I’m on
Testosterone Cypionate 0.25 mls TWO times a week SubCU
AND
HCG 0.1 mls Two Times a week SUBCUT.
Am I being impatient (I am prone to that) ?
I just keep reading people feel great straight away etc.
My diet is good and I’m going to gym 3 times a week. I’m 50 years old.
Any advice much appreciated.
It’s gonna take some time for your hormones to settle. I would give it 5-6 weeks minimum for full blood saturation and then a few more weeks.
If they feel good immediately it’s most likely they are taking a blend of short/long ester test. This will speed up the process a bit.
Hang in there. You may find if your not getting symptom relief that your weekly dose needs to ne adjusted.
Six weeks minimum, benefits to develop over twelve months.
Be patient.
Yes you are being very impatient! Most men feel significant changes in 4-6 months! Hormones aren’t like drugs where effects are immediate, hormones cause structural changes in your body and that takes time.
Your hormones haven’t even reached a steady state.
SQ is overrated and most feel better on IM.
Men have different types of androgen receptors, sensitivities to androgens, as well as abilities for tissues to respond. Some men feel amazing right after the first shot, some men never feel anything at all.
You need to learn how to communicate your doses. Your testosterone cypionate dose could be 25 or 50 mg, no way to tell since you only included the volume of medicine minus the strength.
If it says ‘intramuscular on the box’ why have I been advised to inject in to stomach fat ? Seems odd.
Doesn’t matter although i prefer IM injections.
That’s because exogenous testosterone was originally designed to be injected IM, but no one thought it could work any other way, never having tried it SQ.
SQ for some men means poor levels achieved versus IM, which is why I always say never start out on TRT SQ. Most men prefer IM, so it makes no sense to try the least effective option first.
Every time there’s a poll, the majority prefer IM.
You’re on 50 mg twice weekly for a total of 100 mg.
I have been on TRT for 5 years, and have experienced zero benefits, zero symptom resolution, zero positives. Ester, dose, frequency doesnt make a difference. And to be clear, my Pre TRT levels were awful… 180ngdl total T and bottomed out free T too. To this day I dont know how someone so clearly hypogonadal and deficient can go on T and experience zero benefits.
Not wanting to kill the mood, just trying to manage expectations. That being said, most guys do feel muxh better on TRT once dialled in. This may take a few tweaks along the way, so expect 6-12 months or so. Best of luck!
According to Dr. Rob Kominiarek, who has clinical experience with people who have heavy metal toxicity, and low receptor density will not feel the effects of testosterone until they go through detox.
There must be other medical conditions that can cause the same problem.
Yeah, agreed. Something else must be going on, mow just to find it. I guess I now habe healthy T levels for long term health, just a shame to feel no positives from it. For the OP should just be a case of giving it time and a few rounds of bloods for minor tweaks if required.
From what I was told it was written IM to stop people thinking of doing it intravenous, many people still think you take meds into a vein.
Sorry but both of these ‘facts’ have been brought up before but are not necessarily right. Men do not tend to get lower levels, what happens is the test is absorded (adsorbed??- just checked apparently both!! go science!) at a slower rate leading to a more level area under the curve (AUC) which if people look at a single or even few blood tests they may see a lower level but if looking at the whole period of time (so possibly 2 tests a day across weeks) it would be around the same amount of test used by the body, as mentioned in this thread, and many others.
Sorry I havent seen these polls but Im guessing they’re here on TNation? In which case I would say the majority of people who answer on forums and feel strongly enough about something feel better on IM injections.
I personally wouldn’t carry that across to the general population, especially when a quick google check shows MANY sites, studies and clinics recommending SQ above IM.
I started with deep IM and hated it, switched to sq and loved it then realised if I injected sq or shallow IM I couldn’t tell the difference and it gave me more options where to pin.
@Seagull1983
personally I dont have a clue which will work for you but I’m sure you’ll figure it out.
Sorry, edit to add; Not a med pro.
Thanks for all advice. I’ll just keep my head down and stay on diet and gym. The suns out in the uk so we’ll all feel better for those few days anyway 
I thought the same thing until it happened to me. SC with it’s slower absorption should actually result in higher levels when you measure at trough, all else being equal. Except in some men, all else is not equal, because somehow a significant amount of the testosterone is not successfully absorbed. The question then becomes, where did the testosterone go? My guess is the immune system destroys it.
I could show you countless and I mean countless anecdotes at this point of lab verified lower total and free testosterone on the same dose of TRT. It doesn’t happen to all men; it doesn’t happen to most men. It happens to SOME men, just like systemlord said.
What also happens to SOME men is higher E2 on SC injections. With this one, the mechanism may be clearer. The esterases to remove the ester from testosterone are present in the interstitial fluid around your fat tissue. Some of the testosterone is then available to aromatase enzymes in the local fat tissue.
Not to be a buzzkill but keep expectations low.
@FunkOdyssey
Sorry for late reply!
Obviously I totally agree with this.
Agree with that (more depending on how labs are done than against the actual idea; So if bloods are just a 1 or 2 snapshot in that period then they may not be showing the whole AUC so the layman thinks “its all lower” where as if they are taken frequently they give a better picture.) And as for taking advice from anecdotal, one of the better parts of a forum is the feedback thats not scientific and based on feels not facts.
I do tend to gravitate towards seeing what can be backed up with more evidence but I think the mix of both is healthy.
In that spirit if someone says
I think it good that someone points out to a newer person on the site that that may be scientific (its not) it may be personal (from systemlord its not he had issues with everything except oral test) or its anecdotal (it is and thats fine,) but there is a lot of other sites with actual studies saying different.
Anyway I’m sounding argumentative which isn’t my aim so I will take my pedantic arse out of here!
Switch to short ester prop.
Long esters are awful. You don’t want stable levels.
10mg prop per day and adjust from there.
Wouldn’t this:
Achieve this:
?
