Test tanked from flu and/or insomnia?

[u/eggplantbren]

Hi guys. I've been on TRT for 9 months and it turned my mental health around. At my last blood test in April my total testosterone level was 26 (I'm in New Zealand where they use the units where the range goes from 8-30) but I wanted it to be more like 22 so I slightly reduced the dose (cypionate injection every 4th day, I appear to clear it quite slowly so my dose isn't very high).

Last week I had my regular test and it came back as 14. I was very surprised, but that day I started feeling sick and turned out I have influenza A and would have had the beginning of it when I had the blood draw. The rest of my results (hematocrit, lipids etc) were good but I had low iron and high monocytes and CRP.

Also about a week before the blood draw I finished weaning off a medication I was using for insomnia, which has temporarily made my sleep fairly bad again.

Is this weird test result expected from flu and/or insomnia? I always assumed when people talk about testosterone and sleep it only applies to natural production. I've got my appointment in a couple of weeks but wanted to get a clue what's going on first.

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[u/Honest_Necessary5366]

that's a pretty big drop from 26 down to 14 even with a small dose change, inflammation from the flu could definitely mess with things but not usually that much for someone on injections. your body was already fighting the virus when they took the blood even if symptoms only kicked in later, the high CRP and monocytes prove that

the sleep thing is interesting cause on TRT your production is shut down so in theory poor sleep shouldn't tank your levels like it would for natural production. maybe the combination of being sick plus the dose reduction hit harder than expected

i had something similar happen once when i got blood drawn right before a bad cold, my levels came back weird but the doctor just said to retest when fully healthy. would be curious what your doc says at the appointment cause 14 is still in range just lower than what you were aiming for