Which one to buy

I’d like to see this thread in one of the other forums, but as a newb I can’t put it there myself. So apologies in advance.

Here’s my dilemma. I’ve recently been diagnosed hypothyroid and very low testosterone. As a result, lately, I’ve been experiencing some difficulties getting or maintaining a full erection. I’ve been doing some basic PE exercises and that is helping, but I haven’t been very consistent, so I haven’t seen the gains that I’d like to see and my situation is starting to get worse.

I’ve mentioned the troubles to my wife of 18 years and she is understanding. She says that she hasn’t noticed, but I know she has. Just the other night we had quite a difficult time in bed because my equipment wasn’t cooperating.

Also, as a bit of background, we’ve had some issues in the past because I haven’t shared things with her that I should have, which has totally offended her and made her not trust me as much as I’d like. So, I don’t want to continue on with any further PE routine without letting her know my issues, concerns, and what I’m doing. I know that many here would say not to let her know, but I really feel the need to fill her in.

Now to the real dilemma, I’ve been considering 2 different devices pretty heavily to help me in my quest for better EQ and I’d also like to see a pretty big size improvement, especially girth, but length would also be very good. I’m looking at the Bathmate and also at the SizeGenetics extender (or something similar).

Whatever I order, I plan to tell my wife before I order it, and will need to provide some explanation as to what it’s for. I don’t think she’ll be too happy about the desire to increase my size, but know she’ll understand my concern about EQ. So, the Bathmate and the way it works will be pretty easy to show how it helps with EQ because of the actual forcing of blood into the penis while in use. I think the SizeGenetics is a little harder to attribute to EQ improvement since all their marketing is geared towards improving size.

Ideally, I’d like to get both devices and use the Bathmate in my morning shower and then use the SizeGenetics throughout the day to keep the extension. I work from home, so I can put in the hours in the extender.

I guess my big question for you all is - has anyone else used both of these devices together and seen good results? Also, if you had to pick just one to get, which one would it be? And, if I get the Bathmate alone, will it give me some length improvement, as well as, girth, or do I really need an extender for that?

Let’s have all the advice come with the caveat that I’m not likely to be consistent with any PE exercise other than using these devices. It’s not that I won’t try - I just know that I’m likely to be inconsistent, so I’d like to see if these tools would be useful in and of themselves without manual exercises.

Sorry for the long post, and I look forward to the advice.

I’d get the bathmate. It should be more effective in helping your EQ, which in my opinion is what you need to focus on. I’m sure you’ve also done what’s necessary to improve your thyroid and testosterone conditions? Both can be helped relatively simply, just a matter of what’s needed in your case. You may want to try some cialis or similar as well.

If you are after EQ then I suggest reading Avocet’s thread in the pumpers forum.

The simple thing is to start with a little investment (pump with a gauge) and get your EQ. Size increases will likely come but focus on your EQ first.

Quality pump + gauge + low pressure + steady practice = happy functioning cock.

Merlin

Jelqing is better than pumping IMHO and it costs less. You are a newbie, you don’t need any device. What you need is consistency and can’t be bought. If you can’t be consistent with the newbie routine, you’ll not be consistent with devices.

All my PE has been completely manual and so I can’t offer advise regarding the devices! The hypothyroidism however I have recently learnt quite a lot about.

A little known fact in the sporting world is that hyperthyroidism (too much thyroid hormone- the opposite of your problem) causes the slow twitch fibers in your muscle to change into fast twitch fibers. As a sprinter this of course interests me;) . I have thus made it my goal to become slightly Hyperthyroid. Therefore we are in some respect in the same boat!

Two natural herbs that have been shown to cure hypothyroidism are Forskolin and Ashwagandha. I ordered mine for a great price (Life Extensions and NOW brand, respectively) from Iherb and they seem to be doing the trick for me! Also, taking a good quality, unprocessed Coconut Oil and the amino acid L-Tyrosine will greatly boost your thyroid output. I also take Kelp for iodine as thyroid hormone is made from the stuff!

So yeah, my daily supplemental protocol:
Forskolin
Ashwagandha
L-Tyrosine
Kelp Tablets(for iodine)
Unprocessed Coconut Oil

Good luck!

Any specifics on why you think jelquing is better than pumping? And, I don’t disagree with you about the consistency being needed, but it is much easier to consistency where the Bathmate for 20 minutes while I’m showering anyways, or an extender while I’m sitting at the computer anyways. It’s a lot harder to take 30, 40, or more minutes to warm-up, stretch, jelq, stretch, kegel, stretch, cool-down, etc..

Thanks Merlin. I’ll take a look at that thread.

Thanks vintrig. Definitely have the thyroid under control with a small dose of Synthroid. Not happy about it, but it’s working. The testosterone is still low because I’m trying to avoid TRT at this point. I’m 36 and don’t have kids yet. I’m not sure I ever will, but my doc says that TRT will pretty much act like birth control for me, so I’m holding off. I’m trying to raise it naturally by dropping some of the extra pounds I’m carrying around and a few supplements to kick my FSH (which is also low) into gear.

@Man-of-10 - thanks for the advice. All I can say is be very careful when you start messing with your thyroid function. You definitely don’t want to be screwing things up. I wish you the best, but with Hashimoto’s disease like I have, I don’t want to be destroying my thyroid faster.

First things first. Forget PE and:

Get those medical conditions treated by your doctor. You are going to feel a lot differently if you work with your doctor to get your thyroid and testosterone levels back to normal.

Until then I would not even THINK about doing PE.

Given the current state of your hormones, I don't think your body would be respond positively to PE. I just don’t think your body would recover properly. I think it is a bad idea to pursue PE until that is sorted out.

So get those back to normal levels and see where you are at.

For one thing it may completely solve your erection issues.

[I was diagnosed with very low testosterone a few years ago, so a I am speaking from experience on some of these issues. One of my worst symptoms was that I could not think clearly. So I hope that you will listen to my advice about getting treated and not worrying about PE

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I want to address something you said here:

If your testosterone is “very low,” natural methods are not going to do anything for you.

Essentially your testicles are no longer functioning properly. Seriously man, you need to get treated. The longer you go with out normal levels testosterone, the more damage you are doing to your body.

It is also a quality of life issue - low test affects your mood, your brain power, your creativity, your interest in life. It is just hard ons - it is much of what makes up your personality and who you are.

As to the “birth control” aspect. your testicles can be “turned back on” with a drug to make sperm when you are ready to have a child.

Thanks sta-kool. I appreciate the advice. I am getting the thyroid treated by my endocrinologist. I may end up switching docs, but for the time being she wants to treat the thyroid first and then worry about the T later. My last labs showed that my free-T was in normal range, but my total T was 200, which is off the bottom end of the chart. I’ve also found out that my dad has been doing TRT since he was about 30 (so 25 years). I also have an uncle and at least one other family member that is being treated for low T. It sucks that I didn’t know about this until now. Otherwise I may not have waited so long to decide whether or not to have kids.

Well, if you are seeing an endo then I’m sure that you’ve had the MRI’s and such and narrowed down to teste function issues -vs- brain tumor, etc. That being said, I agree with what has been said by sta Kool. If you pump, jelq, etc then you are treating a symptom and not the root cause. It would be like putting a bandage over the 10d nail that is stuck in your abdomen. It will slow the bleeding, but you still have a nail in your abdomen!

I have been on HRT for about 7 years now. My youngest daughter is 3 years old. As a matter of fact, I am off the hormones now, because my wife and I are trying for our 6th and last child. If you have low test at your age, it will only get lower as the years pass. No amount of BS botanical solutions is going to raise it to any measurable amounts. I inject 200mg/wk of test cypionate and I cannot explain to you the difference in mood, sex drive, energy and overall state of mind!

Take it from a fellow Hoosier who knows, one who is speaking from vast experience and not just about crap I’ve read in some online article somewhere, HRT is golden for a guy who has low testosterone and carries very little risk at all for a healthy adult male.

I am hypo-gonadic from a serious hammer shot to the testicles several years back. I was at a 62, 118 on the patch, 214 on gel and now average around 940 on self administered injections. The Test is way cheaper in injectable and it is a God send!!

Take care of the root issue, then you won’t need a pump for beter EQ. Avoid ED drugs all together and just fix the issue that you already know that you have! As for equipment for a temporary fix/immediate gratification, the pump, the andro can both hamper EQ if over done! Jelqing will build rock solid EQ if done correctly and it only requires 15 minutes/ 3 times per week. I’m a big traction advocate, but I can’t say that it helps my EQ at all. Just my .02

My first labs were really similar - total test 180, free-T in normal range. Of course since your total T is so low, doesn’t much matter that your free-T is “normal”

Here’s what my symptoms were:

- no libido
- real bad fatigue. Like I had done 15 hours of hard manual labor
- mental fog; I couldn’t learn new things, I got words mixed up all the time
- very very irritable.
- poor work performance
- loss of interest in things I used to love to do. Example, way too difficult to get the guitar out of its case, WAY TOO MUCH FUCKING WORK. Why bother?

Once I got my levels regulated all of those horrible things went away, and my old personality came back. It was like a miracle!

That is interesting about your family history.

Don't sweat the kids thing — As 9_Inch_Richard has proven, you can still have kids. I can go into more detail about it, but seriously it is no big deal if you decide you want to get somebody pregnant at a later date. You will be perfectly capable of doing that.

It took a while for me and the doc to get my levels right. The gels/patches work great for some guys, but did not work for me. My skin just doesn’t absorb them for some reason. Like Richard I give myself an injection of Testosterone. I divide my weekly dose in two, and inject on Monday and Thursday. My levels are in the mid to high 800’s now, which is normal for my age. The injections are no big deal, they do not hurt at all.

I am not a doctor, but yeah I think it makes some sense that she would want to get thyroid normal first and then deal with the testosterone.

OK. Everyone has me thinking more about the testosterone treatment now. I may have to switch docs. The one I’m with is supposed to be very good, but is more about me losing weight first (although I’m not obese by any stretch). She seems to think that if I lose some body fat that my test will come up naturally. I agree that this is probably true, but I still don’t think it’s going to come up enough to make a huge difference. Plus, getting my test level normal is going to make losing the fat a hell of a lot easier.

I may have to switch to the doc my dad is seeing. He’s more of a longevity doc instead of and endo. My dad’s levels are finally up in the 800s after many many years of being 200 or lower. He’s 55 now, so hopefully getting mine up will be even easier.

One of my questions is whether I should be doing just TRT or look at HCG therapy instead. My labs have shown that my FSH is also low, which if I understand correctly can cause my T to be low also. My current doc said she wasn’t concerned about the FSH. She said “low is good, if it’s high it means cancer” and totally dismissed it. From what I’ve read though, being low is the cause of a lot of infertility in men though. And, the good news is that it seems from reading that HCG mimics FSH in men and can kick start natural testosterone production, as well as, sperm in men with low FSH.

Has anyone ever used HCG as a therapy for low T instead of just TRT? Did it work?