18Y/O on TRT. Brain Fog, Low Libido, Fatigue. Could Use Some Help

Pharma TRT
101

Lower Your dose . Find a dose that your body accepts without throwing smoke signals and flares.

I felt dizzy when I used to lift and especially deadlift. Happens less on trt. Maybe because I have higher hct rbc and this more oxygen in my blood.

My opinion is that one should not self cure by feeling. You have no clue if it’s got anything to do with blood. I’ve been there done that and very rarely did I self medicate/cure successfully. Just an opinion and food for thought. You might know your body really well and better than I. I can see it helping

102

I forget you started this thread due to labido and brain fog issues. I would make the change ASAP.

A good friend of mine went lower after years at same dose. He told me today he’s been having morning erectionns ever morning all week and a couple weeks after the change. We will see if it’s really the dose change What’s interesting is his doc never asked him about his erections or sex life or really much else. Never tried to optimize. Just give T and raise levels is his docs logic.

I look forward to seeing your progress and wish you luck.

103

So far, everytime I’ve lowered my dose, I’ve felt better within a week or two. I never thought I had anxiety or anything, but I’m starting to think I’ve had it all along and grown used to living with it. Everytime I lower my dose, it has improved my mood. I’ve been lowering it by 2mg a day off my daily injections. So far, lowered it from 30mg daily all the way to 24mg currently. I plan on lowering it to 20mg ED soon. I haven’t told my doctor about any of this so far. He thinks I’m injecting 100mg E3.5D still. He hasn’t been too helpful in offering advice, as his solution to still experiencing symptoms with TRT was to raise my dose to 300mg!! That experiment turned out very poorly. People say that having too high of testosterone causes anxiety and such, but I really think that lowering your dose is decreasing estrogen conversion… or at least in my case. I’ve been lowering my T dose but keeping the same AI protocol.

I remember feeling amazing the first couple days of my first ever prohormone cycle. High testosterone feels great, I think testosterone is somewhat dopamergenic. High estrogen is definitely the culprit for anxiety-related symptoms. Regardless, I will begin 20mg every day tomorrow.

Also, I agree that making changes based on simply feeling differences isn’t the best way to go about this. Unfortunately, frequent regular bloodwork is pretty out of the picture for me. I figured it’s been a safe bet to assume I have neurotransmitter imbalance considering how immensely I responded to tyrosine. I read about tyrosine tolerance being a thing with tyrosine supplementation and have started using Mucuna Pruriens. Tyrosine supplementation suppresses the enzyme (I forget the name) that metabolizes tyrosine into L-dopa. Mucuna Pruriens simply contains the L-Dopa already. I’ve been using smaller doses, but have noticed improvement in sex drive.

Also, an update on the cabergoline: I’m about two weeks into cabergine of 0.2 mg E3D. Yesterday, had sex and I think I felt it’s effects. Wasn’t able to go twice back to back or anything, but I didn’t feel tired or relaxed or anything after the O. Either way, I’m not taking cabergoline to become a sex machine. I wanted to test things out to see if high prolactin was an issue causing dopamine imbalance overall. I’m going to continue cabergoline for about two more weeks, as I’ve read it takes about 3 weeks for it’s full effects, but if I don’t notice any differences regarding my libido throughout the day, I’m going to discontinue use.

104

Lowering dose is the first step. This is what we said and glad you listened.

If you are not on HCG the body is missing the other hormones body naturally creates when the axis is online. Now that it’s offline your downstream (is that the right word) hormones are not building up. Take pregnalone and dhea … Preg is handled well and dhea is not. So start dhea low like 10 or 25 mg.

Preg can convert to dhea but not at a high rate.

Men constantly review that both of these hormones cause calmness and the removal of anxiety. Preg also help memory and focus. Dhea helps with sleep by competing with cortisol at the adrenals (i think that’s the function)…

If your going to drop t pick a dose and stick with. It will take several weeks for the T to stabilize within the body and once stable you wait several weeks to see the benefit. Lowering it daily until you reach a dose is simply prolonging the period of stabilization.

If you can get the cream try that instead . That’s what I am on and it works quick and you don’t build it up in the system.

If your docs not good go find a doc that is. I use Dr.Nichols @yeti308 and many other folks use defy medical.

Otherwise you will continue doing this on your own and might never find yourself dialed in. I hope you do, but it’s going to be work since nobody here is a professional and can decipher accurately what’s wrong. We can only make educated guesses.

A doc can use thousands of patients and their experience to fix you right up.

105

Problem now is is that you don’t know what’s helping your sex drive. Is it the mucuna? Lower t dose? Cabergoline?

Too many moving part.

106

If you have been maintaining at 3000+ calories I would not drop less than 2500 a day to begin with. Stick with it for a week or two if the scale doesn’t budge or you gain then adjust. Unless your not concerned about your muscle gains you have now I would take it slow.

1-2 pounds a week is what you should aim for, if your losing more you are probably sacrificing muscle along with the fat. If you are also cleaning up the diet and not just counting calories the first week you will probably lose more just due to dropping water, after that stick with the 1-2lbs.

My point is there is no reason to starve yourself from the get go. Take it slow and you will maintain energy, strength and muscle. Faster and you risk muscle loss and blunting your metabolism if you go for a long amount of time.

107

Here is the last update I will be posting for awhile:

I’ve taken a look at my protocol today and I’ve decided that I’ve been trying to find a quick solution out of this when in reality that’s just impossible. Every week I try a new herb, supplement, research compound, or make a change to my dosages hoping that it might restore my libido and magically alleviate all my symptoms. This just won’t happen. Too many moving parts. I’ve finally decided that I need to just pick a protocol, give my body enough time to adjust to it, get bloodwork, and adjust from there.

I won’t even mention the stack of vitamins, supplements, and all the shit I take every single day throughout the day. Here is what I am doing moving forward, and I’m forcing myself to stick to it. The final changes I will be making are lowering my T dose, dropping bupropion and cabergoline, and stopping every extra supplement I don’t think is necessary. I’ll hold on to the supplements in case the bloodwork I get in roughly two months indicates that one may be beneficial, but as I’m typing this I’m preloading my insulin syringes with these exact T doses to kind of force myself to stick to this protocol until I get bloodwork.

16mg testosterone cypionate ED
0.25mg Anastrazole ED
250iu HCG EOD
10mg Tadalafil Citrate ED
10mg Creatine Monohydrate from BulkSupplements ED
Pre-workout
Protein powder throughout the day/BCAAs during workout
Nutricost ZMA 3 capsules before bed (450mg Magnesium, 30mg Zinc, 10.5mg VitaminB6)
5mg Yohimbine preworkout
1000mg Omega-3 (3x daily with meals)
2G coconut MCT powder daily (split into 3x with meals)
60mg Laxogenin 2x daily (1 w Breakfast + 1 w postworkout)
5g L-Arginine Preworkout

This may seem like a lot, but it’s not even a quarter of the stuff I’ve taken everyday in an effort to combat symptoms. I need to stop attacking symptoms with pills and just let my body recover.

I’m stopping my diet and will be returning to eating normally leading up to bloodwork. I want my body to have all the adequate fuel it needs to repair itself. I am going to train 6x a week, following my normal regimen still, instead of everyday. I figured that for now, I need to put aside my weightlifting goals and my hopes to get my libido back instantaneously and I just need to sacrifice some time to allow my body to recover naturally, instead of adding more and more supplements. I believe I’ve dropped every supplement (like boron and mucuna pruriens) that could be affecting my hormone levels or my neurotransmitters. My goal is for these systems of my body to recover so that they can function properly without depending on all these supplements.

That is what I will be taking the next couple weeks leading up to bloodwork. I’m open to suggestions for adding a multivitamin/mineral to take daily or dropping some of the current supplements in this stack, but prior to making this change I’ve been taking most ingredients found in those multivitamins individually (i.e 12mg boron, 5mg bioperine, vitamin b-complex, the list goes on and on). This totals tons of pills and powder extracts everyday and I’ve decided I can’t just keep adding supplements to take everyday for the rest of my life. I need to let my body recover itself and find a protocol that doesn’t force my body to be dependent on a mountain of shit that I have to take everyday. I’ve been making too many changes… as someone said in this thread, there is too many moving parts to determine the root of my symptoms. Please let me know any suggestions you may have for me moving forward, but hopefully I will be updating this thread in a couple weeks symptom-free, or at least with bloodwork that can help to identify why I have symptoms like low libido and such. Thanks again everyone.

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108

I do not believe in “pre-workout” stuff. At all. Just go workout. If you have to have something to get yourself up for it, you’re probably going to do something that you shouldn’t during it. Seriously. You will learn a lot more about you body and what it’s saying without that stuff. A post-workout shake or something is different. I don’t do that either, but it can be a positive depending on your goals.

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109

Coffee, shit, go workout.

Best preworkout.

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110

Coffee is how I do it. When healthy you really don’t need much else

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111

Keep it simple and good move. Hebs and etc can f you up as well.

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112

I will come off the stims for sometime too, to see if I notice improvements. I’ve heard a lot about repeated caffeine use being related to adrenal fatigue, so I’ll try dropping the pre workout and caffeine for a while.

113

I’ve switched my protocol to what I mentioned before, but before I commit to 6 weeks of this and getting bloodwork, I want to run one thing by you guys to get your thoughts. I’ve seen everywhere that side effects of anastrazole include low libido and things of that sort. Lots of people on this forum swear against it unless absolutely necessary. I’ve never tried a protocol without at least 1 mg of Anastrazole a week. I always just assumed low libido was a side effect of TOO MUCH anastrazole, crashing E2, and consequently lowering libido. So, my questions are:

Does Anastrazole lower libido via other mechanisms than simply lowering E2 too far?
**Does Anastrazole inhibit 5 alpha reductase (lowering DHT → lowering libido) or only aromatase? **
Would anyone recommend that I further lower T dosage so I can come off AI? Currently 16mg ED SubQ (112mg weekly) and 0.25mg Anastrazole daily (I cut the tabs into quarters, so daily dose isn’t completely accurate, but it always totals to 1mg every 4 days regardless)

I should note that I think I may somewhat underrespond to Anastrazole. On 100mg T Cyp E3.5D SubQ, even with 1mg of anastrazole at time of injection, I had high estrogen. I asked my doctor about switching to Aromasin, to which he responded:
“My primary strategy is to use as little of the AI drugs as possible, just enough to stop estrogen symptoms. At this time I would say not to increase the AI”
Curious as to why he previously didn’t lower my testosterone dose or suggested I switch to ED injections and instead prescribed more AI, if this is his strategy. I am planning on switching to Defy Medical once I’ve been on a set protocol for 6 weeks so that I can provide them accurate blood labs. Only reason I’ve stuck with this doc so far is because he has always prescribed anything I’ve asked for, like more arimidex and Bupropion, and his service is incredibly cheap. But I’m giving up trying to figure this shit out on my own for now. Maybe if I figure out a better protocol through Defy, I will go back to this doc to save the money.

114

I have been talking to my doctor recently to fill him in on the changes I want to make before I commit to a protocol for six weeks to get solid blood labs. I really want to get it right in one go so that these blood test results look good. I emailed him about what I’ve been experiencing, one thing that I didn’t mention on this thread I think: My testicles are uptight to my body and not very full and my penis is always in a shrunken state. So here is the new plan:

Further lower testosterone dosage to further lower E2 conversion, increase hCG dosage to increase intratesticular testosterone so that testicles will hang. Lowering T dosage more will make up for the increase in intratesticular estrogen that my doctor said I should expect to result from raising hCG dosage.

I should note that I’ve experimented with higher hCG doses in the past and have always felt better at first, but then this effect diminishes (I think because intratesticular estrogen conversion catches up). I think I recall my testicles hanging more and my penis getting more bloodflow with higher hCG as well.

Any thoughts on this?

115

Raised hCG and lowered Test dose. Immediately have noticed improvements regarding bloodflow to penis and testicles hanging normally. I’m going to continue at this dose for sometime (240iu ED hCG, 16mg T Cyp ED, 0.25mg Anastrazole ED) but may consider further raising hCG and lowering T in the future.

I got bloodwork done for Prolactin this week. Results came back 14.9 ng/ml on a reference range of 4.0 - 15.2 ng/ml

This is while supplementing with Ashwagandha, Vitamin E, and P5P (all the natural prolactin-lowering supplements I could discover online), so I’d imagine that before supplementation, my prolactin was even higher.

This makes sense regarding why libido responded so well to tyrosine. I forget the mechanics exactly, but I know that dopamine goes up, prolactin goes down, and vice versa. I just sent these results to my doctor to see if I can get a script for Cabergoline or something else.

I believe the cabergoline I bought from a research peptide company was bunk. I bought anastrazole from them as well to have extra on hand. I never noticed any effect from the cabergoline, and I’ve dosed their anastrazole from 0.1ml up to 4ml (1mg/ml) at once to see if it worked, and felt nothing. I’ve learned what high and low estrogen feels like during my TRT journey, and dosing 4 mg of Anastrazole should do the trick to spike my estrogen, which in this case, the research chemical didn’t.

Hopefully, I can get a script for Cabergoline and get actual, pharma Caber so that I can lower my prolactin. I will continue updating this thread with how it goes, I expect an email back from my doctor tomorrow.

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116

Test at CVS is like $12 for a 1ml bottle with no insurance

117

Correct.

It’s cheaper to buy with a Goodrx coupon than going through your insurance.

118

At cvs that is just the regular price without coupons. 2mls costs me $25 if I had got the prior authorization it would have been $10

119

Can I ask why are you using anatstazole? Is it simply because you have a high estrogen number and the doc thinks that number should be lower?

I believe anastrazole is causing libido because it messes with e2.

Don’t forget there is way more to libido than e2.

Without symptoms one does not need ai.

Try some DHT and make sure you find the other hormones that effect libido and manage them or at least report and see where they are.

Also giving the body a rest from sex helps if you have spent to much time thinking about or having sex. Including open and etc.

Stay far away from supplements that say they increase sec drive or anything hormonally. Ashwandagh or however you spell it has raised men’s SHBG into the 100s. I’ve seen it 4 times now. They all were taking the same root. You don’t want super high shbg. It’s a pain in the ass.

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120

I’m using anastrazole because when I started at 200mg t weekly with 1mg anastrazole, my estrogen skyrocketed. 2mg weekly really helped, and then switching to everyday injections also lowered estrogen. Do you think I should lower testosterone dose to lower AI? I’ve been thinking about just switching my dose to EOD to effectively cut my dose in half and then taking AI EOD as well just to lower how many drugs I take.