After you inject, immediately press firmly on injection site with a finger for 10-15 seconds. This will allow cut vessels to seal-off. I advice guys to inject SC over upper leg with #29 1/2" 0.5ml insulin syringes. The smaller the needle, the less damage. #27 1/2" is very good as well and the longer injection times of #29 could easily be inappropriate for your current injection sites.
Are your shoulder muscle getting hard/firm? The muscle should be smooth and soft when relaxed. Why accumulate a lifetime of needle damage?
With some peptides, slower absorption from SC appears better. My IGF-1 response to hGH is way better with SC vs IM, implying that slower release with more time under the curve is better than fast release and area under the curve. With hCG IM, there may be more hCG than the testes can respond to at times, But in that’s favor, we do see that hCG has a longer half-life and have to note that once GH gets into the blood stream, it has a short half-life. So some things to contemplate.
Your labs need to track:
TT
FT
E2
CBC
hematocrit
AST/ALT
Your TRT benefits can very easily be swamped by the symptoms of low thyroid function, that are the same as low T. See last paragraph to self-eval your overall thyroid function.
For most guys E2 management is mission critical with a target of E2=22pg/ml - 80 pmol/L
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
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.