I googled the amount of testosterone a male naturally produces each day, and Google says it’s 6 mg. I’m guessing the real answer is a range, like 4-10 mg., or something sort of similar.
If trt is suppose to replace natural production, shouldn’t trt dosages be like 70 mg/week?
Why is the standard dose 100-200 mg/week.
I’m not being judgemental of trt. I’m on trt myself. The numbers don’t make sense to me though.
I recently restarted trt after 10 years off, 40 mg e3d, and I’m thinking of making it 40 e4d. I had found 70/week to be my comfortable dose when I was on trt 10 yrs ago. I remember my total t was only in 200’s at 70 mg/week, but my free test was in the 20’s. Before trt this time, my total was 120 something, but free testosterone was 13.
Anyways, so my question is why is trt so much higher than natural production?
Steve
Steve
The average dosages needed to optimize men’s hormones are closer to 100-150 mg.
Remember only a tiny fraction of test is in the bloodstream at any given time, the rest is attached to the ester, to be released at a later time. The levels achieved and clearance rates on TRT are linked to absorption rates of the ester, which differs man to man.
For comparison, I’m on new oral gel capsule, Jatenzo, a new very expensive oral treatment for men with hypogonadism. My dosage is 474 mg per day, or 3318 mg per week, because only a tiny fraction of it is absorbed in the small intestine.
Also, the half-life of Jatenzo is 6 hours, compared to cypionate 5-7 days, which is why it’s dosed twice daily.
Try to think of cypionate and drip system, with a huge reservoir for your agriculture, and Jatenzo as a large tanker truck of water dumped all at once, flooding onto crops with some run off.
Aside from what @systemlord stated, which is all good info, TRT is overprescribed by “pill mill” type clinics all the time. 100-150mg is an appropriate dose for most men to be high natural range. Do we need to be high natural range? Not likely. You could probably get away with 70-100mg to match mid range hormone levels. My thought is most men figure if they have to be on replacement therapy they may as well get optimal levels. The problem is this is taken too far more often than not.
I think mostly due to the ester and the carrier oil. I imagine if you were using something like TNE or suspension daily, you’d find that a lower dose (mg) would be needed to get symptoms resolved.
I also wanted to mention, cypionate injections still provides the most anabolic potential versus topicals and short acting orals in lean muscle mass and strength in the lower extremities.
I switched from test cypionate to test enanthate and noticed a marked decrease in water retention. Like systemlord stated, I agree that cyp was a more potent anabolic. Swoops39 is also spot on about the carrier oil making a large difference in dosing requirements, but also in side effect profiles. For instance, my water retention improved when I switched to MCT oil. I personally still suffer from bloating and water retention pretty significantly, but much less than I used too. Totally ruining the TRT experience.
I’m curious on the impact of taking a short-acting, oral version (Jatenzo) that weens throughout the day on water retention and bloating. I would imagine water retention would be substantially less as levels fluctuate more naturally and no carrier oils. I definitely am interested in your experience on the side effect profile.
I never have bad water retention, but I have noticed significantly less water retention on enanthate or propionate as well. I know enanthate and cypionate are very close in structure, but in my experience, confirmed with bloodwork, the half life is a bit shorter which could be a contributing factor. To me enanthate is more of an in-between of cyp and prop rather than a 1:1 replacement of cyp.