2.5 Years of TRT Not Working that Well

Pharma / TRT Testosterone Replacement
1

Was put on TRT in april of 2017 after results showing ranges from 6-9nmol many times (about 160-260ng/dl).

Prolactin was always high, around 400-500, which made them do a MRI on my brain, found nothing.

SHBG always lower-ish around 18-24.

Due to the shitty system in my country, given testogel, which didnt work well at all for me, I started to self medicating instead, I was about to do testosterone cycles anyway as Im a bodybuilder.

Ive tried many things ranging from:

175mg a week of test E
350mg a week of test E
500mg a week of test E
560mg a week of test P (around 80mg injected ED)

Ive tried trt dosages of 150mg a week, test E. 100mg a week, test E.

Ive tried doing it with AI, without AI.

Differences: Better muscle mass, stronger. However, energy is extremely fluctating depending on. which I assume is my “sweet spot”, or whatever.

Lately, I tried 20mg of test propionate injected every day, so 140mg a week. 20 hours post injection, I did labs. They showed:

Testosterone total: 26nmol (range 8-29)
Testosterone bioactive: 22nmol (range 6-13)
SHBG: 9 (range 10-70)
Prolactin: 500 miu/L (range 80-326)

What are my main issues?

LIBIDO and erection strenght.

Back when I had low T, I had decent libido and decent erections. If I went 1-2 days without cumming, I was horny and very easy to get erection.

Now? Ive been doing “no fap” for 5 weeks and my libido is bad, and erection strenght is very shitty, its difficult to get up and 20 seconds without stimulation, it goes down.

Where do I go from here? Is there anyone who have any darn idea what the F Im gonna do? These 2.5 years Ive pulled women home and havent been able to “do the deed” none of the times, as my arousal just “isnt there”.

Any suggestions what so ever?

As u can see, my prolactin is still high and 20mg of prop ED has crashed my already low shbg from around 20 to 9.

Any suggestions, much appreciated, this is no fun.

2

What’s your E2? If your ratio is off it’ll mess you up. Free T to E2 matters in you you feel.

3

There is more than one reason why you are struggling, your prolactin is high and your FT is astronomically high probably creating excess estrogen. Unless I’m mistaken it appears you haven’t tried daily injections using Test E.

I take a look at all your protocols and I keep seeing the same thing, very aggressive dosing that must be creating increased conversion of FT–>E2. It you take you current results, you learn your dosing is too high, lower it and learn from it.

You probably need about half your current dosage, I would switch to low to mid teens using enanthate.

We need something to help explain low SHBG all of a sudden, how about those thyroid labs?

4

My prolactin is around what yours is, my total T, free T and E2 are all super high. I have great libido and erection quality. It could be something you aren’t seeing.

1 Like
5

I dont know my e2 as It seems like I cannot test it here, fucking sucks!

6

Another question. These labs were taken about 20 hours after last injection of test prop, given props short halflife, I would assume the levels right after injection and the coming near hours, the testosterone must be quite a bit higher no?

7

Also what is ur current protocol and shbg levels?

8

Thankyou. Should I attack it with caber and the dosage at the same time, or one thing at a time?

9

Like what, for example? As I said, before TRT, my libido was pretty decent, and before I got low T, my libido was VERY good, as in I had to do it atleast once a day and erections were great.

10

Well it would seem you need to lower your dosage, I don’t see how estrogen couldn’t be high with FT so high with super low SHBG. You basically lose the natural buffer to bind up estrogen when SHBG is very low and I think this has been the problem all along.

You will need to get FT just below the top of the ranges and see how you do, you’ll know little by little if lowering your dosage does the trick and need to wait at least 6-8 weeks between changes, preferably it would be best if you waited the full 8 weeks between changes.

You may even find you are like me, I need very little testosterone to feel amazing, 400 ng/dL is more than enough to feel optimal and have great erections, hell I even have some erections at 97 ng/dL and 119 ng/dL these last 5 months.

My SHBG is 14 off TRT and 22 on treatment.

11

Maybe I am like you, as I had decent libido when low T (260ng/dl) and pretty good erections, problem was energy was bad and motivation etc. Maybe I just need 400-500ng/dl. This is so difficult, cause people all say different shit, oh well, hopefully I will solve this soon cause it sucks not being able to bang (or even jerk off!!).

12

@equel
Man I’ve been on everything from 220mg once a week, 100mg - 160mg split twice a week, 100mg - 180mg split EOD, 150 - 185MG split daily sub-q, back to 185 EOD sub-q, back to 185mg daily sub-q, 185mg daily IM to finally 200mg daily IM. That’s not counting the AI days. I felt like crap until 185mg daily sub-q and better on 200mg daily IM.

This shit is all trial and error. People post what works for them like they found the key to TRT. The problem is everyone has a different lock.

1 Like
13

Estrogen and DHT is probably way too low. Trying different doses doesn’t matter if you didnt use that dose for 3-4 months. Furthermore if you did you need to add DHT to the list, pregnalone and dheas.

14

Im glad to hear you found a good protocol which works for you. What is your current shbg levels?

15

SHBG is 39.9

16

200mg daily? Like 1400mg a week?

17

200mg a week split into daily doses is what he means.

1 Like
18

Makes more sense! Thanks man

19

If you had erections at 260 ng/dL, then you know full well you’ll have better than decent erections at 360-460 ng/dL. Remember TT need only increase a little and FT increase by a lot because SHBG is super low and the majority of your hormones are free.

You can’t be binding much testosterone with an SHBG of 9.

20

Thankyou. What I do not understand however, is how shbg can decrease so much, with TRT? I mean, I had around 20 shbg without TRT, with trt, 9! Less than half of my “natty” shbg.

What could be the reason for my low shbg anyway, just genetics? I dont eat alot of shit food, diet is pretty good, i excercise alot, Im healthy, I dont smoke, dont drink alot, Im young … the fuck!