weight loss and so on. If I had to pick between a Low T guy and a High T guy as my battle w/out knowing anything else about either of them, im taking the high T guy 10/10.

Mine is an unpopular opinion, but if your low T is what makes you bad at your job, you are still going to be bad at it whatever your T. I ran low T for many years and it did not stop me finishing my education with top marks.

Insurers clearly make TRT hard to get, since they hide behind a deceptively wide "normal" T range to throttle prescriptions — and yet many men act like it will fix everything. It does not. I am still obese, and my temper is still delightfully cranky.

 

[Mochizuki0124]

lastresort said:

randompersonrandom said:

I am so tired. My brain read that as "tret coming to the US Army," and I thought — wait, are the enlisted wrinkly? Are we bothered by that? Or are they? And do they get sunscreen? They really should, whether or not they are using tretinoin....

Is the skincare crowd joining the military next?

Mochizuki0124 said:

lastresort said:

I am on TRT myself, but this is a dumb idea. Testosterone has nothing to do with how competent a soldier actually is

Plenty of servicemembers are already on gear, so why not just make it free where its needed. Also, pulling people back to baseline has been shown to help with cognitive function, recovery, weight loss and so on. If I had to pick between a Low T guy and a High T guy as my battle w/out knowing anything else about either of them, im taking the high T guy 10/10.

Mine is an unpopular opinion, but if your low T is what makes you bad at your job, you are still going to be bad at it whatever your T. I ran low T for many years and it did not stop me finishing my education with top marks.

Insurers clearly make TRT hard to get, since they hide behind a deceptively wide "normal" T range to throttle prescriptions — and yet many men act like it will fix everything. It does not. I am still obese, and my temper is still delightfully cranky.

That is true, but why not do something that helps them improve, even by 1%. Or maybe high t will not help them, but at least they tried.

You mentioned finishing your education with flying colors. So let me ask: if you could rewind and run high T levels through your classes, with or without TRT, wouldn't you rather have done that stretch with high T?

Suma cum laude, and my BS done while battling severe sleep apnea and ridiculous low T. I am on TRT for my Masters now, and I am confident I will land the same results as my bachelor's, just with far less stress.

 

[lastresort]

Mochizuki0124 said:

lastresort said:

randompersonrandom said:

I am so tired. My brain read that as "tret coming to the US Army," and I thought — wait, are the enlisted wrinkly? Are we bothered by that? Or are they? And do they get sunscreen? They really should, whether or not they are using tretinoin....

Is the skincare crowd joining the military next?

Mochizuki0124 said:

lastresort said:

I am on TRT myself, but this is a dumb idea. Testosterone has nothing to do with how competent a soldier actually is

Plenty of servicemembers are already on gear, so why not just make it free where its needed. Also, pulling people back to baseline has been shown to help with cognitive function, recovery, weight loss and so on. If I had to pick between a Low T guy and a High T guy as my battle w/out knowing anything else about either of them, im taking the high T guy 10/10.

Mine is an unpopular opinion, but if your low T is what makes you bad at your job, you are still going to be bad at it whatever your T. I ran low T for many years and it did not stop me finishing my education with top marks.

Insurers clearly make TRT hard to get, since they hide behind a deceptively wide "normal" T range to throttle prescriptions — and yet many men act like it will fix everything. It does not. I am still obese, and my temper is still delightfully cranky.

That is true, but why not do something that helps them improve, even by 1%. Or maybe high t will not help them, but at least they tried.

You mentioned finishing your education with flying colors. So let me ask: if you could rewind and run high T levels through your classes, with or without TRT, wouldn't you rather have done that stretch with high T?

Suma cum laude, and my BS done while battling severe sleep apnea and ridiculous low T. I am on TRT for my Masters now, and I am confident I will land the same results as my bachelor's, just with far less stress.

......No ? because the end result would have been the same either way. But I am a weird one.

Anyway, if the army gets that, then all us peon men should too.

 

[Mochizuki0124]

lastresort said:

Mochizuki0124 said:

lastresort said:

randompersonrandom said:

I am so tired. My brain read that as "tret coming to the US Army," and I thought — wait, are the enlisted wrinkly? Are we bothered by that? Or are they? And do they get sunscreen? They really should, whether or not they are using tretinoin....

Is the skincare crowd joining the military next?

Mochizuki0124 said:

lastresort said:

I am on TRT myself, but this is a dumb idea. Testosterone has nothing to do with how competent a soldier actually is

Plenty of servicemembers are already on gear, so why not just make it free where its needed. Also, pulling people back to baseline has been shown to help with cognitive function, recovery, weight loss and so on. If I had to pick between a Low T guy and a High T guy as my battle w/out knowing anything else about either of them, im taking the high T guy 10/10.

Mine is an unpopular opinion, but if your low T is what makes you bad at your job, you are still going to be bad at it whatever your T. I ran low T for many years and it did not stop me finishing my education with top marks.

Insurers clearly make TRT hard to get, since they hide behind a deceptively wide "normal" T range to throttle prescriptions — and yet many men act like it will fix everything. It does not. I am still obese, and my temper is still delightfully cranky.

That is true, but why not do something that helps them improve, even by 1%. Or maybe high t will not help them, but at least they tried.

You mentioned finishing your education with flying colors. So let me ask: if you could rewind and run high T levels through your classes, with or without TRT, wouldn't you rather have done that stretch with high T?

Suma cum laude, and my BS done while battling severe sleep apnea and ridiculous low T. I am on TRT for my Masters now, and I am confident I will land the same results as my bachelor's, just with far less stress.

......No ? because the end result would have been the same either way. But I am a weird one.

Anyway, if the army gets that, then all us peon men should too.

So you would rather crawl over the finish line than sprint there. Gotcha.

 

[lastresort]

I own a scooter, so I rode that instead of crawling.

 

[Tbagger]

Military service is a hugely demanding job, mentally and physically. TRT will 100% help any soldier suffering from low T. Claiming otherwise shows a fundamental lack of understanding of either the treatment or the job. I am glad you got through your schooling with low T, but fighting wars is hardly the same thing lol.

 

[Pete369]

Finally. Levels keep sliding downward, so at least treatment should stop looking exotic. Which is rich coming from me - the only reason I ended up at a clinic is that my primary care doctor would rather stay inside whatever the insurer reimburses. Were I the one carrying a rifle, I would absolutely take the added confidence and edge on top of better recovery, more strength and longer endurance.

 

[mtomm]

Any of the women here: picture being offered hormone screening and follow-up care on this scale. It honestly makes me furious.

And my hope is that whatever gets rolled out for women goes well past plain testosterone.

 

[randompersonrandom]

mtomm said:

Any of the women here: picture being offered hormone screening and follow-up care on this scale. It honestly makes me furious.

And my hope is that whatever gets rolled out for women goes well past plain testosterone.

Careful now, that line makes it sound as if women are actual human beings!

 

[Tbagger]

lastresort said:

randompersonrandom said:

I am so tired. My brain read that as "tret coming to the US Army," and I thought — wait, are the enlisted wrinkly? Are we bothered by that? Or are they? And do they get sunscreen? They really should, whether or not they are using tretinoin....

Is the skincare crowd joining the military next?

Mochizuki0124 said:

lastresort said:

I am on TRT myself, but this is a dumb idea. Testosterone has nothing to do with how competent a soldier actually is

Plenty of servicemembers are already on gear, so why not just make it free where its needed. Also, pulling people back to baseline has been shown to help with cognitive function, recovery, weight loss and so on. If I had to pick between a Low T guy and a High T guy as my battle w/out knowing anything else about either of them, im taking the high T guy 10/10.

Mine is an unpopular opinion, but if your low T is what makes you bad at your job, you are still going to be bad at it whatever your T. I ran low T for many years and it did not stop me finishing my education with top marks.

Insurers clearly make TRT hard to get, since they hide behind a deceptively wide "normal" T range to throttle prescriptions — and yet many men act like it will fix everything. It does not. I am still obese, and my temper is still delightfully cranky.

I finished my degree and held down a job while carrying the extra weight, so by that logic nobody needs a GLP1 or any peptide treatment and you should just keep being a fat, bitter guy. Notice how stupid the argument sounds once it is aimed back at you?

 

[lessthanhalf]

I genuinely struggle to see how pushing the average aggression level of the force upward makes the army work better. No other motive for it comes to mind. Unless the real aim is simply quality of life for people who serve? Almost everything that happens outside a major war is not combat, so extra testosterone has no obvious use there. Huge amounts of training, logistics, maintenance and sheer day-to-day keeping-things-running are involved, and in that world surplus aggression only creates friction between people. I am not sure of the headcount in the US military - a million, maybe more - but only a tiny fraction will ever be anywhere near active fighting. To me that reads like a public relations exercise rather than a real medical or even military measure.

The little contact I have had with service members from other countries left the impression that they guard any psychological or psychiatric disclosure very closely, for fear that whatever they admit gets held against them later. And the nastiest side effects of replacing testosterone tend to be psychiatric or personality changes, aggression included, though usually at doses above replacement. So when something does go wrong, speaking up may be the hardest part.

 

[RetCurious]

Pete369 said:

Finally. Levels keep sliding downward, so at least treatment should stop looking exotic. Which is rich coming from me - the only reason I ended up at a clinic is that my primary care doctor would rather stay inside whatever the insurer reimburses. Were I the one carrying a rifle, I would absolutely take the added confidence and edge on top of better recovery, more strength and longer endurance.

Too much swagger and a short fuse are a quick route to getting yourself killed.

 

[ThatNextGril]

mtomm said:

Any of the women here: picture being offered hormone screening and follow-up care on this scale. It honestly makes me furious.

And my hope is that whatever gets rolled out for women goes well past plain testosterone.

Speaking as a woman who cannot even get estrogen patches covered at the moment thanks to the shortage, that is exactly what I take from it.

 

[bay_area_schizo]

honestly I keep going back and forth on it. for guys with genuinely low T this could be a genuinely good thing....but handled badly it becomes a mess of side effects nobody planned for.

and I would love to hear the real motive....who ends up holding the testing contract?

 

[ColdSmoke]

bay_area_schizo said:

honestly I keep going back and forth on it. for guys with genuinely low T this could be a genuinely good thing....but handled badly it becomes a mess of side effects nobody planned for.

and I would love to hear the real motive....who ends up holding the testing contract?

This is going to be a mess. Suppose for a moment they can even handle the blood draws on their own. Now picture the scheduling, the follow-up, the dosing… same story. And the amount of crap a member will catch from his own peers after a low result is going to be genuinely grim. Bad idea all round.

 

[Tbagger]

People, please - nobody is handing out tren here. This is replacement therapy prescribed for hypogonadism, not a supraphysiological dose. It makes an enormous difference to daily life and eases a long list of both mental and physical complaints. Behaving recklessly and aggressively is not what hormone replacement does. That comes from running gear at high doses, which is a completely different animal, and the gap between the two is wide.