Thanks for clarifying.
Sometimes I wonder about that though, just because I know alot of people have way lower T levels than what I had (TT 426 FT 286). even though I have symptoms cant help but think I’m being a little reckless and spoiled maybe lol.
Oh well… see how she goes I guess.
You feel better because less of your testosterone is converting to E2 so you wind up with more testosterone. If you stopped taking the AI and increased your dose you would most likely also feel better.
It’s not the E2.
How would that change the ratio?
This is where you guys have it all wrong. You’re obsessed with NUMBERS. As long as you obsess with numbers you will never feel optimized. I don’t care about E2, DHT, SHBG, ratios, ranges, or any of that shit. I take daily administration and I slowly increased my dose over time until my symptoms resolved.
I don’t know how else I can explain this. You guys just don’t get it. I keep coming back here to help you guys, just as others have helped me, but it’s like talking to a brick wall.
Increase your dose slowly over time until your symptoms resolve. The majority of you don’t have your free T levels anywhere near high enough to achieve this and you wonder why you have issues. Most guys I know with no symptoms have their free T over 30 ng/dL. The guys I know that feel really good typically have their free T over 40 ng/dL. The difference between them and you is that they aren’t trying to target a number. Once they feel good, they get labs, and the general consensus always appears to be the same. Some need 50 ng/dL. Some need 60 ng/dL. My symptoms disappeared when I reached 28 ng/dL (pretty close to 30).
The above is so damn simple yet the majority of you want to keep arguing and, at the same time, continue to have symptoms. If whatever you are doing isn’t working, a different approach and mindset might be in order. The above worked MIRACLES for me and more men than I can count at this point.
If you’re blocking E2, you are absolutely and utterly ignorant towards the literature that demonstrates the health benefits of E2 (essential for erections and libido) and the cardiovascular damage an AI causes. You absolutely do NOT want to take an AI unless you have mastalgia which is VERY RARE. When you raise testosterone your E2 will raise along with it. Let the body do what it needs to do. The second you are adding an AI to your protocol you are asking for problems. You may not have issues today, but I guarantee you that you will have issues down the road. It is a poison that will kill you slowly over time.
Wouldnt taking more Test just convert to more estrogen if you dont have an AI? Trust me I dont want to be taking an AI, but it has taken away those very bad symptoms i was experiencing which leads me to believe it is the estrogen that was to blame, I felt like I could have had a heart attack my heart was racing and while doing any sort of physical work it would race faster, and i would start sweating like crazy, have bad headaches, face and neck was red couldn’t think clearly, pressure in my head neck and chest etc. I could be really estrogen sensitive too i dont know. But I’d rather not experience that again, I’m not sure if my body would adjust but i am kind of freaked out to see if it would.
If the AI really is that bad than maybe trt isn’t for me.
Call me a baby, lol but I just dont want to have a heart attack or stroke because my hormones are unbalanced due to self infliction.
Holy crap. I keep saying it isn’t E2 and you keep talking about E2.
Guys, I’m out. This is a complete waste of my time.
No need to be an ass. I dont know alot about this so I’m just telling you from what I’ve been experiencing is all. If it isn’t E2 what is it? That’s all I’d like to know.
There are those who believe excess estrogen is irrelevant and if estrogen is 200 no need to worry about it, only men are not walking around with estrogen higher than women. This is a story about cause and effect, if an AI got rid of your systems, then clearly there is no mystery here.
Sure estrogen is needed like many other hormones, balance is key, not excess. I always recommend if you can inject very smaller doses daily to avoid an AI, then please do so because the least amount of drugs the better.
This scenario is not always possible first starting out on TRT, in these rare cases a micro dose AI may be needed until such time you can change your diet and lose weight.
Exactly! Im not completely out of my mind those symptoms sucked and wouldn’t let up until i took a small dose of Arimidex and then completely gone the next day. If i were to take a larger dose of Test i would have had even worse symptoms for obvious reasons.
Im glad that not everyone is completely ignorant to symptoms on here and obviously high E2 is something to be concerned with, at least for me.
I will have to do as you say and lose more weight because i do have a higher body fat percentage and would like to get off the AI as soon as i possibly can.
If my dose is 100mgs a week and divide into 7 daily doses and still had high E2 symptoms typically noticed after 3 days of injections, how low can you dose yourself everyday to even keep trt effective without a blocker to keep symptoms at bay? i guess its really dependent on the person hey?
E2 ratio would seem significant. Over time it changes on TRT, but it’s not unusual for your body to freak out a little in the short-term. Exogynous T also results in a higher E2 than endogynous for most of us. Out of ratio is out of ratio. Maybe cranking enough T will overcome the rate of conversion and alleviate symptoms related to ratio, but how high do you want to go? Nothing is without risk.
My EOD protocol got me about the same Total T as daily, but using 30mg less testosterone and estrogen was <35 pg/mL, EOD it was 56 pg/mL because I was using more testosterone to account for the decline on days I wasn’t injecting.
You produce naturally <10mg daily, so daily injections makes sense if the goal is to lower estrogen. My body really started responding to daily injection better than it had on an EOD protocol, my thinking is because estrogen was lower and kept bloating to a minimum, I was looking thinner within only 2 weeks.
I’m 32% body fat, so this played into it as well. The aromatase enzymes had less testosterone to convert to estrogen.
Well exactly, maybe increasing the T would help but how much would I need to use to balance it while trying to stay in “normal ranges”.
I only have a prescription for 100mgs a week, it’s not like I got an unlimited supply and everytime I have bad symptoms can just increase the dose.
Not to mention it just being a gamble anyways, i have no clue if that would fix the issues I’m having or not. Maybe I could do a little experiment and see though.
To me it makes more sense slowly cutting out the AI and letting my body adjust to different levels over a longer period of time and not shocking my system all at once from unbalanced levels. Just seems like your asking for trouble that way
There are reasons why they made AI’s to begin with, it’s just too bad it can do so much damage, like you said nothing is without risk i guess.
Thanks for your feedback man.
Yeah I get that for sure. I’m in the same boat around 32 percent body fat. I’m going to have to try and lose as much BF as possible in the upcoming months to help get me off this AI.
Thanks again for positive feedback!
Frankly, that’s (32% BF) 99% of your problem. I suggest (NOT medical advice) getting down to about 15%, start an aggressive lifting program and then see what happens. A little T-hacking would not hurt (Forskolin/Eurycoma longifolia Jack/paint your balls with iodine/some phototherapy [670 nM) down there/Brazil nuts (selenium)/oysters(zinc)/etc./etc/etc.). Note that this is all whole food and plant-based, well maybe not the iodine painting 
dBossa is right, forget the numbers. I say go with what your body tells you as you move towards less fat and more muscle.
Haha I dont know about painting my balls in iodine but I am on the road to losing that BF.
I have stopped testosterone because I have been feeling worse on it than before I started. Not only that I have been ready that a person shouldn’t even be on testosterone if they are over 20% BF.
Just for clarity I do not look overweight I look like I’m at a healthy weight, however I cant see abs only a slight outline.
I will lose the weight with heavy exercise healthy eating while intermittent fasting, taking selenium/iodine supplements as well as zinc magnesium and vitamin D.
If you guys have any other recommendations let me know.
Also I am wondering about DHEA supplementation, I known my number is 7 on a ref range of 14 I think lol.
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Above post.
Also I’m not looking for dhea to increase my test levels.
I hear good things about it increasing energy and mental clarity as well as memory which I’m severely lacking.
However I’m not sure if I’m actually deficient in it, I know the trt clinic says they like to see their patients around 12 of 14 on the scale and I’m at 7. So no idea if I need it or not.
DHEA increases testosterone in women, all men with get is more estrogen. TRT is not the problem, the problem is your doctors. This is why TRT didn’t work, because of thyroid problems and a system that believes normal TSH is within .5-4.5.
It’s hard to blame them when the ranges are made up from those who are sick with hypothyroidism, looking at the healthy population TSH is <1.5. Mine is <1.0, typically .6-0.9 on most recent testing.
You have a thyroid problem plain and simply, TRT will not work, nothing will until you address your thyroid and go back on TRT.
Try contacting these doctors.
- Dr. Lawrence D. Komer Burlington, Ontario
- Dr. Adam Millar at Mount Sinai Hospital in Ontario
Thanks I will try and see if I can contact them, it’s too bad there arnt any good ones in the edmonton alberta area lol.
Yeah its unfortunate that I havent been responding well to it.
I’m getting blood req form today would like to see my red blood cell count, from what I’ve been reading it’s quite possible that I could have been high pre trt because I have quite bad asthma since I was a kid and higher iron levels and that’s what could be bringing on the bad headaches blood pressure spikes, racing heart, crazy amounts of sweating etc…
However my knowledge on this is shit and could very well be like you said thyroid issues which i seem to have most of the symptoms for too except for feeling cold other than sometimes my feet.
Also people keep telling me my levels are just fine for my age ei, doctors of course lol, others on trt and others that are pretty knowledgeable in the are so it’s pretty confusing to me.
I did get my T levels checked in 2017 and he told me it was at 17.9 I think and almost 20 in 2016 and pre trt was 14.8 so it does seem to be dropping rapidly.
Most doctors know shockingly little, only the ranges that have been provided to them by a system that is slow to respond to change. New studies come to light and nothing changes for decades.