Tough to say.
I’ve seen a shit ton of urologist from 2017-18 and been touched up quite a bit lol
Never been diagnosed with a varicocele but who knows.
We’ll see what times does and see if things improve with time. I’m only 4 weeks in so hopefully 8-12 weeks in a test only protocol whips me into shape.
DarkDescartes TRT Log 75mg E3.5D Week 5
Whats up guys, its day 35.
Not much to report honestly.
I decided to cut down my supplement stack drastically. From here on out i’ll try to take supplements that are congruent to each other. However i have a lot of supplements to go through first.
Im taking:
Khroma organic pituitary blend
Thyroid support by 1 body
L-Tyrosine
Vit B12
Vit C
Kidney support
Taurine at night.
no real libido improvements yet. It’s frustrating honestly and can drive me mad, seriously, what the fuck gives?
I feel okay overall. Using will power to get to the gym and eating well.
I’m continuing on with my career pursuits since i can’t really afford to get this back on track first.
We’re a week away from the stabilization point. These are where the weeks truly “count” if you will.
I bought selegiline and it finally came, but im not keen on taking it so quickly yet. It’s for the same reason i don’t take cialis, i want to feel great on my own accord.
All one can do is just wait it out.
Week 6 next thursday, see you then.
Man I hope you get some relief soon DD! That’s awful.
I’ve had kind of a mixed bag in the ED realm myself. I don’t have some of the background you do (ie MDMA etc) but…I’ve been on the TRT train for about 10 weeks or so now myself.
Prior to TRT, sex had been a chore for me for a few years. Rarely in the mood and usually didn’t work right when I was. 4 weeks after I started I had a brief but epic surge in drive and performance that lasted about 3-4 days. Had a longer less intense run of success more recently with less of a high and less of a low to follow…feels like I’m on the upswing again. Seems like the drive/desire/interest is holding on with me at least. My problem is the capability for physical arousal seems to come and go.
Morning wood…oh I’ve got that in spades. Surprised I haven’t poked a hole in the mattress by now.
Lots of different things affect us I guess.
thanks man.
Yeah i know its fuckin’ torture. The worse is this feeling of powerlessness. There’s nothing i can really do but wait and hope things work out in my favor.
I’m just staying the course and hoping for the best. I look back at my history and although not the greatest, never seemed to be so detrimental that TRT would be this kind of struggle for me.
Hope i can report good news in the next few weeks
I didnt take the time to read through your entire post. So forgive me if I touch on something you’ve already discussed. I did see your December bloods tho. I dont want this to be an estrogen rant but its high. That can be a big problem for many guys. enough said. Anyway, ill share my experience on how I overcame some of the issues you are dealing with. With respect to penile sensitivity, giving up porn can help but if you dont have an outright porn problem then its not a deal breaker. Change how you masturbate tho. Dont ever directly stimulate the head of your penis(ever) unless it is inside of a woman(or man).
Masturbation is ok but what worked for me was changing my relationship to it. Im circumsized and i looked into foreskin restoration exercises. I began a process that includes more pulling the skin from the perineum up towards the tip of my penis, ill grab the shaft and pull…but i will never directly stimulate the head of my penis(unless it is inside my fiance). This form of masturbation is not about orgasm. Orgasm happens on occasion but its more of a flowing overpowering feeling that occurs as opposed to a goal im trying to reach. Most of the time i do not orgasm and it is about heightened awareness and pleasure. I also learned reverse kegel relaxation exercises that I use when I masturbate and that allows more bloodflow in and control over orgasm.
I used to have this idea that it was a muscle that the more you can flex it the better but i carried too much tension in my pelvic floor. Learning how to relax and control(as well as flex) was very helpful. Supplement wise, adding high dose citrulline and carnitine helped. Inject it if you can get access. You can buy it online injectable or in bulk powders. I was researching androgen receptor sensitivity and it led me down that path and proved for me to be very beneficial for my TRT and sexual function. I do use PDE5’s but i am getting a much improved response. Erections, penile sensitivity and pleasure from orgasm have improved greatly. The despair in some your posts is evident. Dont lose hope!
@darkdescartes
Libido took a long while to come full force for me. Same with erection quality. Stay the course and give it time. Don’t give into the negative thinking pattern that you’re unfixable and it’s hopeless. You WILL eventually get to where you want to be. It just takes time. I never I’m a million years thought I’d have the libido I have now or the erection quality after going so long without it. It took months & months on the same protocol but it eventually happened. I have dental friends that had the same outcome. Hang in there and stay positive.
DarkDescartes TRT Log 75mg E3.5D Week 6
Nothing.
I can’t believe I’m at week 6 and there’s nothing. Not modicum or iota of improvement of my libido.
I feel exasperated and utterly confused. I don’t comprehend why this is happening the way it is.
I don’t mind waiting months and months on the same protocol to get things dialed in, but when there’s no improvement early on, the discouragement is very real.
I’m going to see Dr. Rotman on the 27th. Not necessarily to get advice but just to receive blood work for testosterone & thyroid numbers.
In the meantime, I’m just questioning whats next for me. Where do i go from here?
People recommend 8 weeks, i guess 2 more weeks can’t hurt. However i do plan to do something thats considered “taboo” here.
Monday feb 3rd is 8 1/2 weeks in and day 60 of this protocol. Should i take my shot and still nothing, ill start dosing aromasin once a week at 6.25mg for about 4-6 weeks. Either that or order DIM off amazon and try it out for the duration of the bottle.
If I’m simply going by Occam’s Razor on this one, it would feel like my estrogen is too high.
I’ve been at the no AI thing for months and hasn’t given me much improvement. Plus my last bloods show my estrogen was 106 just 2 days after injection with a test level of 1274. IDC what Danny says or claims, but I’m not one of those guys that has an e2 over 100 and feels great.
Unless anybody has any better ideas, this seems to be the best course.
Smh, no choice but to keep trudging on. Until next week.
I can relate with your struggle. I’ve tried no AI for extended periods of time. I was always waiting and hoping my body would adapt to the higher estrogen levels but that wasn’t the case for me.
Most people seem to jump to the conclusion on here that if you’re complaining of estrogen then you’re simply a whiner that needs to give it more time. I strongly disagree.
Of course I’d prefer not to need or want an AI. However I prefer to be able to perform sexually when needed and to not feel like a water ballon which negatively impacts my blood pressure. I don’t have those issues while using an AI.
What recently made me throw in the towel on trying to join the no AI team was a failed sexually experience. I had a beautiful woman naked ready to go and I couldn’t get hard. I had no idea what my estrogen was at the time because I was trying to not concern myself with it.
Immediately after that failed attempt I did a mini blood test. Estrogen was 68 which was approximately double the lab range.
I took an AI and was back to myself within a couple days. Fortunately I redeemed myself with that woman and had some amazing sex.
Again I did a mini blood test and estrogen was now 28 and my libido was back.
So moral of the story, everyone is different. Some do great without an AI. However I for one do not and I don’t believe I’m alone…
For those of you who needed to wait months and months on the same protocol:
how did you know it was the right protocol?
how and when do you make adjustments?
how slow and steady are improvements?
I changed shit too early so many times that I was left with the only other option being to wait it out.
Libido can take months. You really have to play the long game. Think about the fact that once you get it right once you are set for a very long time. It sucks thinking about 3 months but it goes by quick and you’re halfway there.
The first 8 weeks of doing daily shots I felt worse than less frequent injections. It was the end of week 8 that things started changing. I even posted a thread 6 weeks in saying “this isn’t working” and almost changed because I was getting nothing out of it at that point. Thankfully I waited it out and so should you.
My first year of TRT I felt like crap. Worse than pre-TRT. It took a complete overhaul of my thinking to get where I am today. The mental aspect is not talked about much but it’s very important. You’re basically in basic training. Several months of hell before you become the person you only dreamed about. If you knew before and then saw me now you’d see how drastic a change dialed-in TRT has had on every aspect of my life and it would make it easier for you to be patient even though you aren’t seeing results yet.
@darkdescartes
Also, be careful when taking advice. There’s a lot of people that aren’t there that love to give their opinions.
I can tell you one thing. It’s not the usual 6-8 weeks like people say. It’s more like a full 3-4 months of steady dosage. And it creeps up on you slowly but very noticeable. I say do 4 months of same protocol. And not even pay attention. Just do your shit. Workout ext. Then one day you’ll be walking around head high with a smile on your face feeling like a million bucks. But if you keep searching for it it will evade you. To get into some esoteric stuff listen to some Alan Wats. When he talks about sleep. You can’t just go to sleep. You can’t force it. The more you try to sleep, the more awake you are. You must allow sleep to just happen.
I know the person I’m supposed to be. It kills me everyday knowing I’m living life at 50%.
But while you were doing daily, have you altered your dose at 8 week increments or kept the same dose for months?
Is it more important to keep the schedule of injection more so than the dose?
It’s important that whatever you choose you commit to that decision for a long enough time for it to work.
I know this response is really old, but can you go into more detail on this? I am on adderall too. I increased my TRT dose 6 weeks ago to 190mg a week taken weekly. The last 2 weeks, i have felt SUPER amped…like i took too much adderall. I never really thought about TRT impacting the effects of adderall. just curious on what you meant.
Adderall is a dopamine drug. It inhibits re-uptake and thus creates an artificially high amount in your brain. You could easily have low dopamine simply because you don’t have enough free T to make what you need. Free T is required to make the catecholamines, so you may indeed have had low T induced dopamine deficiency, theoretically. More than one guy on here has reported not needing the ADD meds after starting TRT.
You need to wait til 10 weeks, i know it sucks I had a rough time at week 5 and posted about some crap but a couple of days later I got over it and pushed through and am getting a few perks. For me the reason I’m happy where I am is I have had minimal fatigue now and hope more and more benifits happen the longer I push (honestly anything else is just a bonus.
If you change again you have to start again and what you are on now could be your perfect protocol, imagine changing protocal because you’re being impatient.
I was about to change from 125mg to 160mg as nothing was right last weekend @ week 8 I thought fuck it and pushed through and I am so happy I didn’t have to start again
Keep yourself occupied
I’ve always wondered what constitutes as a change.
I flirt with the idea of using masteron or proviron from time to time.
What if somebody added a thyroid hormone or added a small AI dose at one point to test things out if bloodwork delineated certain things.
Would that mean with those additions one is starting over?
I’m more so interested in the DHT additions but I would suck if that brought me back to week 1
@darkdescartes your issue is more than likely thyroid, the same as me. That’s why you (and me) aren’t seeing great improvements from TRT.
Maybe, maybe not.
Have even done thyroidal hormones for an extended period to confirm your theory?