Thats a solid copy sir. And yes i have seen what he looks like. I have been lurking on these forums for a few months. I watched a little bit of your videos also. Im just trying to learn as much as i can so i can try to avoid feeling like shit and having anxiety and panic attacks and everything else that can happen. I appreciate your responses.
Well I finally took the plunge and went on test cyp. Recap of my situation. Low T mid to upper range free T. Shbg 28 and e2 13. The shbg and e2 were tested only 1 time and that was 3 months after stopping androgel. The androgel was hell after a few months caused bad panic attacks and anxiety. My current protocol that i started yesterday is 100mg test cyp 1 time a week. No A.I no hcg. Wasn’t even mentioned by the urologist. I am supposed to stay on the weekly 100 mg then retest in 4 weeks. This place treats symptoms not numbers. They said they have guys well over 800 and 1000. I realize it takes 6 weeks to stabilize. My question is would i be better off on 14mg daily. I had to do the 100 in office the first shot. The rest i will be doing at home but i dont want to risk getting cut off. Would the 4 week blood draw come in really high on dailys compared to coming in the day of my weekly shot prior to injection which is what i was told to do. Should i ride out weekly for 4 weeks until the draw then switch? Im assuming my levels would come in much lower on a weekly protocol before my next shot compared to dailys which would make it easier to get a larger dose prescribed.
You state that they treat symptoms and not numbers yet you want to purposely skew the numbers to convince them to give you a larger dose because clearly they’re more interested in numbers and not symptoms. You want to do this immediately when you have just started. Do you realize what you are saying?
There is not a single physician that I work with that starts any men at a 100mg per week. Typical starting dose is 200 mg per week and they try to get them to do as close to daily administration as possible right from the get-go.
Do the doc’s protocol as prescribed, get bloods, see where it puts you. If you end up needing a higher dose but doc won’t let you there are a gazillion docs ready to take your $150/month. See where 100mg puts you then assess. If you end up needing a new doc I can put you in touch with one the same day. You might end up being fine with this one so wait it out.
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Im just going by what they said. We dose then test then see how you feel and adjust. I may feel ok on that protocol. I was just kind of wanting a little bit of a stockpile if possible. How exactly would i be skewing numbers if im taking 100mg a week as i was told to do. Im not going to take more or take less. I was just asking if doing daily would make the results higher than weekly. The dr themselves said come in thursday before your injection and draw blood then do the injection after you leave. Now obviously if i switched to daily i would have taken a small dose the day prior vs a week prior. Im just asking will there be a major difference in the test results thats all.
With weekly when you test on trough your numbers would likely show half of what they’d show on a daily protocol.
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I dont think there will be an issue with a higher dose. He said this is a low starting dose. They dont really seem like they use the daily protocol at all though. Only weekly. I just read a lot of people feeling better on dailys vs weekly and id like to start off not having to adjust and all the start over and wait 6 weeks if possible. But at the same time i dont want cut off because they are able to somehow tell im not following their instructions.
I do daily shots but that’s because I tried weekly, every 3.5 days, EOD and then daily. Most folks are fine on less frequent injections and prefer it. Try both.
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You need less testosterone when injecting daily, I needed 24mg EOD (96mg weekly) to get to 500 ng/dL, 7mg daily (49mg weekly) gets me 417 after only 3 weeks and levels would have been higher if allowed to continue another 3 weeks.
If you base that off of what you read here you are getting a small sample of outliers. The vast majority of guys on TRT take 150-200mg once a week. Most do not use aromatase inhibitors or hCG. The black market is huge and these guys take 200mg once weekly and never get blood tests. They also do not get on the internet and discuss their feelings.
While I agree that 100mg once weekly is not enough, I also think you stick with the doctor’s prescription until re-evaluation. If you arrive at the place where you are not getting the results you should and he is not willing to try something else, then you move on.
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Sounds like i should stick to the doc protocol lol. Im convinced. I will just stick to every thursday i go back on halloween for draw then i go back a week after to discuss the bloodwork. So that should put me at 5 weeks. I should have a pretty good idea of how im going to feel by then i guess.
Love it. We may be a special breed
I was lol at that one too.
Agreed with most of what you said here. However:
Most guys do once weekly injections because either that is what they are taught, that is what their docs prescribe, or they can’t be bothered to do more frequent injections because it is a pain (pun intended). This does NOT demonstrate that this is the best way. I cannot begin to tell you how many messages I have from guys how moved to daily, or at the very least EOD, and state that they finally feel the way they expected they should have on TRT.
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Is daily the best? Would daily guys feel better injecting twice daily? What about every six hours? Where does it stop? Every hour? Now that would be “stable”.
Talk about stable, how about weightlifters taking 200mg test the first week, 300mg the second, etc. up to 800mg, which is what we did in the old days. No one experienced the symptoms described here by guys going from 120mg to 140mg with the wait six weeks so their levels are stable mindset.
But, whatever works for you, glad you found your way. I’ve even thought about trying more frequent dosing. However, I, like 90% of the guys on TRT, do great with 200mg once a week. I have from day one.
By the way, the doctors with the most patients on testosterone, PCPs, urologists and endocrinologists, prescribe twice monthly dosing. Most of their patients are fine with the treatment as well. Of course, many would do better with heavier doses and once weekly injections. I expect, as TRT specialists and clinics continue to proliferate, some will change their approach if for no other reason than to keep their patients. I know a couple of guys who switched from their TRT clinic to their GP because they got the insurance to pay for it. Doctor doesn’t know much about TRT, but agreed to follow the TRT clinic protocol exactly. Perhaps, at some point, the insurance company will catch on.
Sigh.
This is not ‘what works for me’. This is not just personal experience. This is what the dozen or so doctors that I work with have reported to me with their thousands of patients. They are reporting that their patients are getting the best results with daily injections. If you want to inject once a week and have no symptoms, that’s great, but to make the statement that 90% have no symptoms with once a week injections is false, otherwise the physicians would be reporting something else entirely.
Another incorrect statement is trying to compare men on cycles and men doing TRT. The former is strictly for muscle growth with health and well being thrown out the window. The latter is health based on balanced hormones that remain consistent throughout the week. Your statement is absolutely false here.
The third paragraph is the old, antiquated way of doing this and it typically does not work well. If it DID work well, this forum would be empty. We are receiving countless messages from men doing the standard once a week protocol, with many of them taking an AI, and report symptoms that they cannot resolve. Virtually all symptoms are getting resolved by eliminating the AI, moving to more frequent administration, optimizing free T, and giving the body sufficient time to stabilize. This has been demonstrated over and over and over again. It’s no longer a matter of opinion. It is demonstrable fact.
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I gather my heart paps I get on occasion is due to my hormone fluctuations. I inject 2x a week. Any knowledge on this?
What I once thought were heart palpitations (which I got on higher doses) was actually an activation of a flutter of a nerve below the sternum which can feel like heart palpitations. Important to determine which one you are experiencing. Turns out that flutter I got is actually common. Heart was fine.
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???
It’s not false, I personally know hundreds of guys on TRT, underground (does your personal data account for those guys?), PCP and TRT clinics. I also know dozens of doctors who do everything from twice monthly to once or twice weekly to scrotal creams (twice daily) and they also report great results. My statement is based on my experiences, yours may vary, but I hope it is OK if I base my opinions on my own experiences.
By the way, I do know a couple guys who let some patients inject every other day or even daily. They laugh about it and do so to accommodate the desires of the patients. As they note, TRT practices are much more patient centered than the typical insurance based mainstream medical practice.
So, a guy going from 120mg to 140mg and experiences all kinds of issues due to not be “stable” does not compare to a guy going from 200mg to 800mg in seven weeks without any of the stability and estrogen issues, simply because they use testosterone for a different purpose? A guy increasing 18% needs six weeks to be smooth and stable, but a guy that increases 400% does fine because he lifts heavy weights? Estrogen matters when you take test for fatigue, sexual dysfunction and poor libido but it does not matter when you take it to get stronger? Side effects are side effects. I think you are incorrect there. What is the difference? Testosterone is testosterone and milligrams are milligrams.
I did not mean to imply that was up to date. I know it isn’t.
Most of those I know injecting once weekly do not use an AI, and they are fine. I’m one of them. Of the others, those injecting once a week and using an AI, they are also doing fine. Some never get labs and have no idea of their E2 levels. I do acknowledge there is a small number that experience various side effects which can usually be controlled by changing protocol.
I wouldn’t worry about my comments, guys searching the net for low T solutions and finding this forum will likely dose more frequently. There are, however, some very unusual cases here that simply are not the norm for the 99% of the guys on TRT and not on the internet. That is, in part, why I like reading this.
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Is this your justification? Some men take an AI and feel fine, therefore it is ok for them to take?
I recall back when I used to smoke cigarettes, each cigarette made me feel good. Does that mean it was a good idea? Guys that do heroin, they feel fine?
It isn’t, under circumstances, a good idea to block E2 while on TRT. There is enough literature out there to support this fact at this point.