Hi, Question. I tried an experiment with taking Testosterone for the first time for the past 3 weeks. I’m 54 Fit, 165lbs, 5’10" exercise 5-6 days/week. My initial T was 600 Total T which was the only number I had. The positives I’ve felt are increased energy, better sleep, muscle/weight gain, big increase in libido and virility, feel strong in the gym, recover well. The negatives have been injection soreness including one week long red and swollen area on my Quad. Though the other injections were not a problem. I’m guessing this was an injection issue and maybe hit a blood vessel or did not go deep enough with the 1/2" Insulin needle. I’ve been taking 200mg a week spread into 5 shots per week. I’m 54. I want to be able to continue to be strong, surf, etc when I’m 64… I love the libido/virility side of things. I would like to gain another 10lbs of muscle. I’m not afraid of hard work/diet. I wasn’t eating enough and doing a lot of Cardio prior. Now I’m more focused on resistance training. Here are my questions I thank you in advance for any insight. 1. If I were to stop today. Would I need or benefit from going on HCG or Clomiphene? Or could I just stop, hit the weights? 2. Could I do a 6-8 week or 12 week trial and see how it goes and then stop? 3. Honestly I feel great, I know my Total T numbers were relatively normal, but I feel great now. For someone my age 54, who is super fit and active, does it make sense to want your Total T numbers to be over 1000? (I understand that Free T is most important) 4. Are there some people out there who have been in a similar situation as me and have moved forward either using or stopping and now have some insight years later they could share? Thank You
If you stopped right now you’d prob be fine with no PCT. You should recover as good as your gonna without anything. At your age though you may not get back to where you were.
Yes, but at that point you would def need a full PCT and you can prob watch all you worked for disappear.
The numbers are just numbers. If you were to stay on long term I would prob drop to 150/wk and see how you feel and how your bloodwook looks.
Your 54 years old. Your numbers are not gonna get any better, if fact they will continue to decline.
600 total T level is completely healthy. Nothing wrong with just staying there and keeping an eye on it over the next couple years.
What I would not suggest at your age is to keep cycling test. Either take it ata TRT dose or stop al together. You don’t want to be on a hormonal rollercoaster all the time.
Thanks a lot for the feedback. Really appreciate it.
I understand that to do this right I need to get real bloodwork, work with a TRT specialist atleast at first, and my goal would be to aim for higher free T and something at the very upper levels of physiological norm ie @ 1000-1100. I’m guessing the right dose for me would be somewhere @ 175, but I would fine tune that with labwork if I move forward. I understand that it’s a very big and potentially permanent step. While I did not have full bloodwork prior and only knew my starting Total T from one test which was actually done a little late in the morning, I have felt very noticeable positive changes. I’m very active and fit. I work outside, I swim 2 miles a day a few times a week and go to the gym, and I surf when it’s big… I’m not looking to get super ripped like bodybuilding but rather to improve/enhance muscle and performance as I further age… I’m thinking that by 60, there would be big benefits, so why wait another 5 years? I like the increased energy, better sleep, confidence, libido (there has been a big change in that department)… The quote which comes to mind is that “I’m walking one inch taller” So who out there has been in my shoes and made a choice one way or another? Go forward and don’t look back? or put on the brakes and reconsider?
If you feel great, keep it going. You want the minimal effective dose to feel great and have little to no side effects. It sounds like you’re responding great to it, but since you felt it so strongly this early it’s probably too high. I had to play with dosage, dosage frequency and esthers for a while to get it dialed-in. I get bloodwork done with letsgetchecked.com’s male hormone panel. I subscribed and pay $139 for a test every 3mos, just follow the directions and drop it at a UPS store, it’s got a prepaid next day air label and you’ll have results in 72hrs.
I’m 41, started TRT a year ago, my total T levels were close to 800 but I had low T symptoms because of high SHBG . SHBG is a protein that binds your Free-T and makes it unavailable. So I went on 100mg a week and was at 1365 Total T with Free T near 30, felt great but i had some intermittent anxiety/insomnia so I dropped to 90 and now im at 1170 Total T and 26 Free T. We all respond differently, and it’s definitely a good idea to get bloodwork done so you can keep tabs on how you feel vs what your dose is compared to bloodwork. 200mg/week is most likely too high, so I agree with dropping to 150 or even less. It takes about 6-8 weeks for exogynous test to “saturate” your system, so if you start to feel like you’re crawling out of your skin real soon, I would skip a few doses and let your levels come down a bit and resume at a lower dose. Wait 6-8 weeks for your body to adjust to the dose and get labs done if you so choose.
FYI if you go with your own labs which are a combo of blood/saliva: Biotin (vitamin B supplements) throw off these tests like crazy. When i did my first lab, the protein i was using (Isopure) had vitamin B in it and my Total T said 3500 lol total waste of a test, so cut out anything Vitamin B for a few weeks before doing the test.