24 Hour TT Profiles in Young, Healthy Functional Men [1973-1983]

TLDR (great suggestion by @kazuya_mishima1):

Danny and the TOT folks are mistaken to put it politely with respect to pharmacokinetics and dose response of injectable exogeneous testosterone. They act like it’s some mystery how you will respond to injectable testosterone. It really isn’t and we can put a very confident estimate on it. Many guys running TOT protocols (150+ mg/week) are way above physiologic levels all week long 24 hours a day. Read on if you’d like to understand with an example in excruciating detail. Pay attention to numbers thrown out there. Are they peak or trough? Learn the basics of pharmacokinetics so you can inform yourself about TOT World before you go that route. Then at least you can give informed consent before you embark on their large uncontrolled science experiment that they themselves will admit has an uncertain long term result.

BEGIN:
I reached way back for you guys. 1970s-1980s RIA data back when we had REAL men. :grinning: That way we correct for any generational decline vs today.

Don’t say I never gave you anything:

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Circadian rhythms in plasma levels of cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone, Δ4-androstenedione, testosterone and dihydrotestosterone of healthy young men

Check out subject III

TEMPORAL VARIATIONS OF TESTOSTERONE LEVELS IN THE PERIPHERAL BLOOD PLASMA OF MEN

Look at subject SFD…

daily variation of the max TT levels…

Now let’s go back to this plot:
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Where do you think these numbers come from? They represent values measured in a sample of men that can’t be higher than their peak intraday value. So either it’s the max TT or < max TT level these guys are hitting in a day. There’s is almost no one walking the face of the earth “unassisted” with peak (much less mean) daily TT levels above 1200 ng/dl.

After you let that sink in then come back to this:

Be careful to clarify where the “1000” is in the context of treatment. Trough or peak?

Misdirection to confuse the reader into thinking Danny’s TT profile would resemble even the highest percentile eugondal man. HINT: it doesn’t…

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To be fair of course maybe Danny didn’t do this on purpose. Maybe he doesn’t understand it. If you are on FB, maybe you can go help him.

#Educate_your_FB_TOT_Friends

@Christian_Thibaudeau @Chris_Shugart

Feel free to use this material to do an informative article for your readers. Maybe TC would be interested.

Guys who dont have the relevant background/education deserve to get the information to make an informed decision. You have a great mechanism to make that happen.

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Can you start doing tldr summaries?

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Sure I’ll add one above and edit the post. Good idea

EDIT: done.

Can’t add you on the first post so will put it here in case you are interested…@TC_luoma. May be helpful info if you wanted to do a review of TT levels since the inception of widespread RIA assay and reference ranges.

Born in 1972, awesome!

Thank you! :grinning:

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Maybe you can make two graphs to help us see how much t we all need to take as REPLACEMENT therapy. I suggest that we all post our total testosterone and free testosterone levels and ranges, from when we were young and with healthy natural testosterone levels. That way we can see what we need to actually replace from what we’re missing.

Before going on trt, my total t was 170. I’ll have to look back in my medical charts from 30-35 years ago to pull up my total t and free t test results.

15 hours later: I can’t seem to find any testosterone test results from when my body was producing a healthy amount of testosterone.

Hmmm…

I guess there’s really no way for me to know what level I need to get back to, to replace what my body no longer makes. I have an idea…
Maybe since I’m stuck injecting testosterone for the rest of my life, why don’t I get myself to a level that I feel as close to optimal as possible, reduce as many low t symptoms as I can, without taking too much testosterone so I can be careful to keep bad side effects low or eliminate them?

Nah…that sounds stupid. I’ll just shoot for a total t of 500, and feel like shit the rest of my life because some self-proclaimed expert posts some graphs trying to prove that we all should just settle for some bullshit level in the middle of the range of people not on exogenous testosterone.

That sounds great!

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To be fair… those TT levels in young men are a good deal higher relative to what I’d expect them to be today

Reference ranges in my part of the world are getting down to like… 100-600ng/dl (cutoffs for low and high).

Had one that was 100-550

Maybe I should not be surprised, but I am with the number of younger men I see who have levels in the 200-400s and feel like crap.

Hence, a reasonable, relevant, and generous (1200 ng/dl peak) target (and applicable range 300-1200 ng/dl) in the context of …

That’s why I went to the trouble to dig them up.

Although quite a variation in daily peak, look at the variation in daily Cavg:

@tareload,

Let’s see your t levels when you were healthy, so we can make sure you’re replacing exactly what your body isn’t making anymore. Then, be sure to account for the fact that the ranges we see in lab tests ONLY take into account men who produce testosterone on their own, within that range.

You can keep chasing ghosts, and keep your meaningless graphs if it keeps your ocd in check.

For myself and other rational people, who realize we’re stuck with testosterone injections for the rest of our lives, we’ll get ourselves to a level that relieves our symptoms, and makes us feel like we can live a normal life again.

I will ignore your insults and try to really seek to understand your POV.

So as we discussed (at least I tried discussing before you left the discussion in bad faith IMO) in the other thread, your hypothesis is that men on exogenous testosterone need their own reference range because the physiologic reference range (eudonadal) is not applicable to these men? The T using men need a widened/shifted ref range since the amount they use to relieve symptoms pushes their TT/fT levels outside the physiologic range?

Would this not be the very definition of testosterone compensation treatment to relief symptoms that may or may not be due to T deficiency? We know quite well the relevant range that covers eugondal males over the last 5 decades.

Do you also understand the potential tradeoff involved with such a treatment?

Tell me, how do you do that in a consistent and thoughtful way once you abandon the physiologic reference range for adult human males?

Blood work and regular cardiovascular surveillance and hope?

How about the older male with preexisting comordities who embraces this new found TOT elixir? Who is looking out for this gentlemen with enablers/T peddlers on the internet normalizing fT targets of 30 to 50 ng/dl? Must be collateral damage. Oh well.

My point in all this is the advice being dished out of TOT Land HAS and will CONTINUE to harm men. It is reckless. Buyer beware and find a medical professional you trust and that has your long term best interests at heart. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing when trying to tweak your HPTGA.

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I’d rather have you pay attention to what I say, including the insults. I say things for a reason.

Your opinion is wrong in this case, but you’re entitled to it.

No. You asked this before, and I told you no at that time. I’ve never advocated for a different reference range. I simply stated that the reference ranges for men who make there own healthy amount of testosterone, is not applicable to hypogonadal men, THE WAY THAT YOU CLAIM.

I’m for as much testing as reasonable, to determine the symptoms are due to low t. So, no, your question isn’t phrased accurately.

Again, I’m talking specifically about the reference ranges that you are using, that pertain to total t and free t of men who produce “healthy” amounts of testosterone on their own. I’m not saying that other bloodwork is or isn’t relevant. I’ve made no such claim one way or the other.

And yes, blood work and cardio surveillance is part of it.

Now who’s hurling insults? You assume that because I hold a position different that yours, that I don’t care about someone with preexisting conditions?

That’s compatible to me saying that I think adults should be able to decide if they want to drink alcohol, as long as they are healthy and alcohol isn’t causing harm.

And your response is, “Who’s going to advocate for the alcoholic with liver damage, blah, blah, blah.”

And many knowledgable people, including doctors disagree with you. It’s only your opinion, backed by irrelevant graphs.

Your argument on this is intellectually inaccessible and vacuous if you are being serious. If you arent then i am wasting my time trying to discuss this with you. Maybe someone else smarter than me can figure it out.

@unreal24278
@disciplined_trt
@mnben87
@lordgains
@blshaw
@hankthetank89
@EyeDentist

:ear::pray:

I am on the fence with tagging you as i respect people’s time but maybe you can help figure this out for me. I have a hard time asking for help but at this point i think i will.

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And again, you are assuming that the range, with the max ceiling, applies directly to men on exogenous testosterone. Once you realize that your assumption is wrong, your eyes then your mind will be opened.

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Just my $0.02

I think people need to be honest with themselves about what they are doing. Ideally learn as much as you can. I try to call what I do a cruise, because that is what it is. I am shooting for a mean TT of 1,000 ng/dL. I pin EOD, so the peak and trough aren’t all that different. I understand that this isn’t a typical TT level of natural men (maybe Bo Jackson as a teenager lol).

I don’t think there is anything wrong with 100 mg a week or 250 mg a week because I think we should be able to do with our bodies what we choose. I do have issues with guys saying a few cycles a year or running 250 mg a week isn’t going to hurt you. How do they know that? They don’t. Caveat: I have run into a few guys who just have terrible dose to TT or FT response. We should be talking about TT and FT not dose. TT and FT along with things like BP, lipids, etc… are the things that are going to drive risk.

It also isn’t a surprise that people get “symptom relief” at 250 mg a week. We have known from BBers for a long time that certain cycles make people feel good (while some cycles tend to make certain guys feel not so good). The best I’ve felt was my first blast at 325 mg/wk. Higher than that made me feel a bit worse, but still better than 175 mg/wk. Slept like a baby, anxiety went down, never sore, on high doses.

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Plenty of people have figured it out. They don’t directly correlate t ranges for men producing t, with those who don’t.

I stated elsewhere that I took 400mg test per week for a period of about 4 months. I did it as an experiment to see how I felt. While I felt better on 400mg than 200mg, I didn’t notice any better symptom relief. I noticed more energy overall, slightly more strength and endurance with weightlifting.

But as far as my low t symptoms, nothing was alleviated at 400mg that wasn’t alleviated at 200mg.

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I’m not sure why you can’t understand what I’m saying. Tell me if I’m accurate in what I think you’re claiming. You think that the current lab ranges for total t and free t should be applied to men on exogenous testosterone, as far as to show that if someone on exogenous testosterone tests higher than the top of the range at trough, then that person is taking too much testosterone.

I’ve always been of the opinion Bo Jackson was on the low end of the reference range :slight_smile: He did ALOT more with much less given his overall GOD mode genetic gifts. Counterintuitive stuff is fascinating. There’s a common misconception that some is good then more must be a lot better. But who the hell knows, I can’t find his data. The Elite athlete data is thought provoking though.

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Nice summary.

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