Hello, I’ve been on TRT for over a year but I’m still not dialled in. Even though my Rx is from a doctor I’ve been going it alone for a long time paying for my own bloodwork. Got some bloods after five weeks on the below protocol.
Protocol:
Test E - 42.5mg E3D
That’s it. I have HCG and anastrozole available, but after protocol hoping for a long time I want to get dialled in on testosterone alone first, and then see what adding the two above does to my levels once I feel good. Bloods were taken at trough.
I felt good for the first three weeks, then the last two things went down hill. Heavy brain fog, acne, always tired, difficult to get up in the morning, light headed, weak erections, low libido and energy.
I have anastrozole and HCG available but I travel a lot so I’d rather not take either to make things easy. I’m considering lowering my dose to see if E2 lowers and supplement DHEA if my upcoming DHEA-S blood test comes back low.
Your estrogen is too high, this can make it seem like TRT isn’t working. Excess estrogen can overwhelm your androgen receptors and testosterone can’t interact with your receptors, you need an AI and target 80-100 pmol/L.
Your test dosage is perfect, you just convert a lot of testosterone into estrogen. Standard assay is useless for males, you need the LC/MS/MS sensitive method. Just bring written prescription with you when traveling. DHEA can also increase estrogen, if this happens try 7 Keto DHEA.
What dose of AI would you recommend starting with? I’ve been struggling to split the pills evenly with my pill cutter, and with travelling a lot dissolving them in vodka like it says in the stickies isn’t really an option. Any ideas how I should go about that?
I’m very happy with the test level too, but I’ve read that if you’re aromatising heavily it’s a sign it’s too high for you personally. Is there any truth to this? I’m about 15% bf so I don’t know if that makes a difference or not.
And with the estradiol assay, you can only get standard in the UK so I’m not sure what to do. Any advice on managing estrogen with standard would be greatly appreciated too. Thanks for the advice!
You should be OK with the estradiol assay, as you can see below the IA and LC/MS/MS tests can be very similar. For now, get your E2 down to what was recommended and see how you feel.
Thank you, that’s great to see! I really appreciate you taking the time to upload those photos.
Do you have a recommended starting dose to hit 80 - 100? I’m going to start with 0.25mg E3D on the same day as my injection but I don’t know if that’s too high a dose to begin with.
Try 0.5mg anastrozole twice a week. If dose is good, you will feel major changes inn 5-7 days. If you feel crashed, you are one of the anastrozole over-responders, stop for 6 days and resume at 1/4th that amount, 1/8mg really requires that vodka solution.
Evaluate your overall thyroid function by checking oral body temperatures as per the thyroid basics sticky. Thyroid hormone fT3 is what gets the job done and it regulates mitochondrial activity, the source of ATP which is the universal currency of cellular energy. This is part of the body’s temperature control loop. This can get messed up if you are iodine deficient. In many countries, you need to be using iodized salt. Other countries add iodine to dairy or bread.
KSman is simply a regular member on this site. Nothing more other than highly active.
I can be a bit abrupt in my replies and recommendations. I have a lot of ground to cover as this forum has become much more active in the last two years. I can’t follow threads that go deep over time. You need to respond to all of my points and requests as soon as possible before you fall off of my radar. The worse problems are guys who ignore issues re thyroid, body temperatures, history of iodized salt. Please do not piss people off saying that lab results are normal, we need lab number and ranges.
The value that you get out of this process and forum depends on your effort and performance. The bulk of your learning is reading/studying the suggested stickies.
