So I have been on trt for a couple months now at 150mg test c a week.
Been doing subcutaneously at .25 cc Monday, Wednesday, Friday
The doctor wants to raise my dose to 200mg a week since my levels are still not at par and wants me to do .5 cc twice a week instead of three times a week.
So I’ve been reading that injecting subcutaneously if you inject too much that it can cause knots that could go from temporary to more permanent and potential absess.
I have been fine injecting. 25 but since now going to .5 should I do intramuscular instead?
Intramuscular is not a big deal. I use insulin needles to draw which takes a little longer but who cares. But I’ve read that subcutaneously your blood levels are more stable
You shouldn’t be having issues getting your levels high enough on 150mg weekly, I would switch to IM. I have seen countless times before some just struggle to get their numbers up on SQ and you may be one of them.
While more stable hormone levels sounds ideal, not everyone feels good with stable hormone levels. Some men needs swings in hormones to feel good.
It’s not completely useless, you can compare Free T results with direct testing and calculated using the Total T and SHBG. I would make sure your testing methods for Free T are either Equilibrium Dialysis or Ultrafiltration, any other method is pointless and inaccurate.
The goal should be the minimum effective dosage that relieves the symptoms of low-T.
I recently ran out of 1/2” needles so Ive been using 8mm needles which are very short. I decided to stick with the short insulin needles as an experiment to see what happens. Im injecting 32mg/daily into the leanest part of my Ventroglute and so far so good. When using the 1/2” needles I tend to be at about TT1250. Im curious to see where I land with the shorter 8mm needles. 30g needles arent hard to fill for me. I fill 7 every Sunday night (through a tiny 30g needle) so that Im ready to go every morning. Im all about IM shots but the need to get some T in me led me to using the needles I use for HCG. I will say that I had a week of being in flux in which I had night sweats a couple of times, but my energy and sense of well being has been extra top notch all of sudden. Inject into an area with almost no fat like the VG and see what happens. I should start a thread to document how my experience goes.
A few more things… How do you feel currently? If you feel great dont chase numbers. What is your SHBG? Raising your dose will create a myriad of changes like an increase in E, HCT, RBC count, so go up only if you’re not feeling optimal, otherwise who cares if your FT is 2XX and you feel great versus FT3XX with complications that require intervention. Im not against 200mg, I take 220mg but I do have to keep an eye on just about everything. Ive been on TRT for about 1.5 years and the higher dose comes with more responsibility.
At the start of it my free test was only 54. Energy mood sleep quality all sucked. It’s a lot better than it was now. But would like to see how I feel off 200mg.
But if my cholesterol, psa, ect numbers start going up then I would back down again… I feel pretty good just not optimal I guess. Sex drive is so so.
Everything is in the normal range.
My total test is 942
SHBG is 30.1. Still in a good range.
When I was doing subq my levels got a little high, so did a dosage reduction. I decided I wanted to try shallow IM just to see if I felt different so reduced dose and switched to IM. Even with dosage reduction my levels remained the same if not higher when going to IM. Can’t remember exactly, but know I still needed to reduce dose further. Not saying it will work for you, but for me, I got more bang for my buck by switching to IM. I am currently injecting 18mg daily (126mg weekly) and last 3 labs have been over 1100 total T.