Dr. Kyle Gillett

Thank you for having me.

So when you do a physical exam and a history, you have a lot of different parts.

You have your history of present illness.

If they have a complaint, maybe the patient doesn't have a complaint.

In that case, things like their social history and their family history are extremely important because that gives you an insight into their genetics and an insight into their hormone health.

So patients will tell me, oh, I'm doing okay, but it helps to ask them, well, how are you now?

Let's say the patient is 50.

How are you now versus when you were 20 and what has changed?

So I've gotten the question a lot, how do you get your doctor to order a better lab workup or to even include your basic hormones?

And there's no magic answer to that.

But what really helps is you tell them, you know, my energy is not as good as it used to be.

My focus is not as good as it used to be.

My athletic performance is not as good as it used to be.

So you don't have to have a pathology in order for a lab to be indicated.

You just need to have that pertinent symptom.

With women, there's a lot more objective data.

So if they're having menstrual irregularities, or if they're not having a period, if they're having too heavy of periods, then those are things that they talk about very frequently with their doctor.

Men are more hesitant.

Men really want to know what their testosterone is, but at the same time, they really don't want to tell their doctor how their libido is or how their energy is because it's almost like they feel less masculine or they feel less like a guy when they say that, even if they're just talking to their doctor about it.

The law of diminishing returns applies.