For many men, it starts with lethargy, low energy levels and an overall sense that they just don’t have the same “juice” they used to have.
That juice, in most cases, is testosterone, a hormone important to men’s health that the body stops producing in excess after the age of 30.
Reduced testosterone levels can lead to a variety of health issues, from loss of muscle mass and strength to sleep apnea to low sex drive and erectile dysfunction. At Peak TRT and Wellness, owner and Master of Science Nursing (MSN) Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) Jerry Reed and his staff seek to reverse those problems.
Open since October 2022 in the Westbrook Professional Park on S.R. 54 in Wesley Chapel, Peak TRT (Testosterone Replacement Therapy) specializes in hormone replacement and other treatments related to men’s health, including diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol.
“We look at the whole health picture,” says Reed. “Testosterone is what we focus on here, but we don’t ignore anything else we see in the lab tests.”
Reed likens a visit to Peak TRT to visiting your primary care physician for your yearly physical. Except, he jokes, that many men who walk into his business haven’t been to a doctor in years because men are, in general, less likely than women to go to the doctor.
“Certain things will drive men to get health care and one of them is sexual function,” Reed says. “If there’s something wrong there they usually want to find out pretty quick what’s going on.”
Your visit starts with a complete health assessment, and Reed will provide a comprehensive review of the lab results with you. Those include metabolic panels, which measure 14 different substances in your blood that help assess your physical health, cholesterol panels and a PSA test that screens for prostate cancer.
The medical staff at Peak TRT and Wellness will then prepare a personalized men’s wellness plan. Those include treatments for low testosterone, erectile dysfunction, hypertension and high cholesterol.
Peak TRT also offers Peptide Therapy. Peptides are building blocks of proteins that are composed of amino acids and generally signal other cells and molecules as to what functions to perform. They are crucial to your healing process, as well as other physical and mental functions.
“It starts with testosterone,” he says, “but we cover everything else, too, from your A1C number (diabetes) to cholesterol. Then, we’ll focus on what plan would be best for you.”
Reed says the biggest difference between Peak TRT and your primary care doctor, however, might be how low testosterone is treated. If you are within the acceptable range of having enough testosterone, even on the very low end, Reed says it will likely go untreated. At Peak TRT, the goal is to raise that number to the middle or higher range of what is considered to be okay.
“Typically, a primary care physician doesn’t really specialize in testosterone,” he says. “Therefore, most of them don’t treat it very aggressively. If you are one point within the normal range, your primary doctor is typically not going to treat it, whereas we look at it as each individual is different. You can technically be normal on your testosterone level, barely normal, but still have all of the side effects.”
Those side effects include decreased sex drive, erectile dysfunction, decreased energy, weight gain, lack of focus and even depression.
Many of those symptoms also are related to underlying conditions like obesity and diabetes, but if the problem is determined to be low testosterone (also known as male hypogonadism), Reed says Peak TRT will treat it aggressively. Those who decide to take part in the plan pay a monthly fee and get weekly injections tailored to their needs and, every three months, new tests are taken to measure the progress.
“What works for one person may not work for another,” Reed says, “Primary care takes a more cookie-cutter approach.”
Reed opened his business last year but had been involved in treating “Low-T” previously. He received his Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) from Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, TN, and his MSN degree from East Tennessee State University in Johnson City.
He says he was an ICU nurse before working for the Low T Center national chain (47 centers in 11 different states) in Dallas, TX. After leaving that job to move back to Florida, he took a job at Advent Health Wesley Chapel as a hospitalist before deciding to get back into the men’s health field with his Peak TRT & Wellness.
Reed says that unlike some of the bigger low-testosterone companies, he has created a place where men can get easy, personalized care with real people.
“We want everyone to be comfortable coming here,” he says, even though discussing your sexual decline can be an uncomfortable topic. “Once you broach that first subject, get that out of the way, everything else is gravy after that.”
A patient named Larry says the personal touch is what drew him to Peak TRT.
Now that he is in his upper 40s, Larry says he had noticed a decrease in his energy levels that concerned him.
“I felt like I had a lost a little zeal for life,” he says. “I was laying around and eating and just kind of doing nothing, and I’ve never been that person before.”
He tried some of the larger, more corporate Low T places, but said, “It was a lot of press 3 for that, press 4 to talk to this person…I just wanted to go somewhere where I would be able to know somebody.”
The price was right ($99 for his initial visit and tests), and Larry has now been a client at Peak TRT for roughly five months. And, best of all, he says he has noticed significant results.
“I’m definitely less cranky, and when I wake up I’m ready to go,” he says. “I don’t feel lethargic anymore.”
The ease of just stopping into a real office with real people that he now knows for his weekly injection keeps Larry coming back.
“It’s all very straightforward and simple,” he says.
Peak TRT and Wellness doesn’t accept insurance, but Reed says he tries to make it as affordable for everyone as he can.
Peak TRT & Wellness is located at 28593 S.R. 54. It is open Mon.-Fri., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. For more information, call (813) 973-5206.
