Hello, I went a general physical with my primary. My doctor suggested this Boston heart blood work. This is where I found out about low T(191). She started me off on 100mg every other week for 2 months. About 5 weeks ago she switched me to 100mg once a week after my t test came up to 315 on day 8 after my last injection(IM). Two more weeks till my next full blood work. Here are my original results before i started making healthier decisions. I started off at 245lbs and 6’ tall. Im currently at 218 and working out 4 days a week.
Post your next bloods when you get them. Once a week @100mg may work just fine for you depending on your SHGB and how your body metabolizes testosterone, but your next bloods will tell that tale. If those bloods were from before you “started making healthier decisions”, and I’ll assume that means that you cleaned up your diet and added an exercise routine, then we can’t tell you if you cleaned it up enough until we see the next bloods.
You could also help by posting more details about those healthier decisions.
Are you feeling better since your dose was increased?
Complete change of diet, minus a cheat meal on Saturday nights. Been dropping roughly 1.5-2lbs a week. No crap food, low carb. Added vitamins, d3 10k a day. Switched from hemp oil to fish oil daily. Started taking ubiquinol, b complex. I always start taking C, zinc and probiotics for the cold flu season. I will say recently my hands have been getting oddly cold for no reason, work outs are sun,mon,tue,thurs. I alternate body parts and try to finish with cardio fo 30-45min.
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TRT protocols are based off the rate at which you metabolize testosterone and SHBG plays a role. 100mg every 2 weeks is laughable, you really need a doctor that specialize in TRT likely not available under your insurance.
Most of us have had to seek private specialists in anti-aging and sports medicine where TRT has exists for decades, not in managed health care. Once weekly can only work for a small percentage of men, more frequent dosing in your case is necessary.
I have lower SHBG and metabolize testosterone moderately fast and must inject small doses every 2 days or response to TRT is poor. TSH isn’t the best and needs to be closer to 1.0, the majority of health young men have a TSH <2.5. fT3 is the most potent thyroid hormone, it increases body temperatures and increases metabolism. You never had rT3 tested, rT3 can block fT3 at the receptors and negate good fT3 levels and increase TSH, your TSH is elevated.
Your doctor may say you’re numbers are within range, don’t fall for it as in range doesn’t mean you won’t experience symptoms.
Google “Optimal VS Normal Thyroid Levels for all Lab Tests & Ages”
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Feeling more stable, no major ups and downs. Not feeling as much energy as when I started. Also still not much in the morning erection department.
The only advice I could offer to the changes you have made is that you may have overdone the VitD. I would back that off to around 5K iu a day.
Good job on turning yourself around man! I’ll ask the same thing that @highpull asked…how are you feeling now that you’ve made these changes?
Lol…scratch that last question. You already answered that. Regarding your answer, give it time man. It takes a while for things to start coming back into focus.
Thanks guys for the input. Also forgot to mention I’m 45 husband and father. I have been working the same job 20 years at a desk where I’m pretty much stuck at all day.
Your levels are swinging on your weekly protocol, I expect the longer you do injections once weekly, as time passes you will feel less relief with each injection because you’re not injecting frequently enough. Your SHBG is low and you clearly metabolize or excrete testosterone quickly, we all excrete testosterone into our urine, again SHBG plays a role.
You may need two or more injections per week to keep levels elevated and stable, this is when you will start feeling good every day of the week. Your erections will not be consistent until your levels are consistent every day and not fluctuating too much.
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41, husband and father also. Also have a sedentary job as well (software developer and temperature controls systems programmer). I found that it doesn’t matter how we make our money, what matters is how we live our lives!!
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Just for clarity and to satisfy curiosity, the comment I made about backing off the Vit D is for fear of excess calcium buildup in the bloodstream. Maximum “safe” recommendations are at 4K iu a day, but most doctors will start out at 5K for supplementation. 10K may be pushing the envelope a little too much.
I was already taking 5k d3 and results from test showed a 34 out of a 30-100 range and it was suggested I up my dose. I chose to take 10k from what I’ve read with suggested doses of 1000iu for every 25lbs. Now that I’ve dropped 27lbs I could probably drop it a bit
Gotcha. Just keep tabs on it man. Vit D has a tendency to “build up” over time. You could be fine though. I have been labeled as an “alarmists” on here before, but I like to play it safe from every angle I can. I advise from that same mentality. Call it being over cautious, but I would rather see someone slowly build things until they get to where they need to be, rather than go for broke and wind up fucking up other systems inadvertently with excess.
I’ve seen a few, some in this forum, who go for broke regularly and are so fucked up that they don’t even realize that they’re over the top, or on a one way trip to misery.
There was a study at 8k and I recall levels were at the top. Another study or article I read had some people at very high levels but zero side effects. I gathered it probably takes many months at above normal levels for the problems to start happening. I took 10k for a couple weeks then dropped to the 5 like you said.
I always look at the dosing on the bottles. What’s the biggest single dose. Ok that’s probably why.
In a couple weeks when I get my next blood work. What is suggested I have my doctor look at that may not be in my original testing? I’m horrible at understanding the results. I do understand that something’s adjusted don’t have symptoms but do effect other areas.
Check the sticky out on this category on this board
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Well should be getting results soon and should be posting soon. I had blood work taken today. I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be for what my doctor and I discussed getting. As she was unavailable and didn’t set up the paperwork. So the lab tech just checked off what she new insurance would pay for. I’m still dropping weight, down to 211 as of yesterday. Still aiming to get down to 185-190 while trying to add muscle. 4 days of training a week, about 30 min of weight training and ending with 25-45 min elliptical cardio. I was really hoping for a bit of a boost being on trt but haven’t really felt any increase in strength. Also the past couple weeks my hands have been getting extremely cold to where I’m wearing fleece gloves at work and still cold.
Well just as I suspected nurse didn’t put in
everything we needed tested.
Only got total t tested 440 (250-827) on day of injection once a week.
T3 free 2.8 (2.3-4.2)
T4 free 1.0 (0.8-1.8)
Tsh 3.1 (0.4-4.50)
I will scan and post more tomorrow unless someone asks for certain numbers.
I told my doctor I feel my dose could increase and she says she wants to go another month and would like to go back to 100mg every other week. I think I may have to start looking around.
That’s insane, your doctor is clearly inept to manage your TRT protocol. Primary doctor doesn’t specialize in TRT, she doesn’t really know what to do. You’re not going to see any results whatsoever, you might as well throw in the towel.
Thyroid is suboptimal. Time to find another doctor who specializes in TRT, with that said there aren’t many doctors inside insurance networks who do specializes in TRT.
A study came out in 2005 that showed poor results in the study group who were injected with 200mg every 2 weeks. After 6 days men felt a crash because levels fell out of the therapeutic ranges. Your doctors is operating in the dark because this isn’t her area of expertises.
Would like to see free T3 closer to 4.0, free T4 1.4 or higher, and TSH close to 1.0. You’re a candidate for thyroid.
As an aside, my wife went on thyroid with a fT3 of 2.9. She runs 4-5 now. World of difference for her.