Yes we do, many men on here are on 200mg per week. @dbossa uses 250mg/wk for trt… 85mg 2x/wk isn’t high at all. My nadir from 200mg weekly is 500ng/dl, it’s individualistic
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Agreed. Tons of people are in the 150-200mg a week range. Most, I’d say. It certainly isn’t an unusually high dose for most
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I meant it’s a high starting dosage, clearly he was having problems and quit.
Oh… yes, you’re right about that. Typical starting dose is like 100-125 (depending on where you are) given that test here is 250mg/ml most experienced docs (very few here) will start you on .5ml weekly as it’s easy to remember/simple to measure out exactly half of a 1ml syringe
In the US AAS test cyp is 200mg/ml it’s 100mg weekly… the difference between 100 and 125 is marginal. And even if 170 is his starting dose, probs best to taper up if you’ve never used androgens/AAS/trt or whatever before just to gauge how you respond
Everything is better than black market stuff. Nebido isn’t that bad after all. It takes a long time to build up decent levels and you don’t get any short term fluctuations, but many guys here do daily to minimize fluctuations - so that’s basically mimicking Nebido in that regard.
If Nebido doesn’t work try a gel. But get off the black market stuff - it’s no long term solution, It’s been very well documented that in about 50% of the cases you get something different than what the label says.
But after all, not sure if you really need to be on TRT. You say muscle growth is good, beard growth is normal for your age and the main symptom is ED. Yes T is definitely low for your age but ED can be caused by many things besides low T.
You say your an overthinker. Stress and anxiety can cause ED. Not having morning erections can be a sign of physiologal ED but not necessarily. To differentiate between physiological from psychological ED try to find out if there is a possibility to do a so called ‚Nocturnal Penile Tumescence’ testing.
I don’t want to downplay your symptoms.
Literally everything is better than the combo of underground TRT and young age. If you go down the TRT route do it under the supervision of a qualified physician who regularly checks if everything is ok. Long term this is needed.
Not with testosterone, I’ve tested my black market gear before, it’s always on par, if not better than pharm grade stuff. I’ve also tested synthetic derivatives, also comes up being what it says it is… the only time I’ve ever thought “this is fake” was with oxandrolone, the most commonly faked compound out there
Don’t wish to be a dick here, but when the UGL is reputable, and you’re buying test (VERY cheap to manufacture and little incentive to fake as peer reviewed sources will call them out, business will drop) chances are you’re getting test. The biggest issue is trace toxic heavy metal contamination.
Fakes tend to be more common with oxandrolone, methenolone, fluoxymesterone etc. That being said, physician monitoring if using long term extremely important. The vast majority have no idea what to do if shit hits the fan, not saying it’s likely… but it can happen… Many who have adequate knowledge regarding pharmacokinetics, biochemistry etc may decide to drop physician monitored TRT for favour of more leeway to experiment… and fair enough, but unless one is seriously educated (and even then it’s riskier) physician monitoring is a must with something as serious as hormonal manipulation
EDIT: must be an educated physician too, many docs won’t know what bloods to pull or how to adequately manage a TRT patient, if this is the case it’s marginally/not at all better than unsupervised
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Did you by any chance overtrain for a long time? It causes stress on the body and decreases testosterone over time.
Now Im actually considering going back to the endocrinologist, maybe another one even… I think doing it on my own is doable, but too much stress. I guess I need to see how to exactly tell the physician that I ended up taking black market stuff and had stopped with his protocol.
Regarding nocturnal erections, I barely got any for over 2.5 years, and at the time I used to train football/soccer, so cardiovascularity was not an issue.
I said reputable UGL’s, there are many that’ll counterfeit testosterone (testosterone decanoate being testosterone enanthate, testosterone enanthate being testosterone cypionate etc). There are numerous boards dedicated to reviewing (via bloods, reagent testing or legitimately sending samples to labs) gear. The literature you’ve sent me is garnered upon random samples. While quality control isn’t an aspect that exists here, some semblance of reliability does exist within boards dedicated to reviewing these compounds
I’m so confident with regard to the fact that you’re undoubtedly wrong about this that I’ll test the three different batches I have (I’ve already tested one of them via bloods)… when I can afford further testing…
They noted cheaper steroidal agents were substituted, testosterone is by far the cheapest to manufacture, and is typically the base substance for many counterfeited compounds (eq, primo etc)… Very few labs will actually sell you a vial of TESTOSTERONE that has zero testosterone in it.
However the biggest problem stems from the potential for an unsterile product and/or toxic trace heavy metals, one can send a sample into a lab (depending on where you reside) to amoreliate this concern… toxic heavy metal contamination is rare, and is a byproduct from the place where the raws are manufactured (facilities in third world countries cutting corners to maximise profit). Sustanon might be faked as testosterone enanthate… but it’s still testosterone, and results garnered from both compounds (besides a higher Cmax due to test prop) will be almost identical.
This isn’t the topic at stake here, it’s whether this guy should be using TRT without supervision, and the answer is almost unequivocally NO! Even going on TRT via docs prescription then topping up with UGL would be better… Always good to have access to bloods, monitoring and a plan B to fall back on. Imagine he’s on UGL trt without a record in his medical history, gets an access… he has to explain “I’ve been injecting test illegally”… on trt if this happens he can say “had a bad reaction to X that was prescribed to me”… health insurance doesn’t fuck him over
I’m taking all the advice that I can from what you guys have been telling me.
First advice that I took is that Im bound to use TRT for my whole life.
Second advice is that even though I can’t probably find a well informed endocrinologist in my country (Malta), I should still follow one. Mainly because of the blood tests and for pharmaceutical grade TRT.
I guess I’ll try to think of a way to see how I can phrase to my physician that I decided to start taking illegal testosterone just because I wasn’t seeing improvements, and that I wish to stick with his protocol again, since I’m assuming Testosterone is not the main cause of my symptom that I mentioned.
No… don’t say this, unless you have an incredibly good relationship with you’re physician, this will find it’s way onto you’re medical record… Future prospects regarding health insurance/life insurance will be very expensive… There has to be at least ONE informed doctor in your region. Go to TRT forums/boards, ask around… chances are you’ll find at least one doctor. If you absolutely HAVE to use UGL trt/whatever because you aren’t experiencing ANY level of symptom relief from prescribed protocols, you can use UGL stuff too top up between bloods (and TNE/Test prop is out within a few days, however if dosing too high you may see impacted lipids, raised RBC/HCT etc)
I understand you’re frustration, I spent a while on useless 250mg e3w etc protocols… what did I do… exactly what you did, I topped up IN BETWEEN bloods, got away with it because I merely boosted myself to the upper limit of physiology (say 800-1000ng/dl). Before I’d hop off everything, drop back down to 1-200ng/dl at time to get bloods (as that’s where I’d be on the protocol given to me). So say 10 days post shot I’d start topping up, taper up between days 10-18 as the sus wore off… drop between 18-21, get bloods at day 21 (doc wanted nadir)… It was time consuming and irritating, but beat the notion of feeling like shit from days 10-21 and was a far cry better than not having access to regular bloods/ the notion of TRT in my medical file at all
Okay so ye wont mention the UGL stuff.
I guess I’ll just come up with a reason why I didn’t attend his once every 3 month meeting then and I should be fine. Thanks for taking the time to help, I appreciate it.
What, no… taper off before the three months, get bloods while you can, see him… discuss results etc. Use shorter esttered stuff in between meetings if you have to/feel symptomatic, I don’t recommend this, it’s an individualistic choice to make as it involves breaking the law, and many sticklers will say “absolutely not” but it’s symptomatology/quality of life at stake here. Remember there ARE risks to UGL compounds (underdosed/overdosed product, bacterial and trace heavy metal contamination, legal repercussions etc)
Think carefully whether you REALLY want to go down the route of lifelong TRT, it’s a literal pain in the ass… there’s still stigma (I hate having to explain to guests why there are needles in my room/bathroom, having to explain to medical professionals WHY I’m on TRT etc), esp at a young age the stigma is extreme…
After like 7-8 months I managed to get on 140mg weekly. It’s enough to have me sitting at like 600ng/dl. I use more but that’s on me… only use what you need to get by with an optimal quality of life
Think carefully whether you REALLY want to go down the route of lifelong TRT
I dont want to go down that route lol if I could I d just take HcG, clomid and Nolva or whatever for some time, get my system back up and not touch testosterone ever again, but unfortunately since I had low T before anything, this wouldn’t work.
What I meant in my last post is that I missed a meeting that I had in the beginning of this month, and I think he would ask why I took so long to visit him (because I was supplying myself with UGL testosterone). I guess Ill taper off my testosterone levels to be within the 400-900 range, visit him and get bloods, and then continue with the protocol of Nebido with a slightly higher dose (1g every 2 months instead of 3 for example), if I manage to convince him.
With my 20 years experience in pharma I can tell you that their is no ‚reputable UGL‘.
That’s true, all UGL’s go through patches (exit scams in particular), however there’s typically runs certain UGL’s will have in which they pump out adequate product
By 20 years in pharma you mean recreational use of AAS right? If you’re talking about pharmacy in general then the notion is entirely irrelevant. I’ve used certain UGL’s for about and had product of the exact same consistently, granted one year doesn’t pertain the lab will continually produce good quality gear. But the second the quality dips, word spreads around like wildfire and the companies lose massive amounts of revenue. In Aus there are numerous groups (and forums) here that are dedicated to rigorously testing UGL gear (both in person and scientifically) to ensure product quality. Is this as good at the quality control pharma grade Test has… hell no, but to stipulate “there’s a 50% chance you’re UGL test won’t have test in it” is fear mongering and untrue. I have three vials of test, all demonstrate a dose dependent incriment regarding elevations in TT/FT, whether its accurate to dose as specified on the label is another story. One appeared to be on par with pharm grade gear, another appeared to be overdosed.
That being said, UGL test is not the right way to go about TRT unless it’s a last resort. BUT, if symptom relief is absent from shitty protocals (say 250mg e4w or something), what is the kid supposed to do? Just “live with it”… I don’t think that’s sound advice, nor do I believe it’s a good idea to encourage him to seek gear from the black market, it’s an incredibly complex and tricky situation one must make on their own terms.
Best advice at the moment would be to search for an adequate physician.
Regarding UGL’s though, I’ve certainly had oxandrolone that wasn’t oxandrolone at all (long story, I was using 12.5mg/day for a couple weeks, then tried 25mg/day)… def wasn’t oxandrolone, not sure if there were steroids present in the compound at all, the source was dodgy (also sold speed etc) and whatever was in it gave me a buzz/rush similar to taking dexamphetamine, also skyrocketed my BP, HR (normal with AAS, but not singular doses), quit rapidly after a few days or so on 25mg… but this was oxandrolone, not testosterone
No, what I mean is that I have been working in the medical lab and pharma industry for the last 20 years as an analytical biochemist. Besides supporting primarily drug development activities we are working together closely with many institutions that confiscate counterfeit biologics such as hGH, Epo, filgrastim etc and run the analytics.
As in every profession you have a network of colleagues and I know guys that do the same what we do, but not on complex biological molecules but on other drugs ‚small molecules‘ including steroids. They get samples from all over Europe and they confirmed that about 50% of what they analyze does simply not correspond to the label.
And that’s completely aside the legal aspect.
There’s the possibility europe differs from Aus. There are many dodgy, unreviewed labs going around… or perhaps I’m just lucky…
By not corresponding to the label, if 250mg/ml test contains 200mg/ml test, this doesn’t correlate to being what’s described on the label… it’s still testosterone
Secondly, I have a problem in that you label all AAS as if they’re equal. Within the underground community, and due to the expense to manufacture, it’s WELL known certain anabolics are more commonly faked. Testosterone is RARELY spiked with something else, and completely bunk testosterone is even rarer
The compounds commonly spiked/bunk are methenolome, oxandrolone, fluoxymesterone and to a lesser extent boldenone, drostanolone and nandrolone. I don’t doubt you’re expertise, and perhaps you are right
But I challenge you to simply analyse samples of testosterone and ONLY testosterone, tell me what percentage of samples have no/little testosterone in them. I’d wager the percentage is far less, 10 at a push
As to the legal aspect… do you really think law enforcement is going to bother raiding the house of someone who has purchased a vial… they have bigger fish to fry, the suppliers are the problem… not consumers taking privately in the residence of their own home
I don’t know why I’m arguing about this, we are both on the same page that OP shouldnt ditch his physician in favour of unmonitered TRT, the UGL argument is irrelevant
However I don’t think testosterone is commonly faked… if anything it’s other substances that are faked and testosterone is the substitute
Is there a beating a dead horse emoji on this forum? Just curious