Also I said the exact same thing to the doc at defy, and he said TT isn’t what you should be using to calculate that, since FT is what your body actually uses, and TT is just the total of what’s in your blood. I thought the ratio was supposed to be 1 E2 to 15 to 25 TT, but I was surprised when he told me about the FT to E2. It does make sense as well, otherwise you’re comparing just your TT that your body isn’t even using, to E2 which your body would be using.
i suppose he thinks your FT should be a little higher due to lower SHBG.
I too am on 20mg daily injection (except i’ve only ever done IM); my levels:
TT: 1047
FT: 28.1
E2: 70
SHBG: 27
So you appear to be getting better bang for your buck out of your injections and on a ration basis aromitize at about the same rate. My provider also would like me to try an AI, as i was on this protocol for 10wks and still feel the same as pre-TRT six months ago (when my TT was 86). She was fine letting me run the course of this protocol with no AI to see what happens, now she would like me to run for another course with some AI to see if there is any improvement (0.25mg arimidex E4 days).
I’m not as against it as the masses are, just to see what happens, and then it will be on to the next thing if/when it doesn’t work. At least i can say i tried it and it didn’t work for me
He did say after taking an AI I should feel at least some slight benefits really fast, even potentially the same day I take it. I took it 2 days ago, yesterday I felt a little better than normal, and today I feel a bit better than yesterday. Usually I have awful brain fog, and I’m super out of it, but today I didn’t have much, and I was able to focus really well. My usual routine is getting a large coffee from a place down the road, coming to work, and taking an hour to drink it and slowly wake up. Today I not only skipped the coffee, but as soon as I clocked in I started getting stuff done. Maybe placebo, but he did say it could happen this quick, so maybe it is already helping.
This. We’re in pretty much the exact same situation for the most part. My doc recommended a slightly lower dose because my free T was at 35 with a TT of 1468. Our goal is between 900-1100 TT and around 30 FT and he wants me E2 to be closer to 20s and 30s, not 84 lol. Let me know how that works for you, and how quickly, I want to know if you feel it as fast as I seem to be. Also my doc started me at just 0.125mg per week, and after a few weeks if it doesn’t help then to start taking 0.25 a week. You may want to be careful not to crash it. I told him I didn’t like the idea of an AI and he said the problem usually is people take too much and crash their E2, which is why we’re starting as low as we can. I also plan to start dieting and lifting weights a few times a week to reduce my BMI. I hope to quit AI if I lose enough fat to lower my T to E2 conversion.
You can’t compare FT to E2. TT is comparable to E2. FT should only be compared to its equivalent Free E2 (FE2)
TT:E2
or
FT:FE2
if my E2 were dropped by 60%; i would be right where your doc wants you. It’s been a couple weeks, brain fog, fatigue, no libido, etc persist.
I am a little worried about crashing so i will likely back off AI dose to maybe .25mg/wk. But in my brain, because i try logically rationalize things, i thing only taking the AI once a week would allow E2 to yo-yo. I don’t know if that’s the case or not.
Maybe it will, but even if that is the case, that’s probably better then crashing it, so I would say it’s worth a shot. My doc told me wait at least 3 weeks before deciding to go higher on the AI.
I don’t know exactly what he did, but he calculated my Free E2 I think? He was sort of talking to himself, but there is a ratio used to calculate FT based on TT, and I believe he did the same thing with my E2. I think he also did some calculating using my SHBG, they’re a big clinic so I wouldn’t be surprised if they have some type of calculator to figure this stuff out. Should have mentioned this earlier, sorry.
For anyone who was curious this is something I found that is used to calculate Free E2. Its kind of weird that they don’t use FE2 in testing but they use FT. Also you’re right @sublimeprince32 I didn’t think about FE2 being thing. So I don’t know why he did it this way, but again I’m gonna trust him til I feel like I can’t. I think they use FT but not FE2 because FE2 is much less relevant in the equation.
The problem with Free E2 testing is the reference ranges are unknown, not enough people participate to develop a reference range for Free E2 and you will need to find the range at which you feel best which is what you should be doing anyway rather than compare yourself to everyone else.
I think people get a hard-on (no pun intended) for these reference ranges and are trying to get levels in a particular range, I think this is the wrong way to go about it. I inject 20mg every other day and if I don’t feel good at 6 weeks, I decrease my dosage until I do feel good. I don’t care about the numbers, I care about feeling good, having erections on demand, strong libido and muscle gain.
I will check levels to see at what range I feel good for future reference, but wherever the numbers are, I don’t really care if it’s 350 or 450, the only thing I care about is achieving my goals.
So far, only bad side effects I’m having from anastrazole are hot flashes with sweating. Annoying but manageable for now I did read that this can go away with time.
Thats just the poison taking hold.
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You gotta just give it time. You did not gain fat injecting testosterone. You may be retaining some water. Your body takes time to adjust.
For whatever it’s worth, I get those hot flashes with sweating when my E2 is too low. You may be just brushing up against the lower edge of where you’re meant to be E2 wise. Be careful.
I actually haven’t had one since that first one, and I’ve felt incredible the past 2 days, so I think my E2 is coming down. I haven’t felt this good in a long time, it’s nice… Hopefully it won’t keep going down and crash… But so far so good. I’ve gone from depressed anxious tired introvert to an energized happy hyper extrovert, it’s insane. Also little things that used to irritate me and I didn’t want to do, I now enjoy doing them which is crazy (like chores and stuff around the house I would normally bitch about) I’ve been more productive in the last 2 days then I’ve been in the past 2 weeks
You are quite confused.
Funny thing is that you guys go around saying not to get obsessed with numbers, yet you took out this 17:1 as ideal. Care giving some references for that?
Also, you mentioned that someone not on TRT has a FT of 15 which is totally false for the majority of normal young guys. I wrote this in another post as well:
As an example, let’s follow the Defy method for a second. You get the average Joe young guy in his early 20s with a total T of 700. His free T calculated with TruT on a standard SHBG of 25 and a standard albumin of 4.3 is 25. An E2 of 25 is pretty common in young guys of that age and has been backed up by several big sample studies, especially a 2016 one who debunked the myth that young guys have a total T >1000. The vast majority of guys were having an E2 between 21-30 and the most frequent total T levels were 600/700.
I saw you mentioned in another post of yours that guys with a total T of 300 have an an E2 of 30 and that’s totally fine. Well, that’s considered hypogonadism and they were close to my baseline levels before TRT, with all the symptoms associated with it.
Please, let’s report the data in a correct way.
@appassionato
What was the point you are trying to make regarding TRT?
It’s always these new guys with no experience that just love to talk nonsense lol.
I’ve been on TRT for 2 years and a half and I’ve joined the forum in 2017, earlier than you as I can see.
Care to elaborate where you got that number from?
@dextermorgan no point on TRT, just clinical data observation. Do you have anything to add on the subject?
A 20yr old with natural levels of 700 total T and an E2 of 25 is not the same thing as a 40 year old using Testosterone & an AI to achieve a 700 total T and an E2 of 25. They won’t feel the same so it really doesn’t make sense comparing the two unless shooting for a number is your goal. Once you hit that number and don’t feel ideal what do you do? If it was as easy as hitting a set number of whatever then we wouldn’t need T-nation. The whole forum was subscribed to keeping E2 below 30 for a long time (my as well). The reason it changed is because it didn’t work.
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