When do you take the 3g? Morning? W food?
L-tyrosine has to be taken on an empty stomach, away from other amino acids and protein. It can be taken with a carb drink like Gatorade.
In the AM
Serotonin and dopamine live in balance, if you boost one the other can suffer. For example, high dose 5-HTP by itself will flood you with serotonin but crash your dopamine production. He might be trying to boost both without crashing either.
With food?
Get in a TRT regimen without an ai, and do it because it’s healthy.
Forget the nonsense about needing to alter your neurotransmitters bc you are a special snowflake different than the rest of the human species. That feeling that you are somehow not like everyone else is at the root of anxiety and depression for so many people. You aren’t special or strange.
Look up psychosomatic symptoms and the term TMS. Real physical problems are often a result of mental health issues.
Seek therapy and accept the fact that much of what you KNOW is incorrect.
I’m speaking from personal experience. Hope you take the advice.
1 Like
He doesn’t need 5htp. His dopamine is already low. Which means his serotonin is probably already really high.
I used to take it with my other supps after breakfast but the label does say “in between meals” so I just take it when I get up with water and coffee shortly after.
1 Like
I’d understand that if i was living with low t for most of my life and never did an AAS cycle.
But what I’m going through is completely different. I used to take cycle dosages of test and feel it within the week as well as getting the kick in during the 2nd week. For whatever reason it doesn’t work for me anymore.
I start trt, i start feeling decent and then i plateau. Its not a gradual build up like guys who’d be starting Test, mine is an immediate reaction followed by a blunting of the effects.
Something else is going on, thats why i’m assuming that my brain could be contributing to my issues. i’ll also keep a close eye on t3 since it has been low in the past. If my blood work comes back and my t3 doesnt look good, I’ll probably give t3 meds another trial period.
@darkdescartes
Yeah if thyroid is not great then the positive trt effects are diminished. Maybe thyroid is the problem?
It’s possible. I don’t have any thyroid issues but i do remember when i first got blood test that my total and free t3 were always on the lower end of below reference range.
I will say through out the time I’ve been searching for a cure to my libido/ed issues that my numbers have increased. My free t3 from june was 3.0, i dont know what total was since they never tested it.
like i said i did do hgh, it made me feel good for about 10 days then it stopped, i used it for the thyroid conversion and my free t3 was 3.2, but total was still 77.
When i get bloods next month i think they’ll be telling. If im still on the low side, I’ll definitely have to consider a course of t3.
@darkdescartes
Have them check RT3 (reverse t3). My free T3 was 3.5 but had high RT3 which renders some of that T3 useless giving hypo symptoms when numbers look to be good. Having 3.0 free T3 regardless of RT3 isn’t great. You want numbers at the top of the range.
1 Like
RT3 was 17 on 12/27/2018 and 14 06/06/2019.
Safe to say rt3 isn’t exactly too much of an issue.
And i totally agree, but doctors seem to over look this, even the anabolic doc.
I’m trying to tell these doctors that something else is wrong. I’ve looked up low t3 causes but unfortunately i dont fit any of them.
I’m tempted to take t3 meds since i have plenty on hand, but i do want to see how my thyroid looks natural as ive been taking natural supplements for it anyway.
My t3 either needs to be moderately medicated, finding the right dose or i have a dopamine issue, both of which are effected by exogenous androgens.
I honestly can’t imagine why its low, i dont have inflammation, i take supplements for nutritional deficiencies, etc but there doesn’t seem to be a definitive explanation.
I truly do feel like if these numbers were top of the range, everything would finally be alright, but its literally easier said then done.
I did move on to a possible dopamine deficiency but low t3 is ALWAYS on the back of my mind.
I’ve also seen plenty of youtube doctors mention how low dopamine can cause low thyroid, however i haven’t read much, if anything on google to truly confirm, but i’m willing to try!
@darkdescartes
Also it could be that you need higher T3 than others to get the same results. If RT3 is not an issue than you may want to try Armour thyroid or Natural Thyroid as they are both T4 & T3 and many people seem to feel a lot better on them then just T3 alone or synthetic. Check out the reviews for Armour Thyroid on drugs dot com and you can see a lot of people explaining how it helped vs T3 or T4 alone. Obviously I’m not a doc so this is all speculation. Google “stop the thyroid madness” (they don’t let me post the site on here) but it has a wealth of info on everything thyroid and I think you’d enjoy it. It’s like the new-school thought on thyroid.
I was trying to find where his dopamine was tested … I don’t see it.
1 Like
I’m assuming based on his symptoms. Libido and pleasure is linked to good levels of dopamine.
Yeah i think i could give nature thyroid another try. When i first tried thyroid medications i wasn’t on TRT. Maybe this time around would be different.
Its interesting though, could my high testosterone use depleted my t3 storages? Is that even possible? Not sure. i remember when i first had t3 tested while my first trt stint it was 60 and the range was 76-160. My Ft4 has usually been more upper mid range and tsh was always between 1.3-1.8. However i will say my Total t4 is usually below or towards mid range.
When i tried hgh, i was taking t4 (100mcg) and t3 (25mcg) meds, only because ive read hgh will deplete t4 storages and i wanted to be safer than sorry. When i had blood work done in december, my numbers were the following:
Total t4: 7.6 (4.9-10.5 mcg/dL)
Total t3: 77 (76-181 ng/dL)
Free t3: 3.2 (2.3-4.2 pg/mL)
Free t4: 1.8 (0.8-1.8 ng/dL)
T3 Uptake: 39 (22-35 Percent)
It perplexed me how my free t4 numbers were literally top range yet my free t3 was still lagging a bit. I stayed on the meds for a month or so longer but i never got that good initial feeling from hgh that i did when i first began.
This is what has me thinking that maybe theres something more? But like i said i can’t find anything to match up with my low t3. Maybe i needed a longer term dose, not with hgh necessarily, but thyroid meds and see how they’d pan out.
I do wanna try wellbutrin still. If i get that inital burst of libido and then it stops, then thyroid meds will be at the forefront of my mind for sure.
And I’m familiar with STTM. Adrenals can’t be ruled out as well. i don’t have anything clinically wrong per say but one guy on a forum said my cortisol was on the low side: CORTISOL (AM) 11.8 (4.0-22.0 mcg/dL) and should be towards the upper range in the morning.
I don’t see hydrocortisone or things of that nature helping my situation, so ill make sure to continue my ashwagandha and other adrenal supplements. I’ll make sure to continue my supplements and look at the blood work next month and assess from there.
Thats what im thinking. My orgasms are ho-hum. I feel flat and socializing feels like more of a job than it does for fun. I have things im super passionate about but i dont feel the drive to do them like i used to back in the day; i still do them but it does feel like work too.
I go through these periods of serious depression and hopelessness. To stay positive and pushing through this period requires a lot of my energy.
Concentrating is work and i definitely need caffeine.
Before trt and before i ever looked for help for my condition, i was living normally and waiting for my body to correct itself. i used to have heart palpitations and anxiety attacks every night. When i’d try to sleep my legs especially, as well as my arms would go numb and i thought i was gonna die. I’d jerk my legs profusely to make sure i keep the feeling and i wouldnt go to sleep for awhile.
Never woke up, even to this day, refreshed and working out would deplete my energy storages. There was a good year- year and a half where i was working out and made NO progress, basically felt like i was just maintaining.
I dont know if all of these correlate with dopamine deficiency, but i know some do.
I think wellbutrin is worth a try. A relatively safe drug with no real withdrawal symptoms.
If your cortisol is low isn’t taking ashwagandha counter indicated? Ashwagandha lowers cortisol.
From what I’ve read, ashwagandha is an adaptogen. The term adaptogen means that it’ll adapt to the needs of your body.
A functional medicine Dr i follow for dietary reasons, Dr. Axe, has said that in his experience patients who’ve taken ashwagandha for high cortisol lowered it, and vice versa.
I think this is why adaptogens are popular for their ability to conform to the needs of your body.
However we’ll see when i get blood work if this is true.