For about a year I was feeling great on between 150-200 mg test once a week and 250 iu hcg every other day. Only problem was libido was non existent most of the time and my hands stayed ice cold. I decided to drop the hcg and still felt great with little libido. No issues with hematocrit, hemoglobin, and rbc and blood pressure stayed under 120/80. Early January after being tired of low libido, I bumped a dose of 300 mg test, which I have been prescribed before, on one occasion to see if it would bring on some libido. I got a little ahead of myself and took 1/2 mg anastrozole which I am also prescribed. Since then, I have felt terrible. I tried splitting 160 mg a week into 2 doses and also tried daily injections but blood pressure and cbc have been terribly high like a hct of 58. and I’ve donated so much blood my ferritin 2 weeks ago was at 12. Cbc is all above range high. I’m currently taking 150 mg test 1xwk and that is it. I’ve been anxious, can’t sleep, heart pounding, fast heart rate and blood pressure has been high. My shbg has dropped from 9 to 6 as well. I’m prescribed 100 mg losartan but I suspect it is why I can’t sleep. I don’t have labs for my most recent change and can’t get them for a few more weeks. Can anyone offer constructive suggestions? I’m aware this is my fault but I’m feeling like hell. I’m scheduled for a sleep study to rule out sleep apnea.
It seems you’re making changes without knowing where your hormone sit, basically going based off a feeling. For all we know, your levels increased on the same 150 mg per week dosage and what was needed was a dosage reduction.
Flying blind rarely works out in the long run.
As for the poor sleep, the AI, crashed or low estrogen is the likely cause of your poor sleep.
Also, in my personal experience, TRT doesn’t work very well when ferritin is low.
You are correct in that I have changed things blindly bc I don’t have a lot of confidence in my physician. When you feel like crap, it’s hard to just keep waiting it out for 3 months between labs when they basically say they don’t know how to make it work for you but here is all the ingredients (test, hcg, anastrozole) so figure it out. I have a high stress job so I’m constantly trying to figure out how to feel better immediately. It has been a while since I’ve taken any anastrozole and last labs total test was at 562 and e2 was at 26. The blood pressure and ferritin, hct, hgb, rbc are what is concerning me now. With a ferritin of 12 and still over the range high cbc puts me between a rock and a hard place. Dr told me to supplement with iron but I’m not positive that is the best course of action but I’ve been doing it. If I could just sleep soundly I’d be in a much better place. I’d love to go donate blood right now but I know I will further crush ferritin.
You may not have confidence in your current doc, but I am thinking you should see a doc.
That will cause insomnia.
You can order your own lab on Discount Labs, you order your labs online and go to Quest Diagnostics.
Slow down and take a deep breath , I did something similar years ago and if ur not careful the constant changing causes everything to snowball . Pick a dose u felt good at and stick with it . I promise it will get better but it takes time
What are you test and E2 levels at your current 150mg per week? You may be a hyper responder. Also, I strongly believe an AI is never needed on true TRT doses. Considering your problems started when you took the anasteozole, I would suspect this is the culprit. BP medicine shouldnt cause insomnia.
Hormones are powerful. You dont want to be making 2x changes to your protocol and back down again. The ramp down is always the worst. Nor do you want to add AI just because.
Relax, drink plenty of water, and make small incremental changes to get back on track.