It was almost fifteen years ago that I lost my testicles because of cancer. It was an experience leading to the establishment of a vibrant, expanding Testicular Cancer Support network (www.tcinfo.org). No longer does a young man look in vain for information about this most delicate of problems.

However, that is incidental to my point, because TRT (Testosterone Replacement Therapy) has since dominated my life. I have learned much by experience and am grateful my intervention has helped many men around the world, as they sought answers for their despair after losing a testicle, or two. The resultant thoughts will, I hope, jar a few stagnant minds.

Consider the puny kid getting sand kicked in his face in the old Charles Atlas ads. Just a puny kid who needs to work out? Perhaps not: What if that kid has a testosterone problem? Let's trace his life.

This kid grows up a late developer. He's punier than his peers. He gets bullied defending his lack of development. He is self-conscious due to his inability to grow hair in the right places. He can't understand what is being said when pals are talking about "coming." He has trouble finding a girl his own age, accepting his hairless body. Worse, he finds a girl he fails to satisfy, and she tells everyone they know.

Drowning in tears from the jeers, he shrinks into his shell and becomes reclusive, finding the Internet, where nobody laughs at his attempts to prove his sexual maturity. Nature does not progress quickly enough for this young man. He stays in his room waiting. Images and videos he sees on the Internet satisfy him at first. Then, he needs more. He increasingly watches more extreme sexual acts. Has not a potential sexual deviant been born now?

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The example above is extreme. Men with low testosterone are recognised by the experts as meek and mild, or at its worst, liable to mood swings, lethargy, hot flashes (flushes), and depression. I say the variation in behaviour between meek and mild and mood swings, depression and lethargy etc., more likely indicates a scale of increasing behavioural problems related to the lowering levels of testosterone.

Having experienced the effects of low testosterone levels as the result of my cancer treatment, I now know how important it is for men to maintain proper levels of this most important hormone.

Why then are men not tested? Any man with the above symptoms of low testosterone should be tested and offered appropriate treatment. More info on this topic is available at: www.androids.org.uk

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