How would you guys like to have to shave your balls and wrap them in a giant Band-Aid 23 hours each day – or die? Hyperbole? Sure, but it’s essentially what many HIV-poz men have to do as they fight to survive AIDS.
Advancing HIV infection causes the testes to stop making sufficient testosterone, without which the body cannot maintain muscle mass. This is a major contributor to AIDS wasting syndrome, the biggest predictor of death. To combat this shortage, some men get biweekly injections, but that results in wide swings in hormone levels and, thus, energy and mood. Most use a testosterone delivery patch, similar to a Nicoderm patch, worn on the scrotum, but that may be inconvenient and sometimes uncomfortable.
Last month, Community Prescription Service (CPS), a mail-order pharmacy specializing in HIV, began selling a compounded testosterone cream. It’s prepared by a pharmacist to a doctor’s prescription, not a packaged product available at the neighborhood drugstore. The physician specifies the dose, generally 12.5 mg of testosterone per application. (Of course, controlled-substance regulations apply to testosterone in all forms.) For more information, call CPS at 800-842-0502.
In addition, Unimed Pharmaceuticals has recently announced FDA approval of its AndroGel (1% testosterone gel), the first such FDA-approved product. Probably a higher-dose product than the CPS cream, it should be available this summer.
If you have been using testosterone supplementation, or if you are having trouble maintaining weight and muscle, talk with your doctor about replacement therapy. Perhaps one of these new delivery techniques will work for you.
This article appears in April 21 • 2000.