I have been feeling extremely poor for sometime, so I went to my doc to do some annual blood work because I have a family history of high cholesterol.
All the blood work came back quite good, except my testosterone, total of 230. The doc felt it was
a bit low, so we waited a couple weeks and tested again , time it came
back at 139 for total T’s. My doc then ordered an MRI and everything came back as normal.
I was made an appointment with an endo. who took more blood and my t’s came back at 91 and man was
feeling miserable. The endo gave my first shot of testosterone and within a couple hours felt somewhat better.
I just had my second shot today and feel pretty good, I’m on 100mg a week. I feel I have more energy to work out.
What kind of body changes can I expect? Increase muscle mass, increase body hair, acne? The doc’s have not been very straight forward
with info or possible side effects and the web is just full of technical stuff about products. Can anyone shed some light?
It is interesting that your levels (I assume you mean total T) went down so drastically in a short period of time. Were you on other medications? Was the testing at the same time of day? Why was an MRI ordered? How old are you?
100 mg a week in a single dose may be too much at once, and cause you to crash a day or 2 before your next shot. It’s best to self-inject and do 2X/wk in divided doses. Your doctor should be testing you for total and free T, LH/FSH, E2, PSA, etc. (see sticky at top of forum). Body changes depend a lot on age and how long you have been deficient. Bad side effects should be minimal, unless you convert excessive estrogen (that’s why you should be tested for E2), or are susceptible to male pattern baldness and convert excessive DHT. Benefits include better mood, more energy, increased libido, reduced health risks, etc.
Yes, the numbers were my total T’s.
They were taken in the early morning while fasting, about 2 weeks apart. All the tests where done, LH/FSH, PSA, E2, etc. and everything was in normal ranges. The MRI was ordered to see if anything was going on with my pituitary. They found nothing. I have been on low dose liptor for cholesterol issues, but that seems to be corrected.
I’m 54, no male pattern baldness in the family. About 2 weeks after the fisrt shot i have noticed more body hair growth, stomach, chest, arms etc. Kinda strange with only 1 shot! I have noticed that about a week after the 1st shot I began to crash big time, maybe separating the injections would help as i am doing them myself?
My mood is is great for a 3 or 4 days after the injection and it goes downhill after that. I’ve probably been very low for a longf time.
Post your lab results for LH/FSH and E2. We are not interested in what your doc says is normal.
Post lab ranges with result.
Always get and retain copies of your lab work.
What dose of lipitor?
When did you start lipitor?
When did you start feeling poorly?
What was total cholesterol?
What is total cholesterol now?
What other Rx and OTC drugs?
Any liver problems?
Was there pain or ache in your testes before? now?
Testes became smaller before TRT?
Testes were hanging normally?
Describe body and facial hair and how changed [before TRT]? Less hair on lower legs?
Inject at least twice a week. See stickies for alternate syringe and needle options.
can you post your test results so that we can see them? Doctors saying things are normal does not carry much weight here (just read through other posts to see why).
have you read through all of the other stickies, or any of the other posts?
what you are going through is unfortunately very common because most doctors know surprisingly little about HRT.
once you have read the stickies and some of the other posts, please come back to this post (to keep everything in once place) and ask some follow up questions specific to your case and you will find several people who would be glad to jump in and help you.
What to expect: A long road. This is a liftetime commitment. NOT a panacea. Make sure you know WHY your testosterone is low. Too many guys jump on, get impatient because their libidos don’t improve like they thought it would, and some feel worse. Some guys don’t feel the benefit until about 3 months later. Some take a year, others take 2-3 years. And it seems like when you do feel better, it comes so slowly you don’t realize it. Others experience an immediate change. So, it’s really all over the map.
Remember that the half life of T-Cyp is 7 days. Everytime you take a shot, there is still some residual T-Cyp from your last shot at once a week dosing. Eventually, it’ll build you up to where you want to be. Some guys on here like the E3D but it’s up to you. Some guys on other boards do just fine on 100mg 1x a week. Some do just fine on 200mg EOW. The steadier the administration of T=the greater likelihood of symptoms to subside. Case in point: gels. From
my personal experience as a “lurker”, i have seen more guys do better on gels than I have shots. I can already foretell someone misreading that and thinking it’s my personal opinion that gels are better. I personally didn’t respond to gels. Also, I have noticed that older men do way better on gels for some reason. If you hate the crash, give Androgel a whirl. You may like it a lot better.
[quote]Sbhearl01 wrote:
Yes, the numbers were my total T’s.
They were taken in the early morning while fasting, about 2 weeks apart. All the tests where done, LH/FSH, PSA, E2, etc. and everything was in normal ranges. The MRI was ordered to see if anything was going on with my pituitary. They found nothing. I have been on low dose liptor for cholesterol issues, but that seems to be corrected.
I’m 54, no male pattern baldness in the family. About 2 weeks after the fisrt shot i have noticed more body hair growth, stomach, chest, arms etc. Kinda strange with only 1 shot! I have noticed that about a week after the 1st shot I began to crash big time, maybe separating the injections would help as i am doing them myself?
My mood is is great for a 3 or 4 days after the injection and it goes downhill after that. I’ve probably been very low for a longf time.[/quote]
[quote]JLWilson wrote:
Some do just fine on 200mg EOW.
[/quote]
who does fine of every other week shots? I have seen person after person posting here and elsewhere about how EOW shots mess them up, and no one (that I can recall) praising the huge hormone swings and associated problems. Ksman or Hans may know of one, if any exist.
[quote]Sbhearl01 wrote:
I have been feeling extremely poor for sometime, so I went to my doc to do some annual blood work because I have a family history of high cholesterol.
All the blood work came back quite good, except my testosterone, total of 230. The doc felt it was
a bit low, so we waited a couple weeks and tested again , time it came
back at 139 for total T’s. My doc then ordered an MRI and everything came back as normal.
I was made an appointment with an endo. who took more blood and my t’s came back at 91 and man was
feeling miserable. The endo gave my first shot of testosterone and within a couple hours felt somewhat better.
I just had my second shot today and feel pretty good, I’m on 100mg a week. I feel I have more energy to work out.
What kind of body changes can I expect? Increase muscle mass, increase body hair, acne? The doc’s have not been very straight forward
with info or possible side effects and the web is just full of technical stuff about products. Can anyone shed some light?[/quote]
Your dr was way to premature to jump on TRT with levels of 91 that could have been a lab error or that your may have been dealing with virus or other hidden stressors which needed to be indentified first. I have had several young guys have low T symptoms and come up with T levels of 350. At the same time when looking back because they read it on some board they got there levels tested and dr put them on androgel at 19 years old. After looking at their history and asking a few questions all they where was over trained and needed a week or 2 off from the gym. I pulled them off androgel gave them nutritional support let their body rebalance while supporting adrenals with adapatogens because their cortisol levels where out of balance. They got blood test done in 5 weeks level where back up to 500-600 feeling great. The endo was like you getting a good response from the gel, The patient replied I am not on the gel any more because that was not my issue, but over training was. Cases like these depending on how low they are if after 4-6 weeks no return then we try to jump start them with clomid. Remember it is agine depending and all other variables have to be ruled out both hidden stressors, and other hormones as well.
Given your age TRT is way over due, but also other hormonal factors have to be ruled out as well.
Where is your SHBG you may be a hyper excreter, thyroid and adrenals may need to be checked as well plus you may be fluctuatinf estrodial as well. Since you got all the variable pm me and see if i can sort this out for you…
Okay, so if I’m 60+, don’t want to inject at home or drive to my PC 1x a week bc I’m on fixed income and gas is expensive, can’t absorb gels, and don’t care abt libido/fluctuations, what would you recommend KS or Pure?
They do exist. Yes, probably 80-85% of guys prefer weekly injections or gels; we tend to overlook the not-so-obvious things and for that we are no worse than the endos we despise for not keeping an open mind.
You show me someone who think that life is OK with injecting T once a week and you will have someone who would really feel better if they injected twice a week. If some guys will not do what it takes, that is their problem. We can educate here and help the willing. We cannot help the unwilling or willfully ignorant.
Re-read the sentence immediately after I say some guys do fine on EOW and you tell me if I’m championing EOW injections. This is completely OT and thread is hijacked.
[quote]KSman wrote:
You show me someone who think that life is OK with injecting T once a week and you will have someone who would really feel better if they injected twice a week. If some guys will not do what it takes, that is their problem. We can educate here and help the willing. We cannot help the unwilling or willfully ignorant.
[quote]JLWilson wrote:
Okay, so if I’m 60+, don’t want to inject at home or drive to my PC 1x a week bc I’m on fixed income and gas is expensive, can’t absorb gels, and don’t care abt libido/fluctuations, what would you recommend KS or Pure?
[/quote]
so you are saying that people on EOW shots are not doing fine. They will have libido/hormone fluctuations and all of those associated problems.
yes, there are people who do not care about the fluxuations, are able to deal with (suffer through) the fluxuations, or don’t care if they could feel better.
but it is still a stretch to say that there are people who are fine on EOW shots.
It depends on how long you’ve been hypogonadal without medical intervention. I had no medicine for almost 1.5 years because of all the jerkoff MD’s who didn’t pay attention to what I said, nor did they bave enough brains to see that my T, FSH, and LH were completely abnormal.
It took some time to feel better, especially sexually. That was actually the last thing to come back to full function like it was before. Fortunately I have an understanding MD who prescribed viagra on my first visit with him because he himself said, “It may take some time to feel like yourself again and for normal functioning.”
It took a month to few months to feel “OK”, and nearly a year to feel like my old self.
[quote]JLWilson wrote:
Okay, so if I’m 60+, don’t want to inject at home or drive to my PC 1x a week bc I’m on fixed income and gas is expensive, can’t absorb gels, and don’t care abt libido/fluctuations, what would you recommend KS or Pure?
[/quote]
so you are saying that people on EOW shots are not doing fine. They will have libido/hormone fluctuations and all of those associated problems.
yes, there are people who do not care about the fluxuations, are able to deal with (suffer through) the fluxuations, or don’t care if they could feel better.
but it is still a stretch to say that there are people who are fine on EOW shots.[/quote]
[quote]JLWilson wrote:
Okay, so if I’m 60+, don’t want to inject at home or drive to my PC 1x a week bc I’m on fixed income and gas is expensive, can’t absorb gels, and don’t care abt libido/fluctuations, what would you recommend KS or Pure?
[/quote]
so you are saying that people on EOW shots are not doing fine. They will have libido/hormone fluctuations and all of those associated problems.
yes, there are people who do not care about the fluxuations, are able to deal with (suffer through) the fluxuations, or don’t care if they could feel better.
but it is still a stretch to say that there are people who are fine on EOW shots.[/quote]