Well, we had our visit with the specialist last week.  He gave us a little more information about the med’s he’s put us on, and what his tests found is, and isnt wrong with us.  First, the good news! 

My wife does not have a brain tumor.  I guess a cyst or tumor near the pituitary gland can cause hormonal imbalnaces, which is what the MRI was for.  THey wanted to be sure they werent dealing with a physical problem before treating it.  Her testosterone level is just slightly high, so the medicine they put her on is supposed to correct that.  After 6 months of this stuff called cabergolene its supposed to fix the imbalance, permenently.  Theyll of course re-test her after 6 months, and see if they were right.  Another test they did (i forget which one…) told them that her ovaries are not failing, which was good news too!  So it seems that her boat follows: She’s got thrombophelia, which is hereditary, and is corrected through medication.  She’s on a pill called folgard, which contains a number of vitimins that her body is lacking because of the thrombophelia.  So she’ll be on that for the rest of her life.  Acceptable if you ask me, after all, it’s just vitimins.  Then theres the testosterone thing, which they’re pretty confident they can correct through this medicine.

As for me, well they did a number of tests on me too, no MRI’s though.  But through their tests they were able to find that my testicles are also NOT failing, which is also good news.  And other than this elevated DHEAS issue that i talked about in my last entry, i check out ok.  They think that the elevated DHEAS is dropping my sperm count way down.  To the point where without treament, i’m pretty much sterile.  Which is a scarey thought.  The doctor seems to be pretty confident that the medicine he’s put me on will fix the DHEAS problem permenently after a year.  And while i’m on it, if that was indeed the cause of my terrible sperm count (ive always been bad at tests) my sperm count should start to return to normal. 

We’re both to be tested 1 month after we started out medication, to check on the hormone levels, and my sperm count will be re-tested.  That’s coming on July 12, less than 2 weeks away.

So, for anyone following along, here are the changes we’ve made to our lives as a result of this: We’ve both started eating healthier, i’ve been doing my best to start cutting out caffine.  Apparently caffine (among many many other things) is bad for you sperm count.  So i’ve cut myself back, i drink less coffee, and i try to limit my soda intake.  I used to drink Mt. Dew like water (a side-effect of working in IT for as long as i have) and by the way, that old "Mountain Dew will make you sterile" myth, it’s just that, a myth!  My wife’s been eating more food with the vitimins that she’s lacking to try to help things along.  It so happens that these are also foods that are generally good for you, and since she’s been trying to lose weight anyway, trading that lebnon sandwich for a spinach and pumpkin seed salad at lunch time wasnt that unwelcome of a change.  We’ve also started working out on a regular basis.  We try to get 2-3 distance runs in a week, and we’ve been weight training on a bow-flex, again, this all helps with overall fitness anyway, so it’s not a big deal.

We’re both on our perscription medications that i mentioned earlier, and I’ve started taking 60mg a day of zinc (2 30mg tablets, one in the morning, one before bed), and i’ve always taken a Centrum (or off-brand similar) multi-vitimin.

So, that’s it for now, i’ll be posting again once we get our next round of tests!