I was using Androgel for about a year. I experienced no relief of my symptoms. Found a new doctor who has started me on IM injections. I am now self injecting twice a week and I have experienced quiet a bit of relief of most of my symptoms.
Currently, however, I am having a bit of a difference with my doc because of the high dosage he has me on. He wants me injecting 200Mg twice a week - which is twice what I consider to be normal TRT. But, as he points out, the numbers don’t lie, I simply do not retain much of the TC. My body burns it right up. At the end of each injection cycle at 200Mg per week my T-level is still only around 45 to 500. He wants me to go up to 200Mg twice a week and after one month take a new blood test and see what my level of free testosterone is. So, I will give that a try.
My doc suggests that one of the prescription drugs I take (Cymbalta) is interfering with my body’s ability to retain the testosterone. I have never heard of such a thing and there is nothing about this in any of the literature I can find on line. Have any of you guys ever heard anything about Cymbalta and TRT?
I do not think that the problem is the AD medication. We have a seen a few, very few, guys here who need around 300mg/week to achieve T levels that most get from 100mg/week. The metabolic process behind this is unknown. Could be liver or something else. However, if you are spilling T through your kidneys, I would also want to see if the kidneys are also not “sparing” vitamin D. You would get a vit-D25 lab test for that. Suggest that you be on 5000iu vit-D3 for a few weeks prior. Then we should expect to see some decent numbers… or not. You can front load a lot of vitamin D in the first week, take 25,000iu per day for 7 days.
If the kidneys are dumping the vitamin D steroids, perhaps then T is also getting dumped. This is really only my blue sky thinking. I cannot recall or find the article that discussed the vit-D losses through the kidneys. In any case, most need 5000iu [or more] vit-D3 to achieve what is considered to be optimal levels. The RDA amounts are enough to prevent rickets in children, never had optimal on the radar screen.
Please read the advice for new guys sticky. We may be able to provide a lot more help. We need more info and labs with ranges.
See the protocol for injections sticky too.
My suggestion would be 150mg twice a week, but 200 twice a week will also prove the point.