There are some guys who are testosterone hypermetabolizers and nothing is known about why. Typically 300mg/week is needed and because the effective half-life is shorter, injections should be EOD - every other day.
With FT low at 10.7, FT and Bio-T → E2 production rates are probably low, suggesting possible low liver clearance. With higher T dose, T–>E2 production rates will increase proportionately and E2 will need to be managed with anastrozole.
With short half life of T for you, please always do labs halfway between injections to avoid lab timing artifacts showing changes. Time of doctor office visit may be wrong.
Try 25mg DHEA per day, along side vitamins in USA, Rx in Canada and other Commonwealth Countries.
Your TRT has shutdown whatever LH/FSH you had, lowering pregnenolone and probably DHEA follows that. hCG injections keep testes functional. LH/FSH will always be zero on TRT and testing is stupid. LH/FSH should have been tested before TRT and failing to do that at your age is malpractice as low-T is the symptom and diagnostics were not done. Your fertility is a great risk and hCG preserves that as well. Your doctor failed to discuss this with you. It is not a side effect risk, but a problem of great certainty.
Progesterone:
I do not see units.
“Male: less than 1 ng/mL or 3.18 nmol/L”
Thyroid:
- Lab ranges are useless, causing doctors to ignore issues.
- TSH should be closer to 1.0
- fT3 should be mid-range or a bit higher, 3.9 suggests possible elevation of rT3 blocking some fT3 action.
- fT4 is oddly low re mid-range.
- Please check overall thyroid function via last paragraph in this post.
- If body temps are low, problem would seem to be elevated rT3 and adrenal and stress issues then need to be addressed.
- If you have not been using iodized salt, that is a major issue.
You can get KAL brand [2%] progesterone cream at Amazon USA site, no Rx needed, grandfathered in from years ago.
Cortisol is made from progesterone in the adrenals. Low progesterone can affect that. You should do “AM Cortisol” labs at 8AM.
Cholesterol is the foundation for your whole steroid hormone cascade. Total fasting cholesterol = 180 is ideal, <160 leads to problems.
Please read the stickies found here: About the T Replacement Category - #2 by KSman
- advice for new guys
- things that damage your hormones
- protocol for injections
- finding a TRT doc
- thyroid basics
Evaluate your overall thyroid function by checking oral body temperatures as per the thyroid basics sticky. Thyroid hormone fT3 is what gets the job done and it regulates mitochondrial activity, the source of ATP which is the universal currency of cellular energy. This is part of the body’s temperature control loop. This can get messed up if you are iodine deficient. In many countries, you need to be using iodized salt. Other countries add iodine to dairy or bread.