Interesting. Thanks again for weighing in! So if you were in my shoes, you’d still keep the intake that low (i.e. only bumping from 1800-1875/1900 for now) despite what the bloodwork numbers show about the T in my system right now?
I’m tempted to take the advice of @jackolee & @The_Myth and try to capitalize on the potential gains — but I know I’m being picky about BF, too, for the next few weeks. After this challenge ends, I’ll have no problem with putting on a bit of fat.
Yes I’d take it slow. Your metabolism is compromised and a big jump at once will likely cause you to put on body fat. Coming up slowly will re train your metabolism and keep wild hormone fluctuations at bay.
I don’t want to be negative or pop any bubbles here, but I think you may have already missed the boat for this cycle. A hasty jump of panic now is not going to magically let you bulk like crazy. Also, you probably need to start tapering test back down to therapeutic levels.
At least now you can plan better for the next cycle and start it when you start bulking and the metabolism is in top form.
Just my opinion.
I appreciate your opinion, man. I guess I’d understand the “missing the boat” line of thinking more so if I suddenly lowered my dose. But, provided I have the same numbers now that I did a week ago (time of bloodwork), and were to continue taking the same dose (TBD following my provider follow-up tomorrow), how would I have missed the boat on the gains from this T surge?
I’m assuming that you’ve been at those levels for a while now, so forgive me if I’m mistaken. If I’m not mistaken, here is your answer.
Because by the time you can bring your intake up and start actually taking advantage of it, the high levels of T you have been keeping in your blood steam are possibly going to start causing you problems with platelets and hct. You’re going to have to start bringing those test levels down soon if you don’t want other health issues. If you jump big in calories now, your body is going to start storing those extra calories because it is still in “famine” mode.
By the time your metabolism adjusts and speeds back up, I’m afraid you’re going to gain a lot more fat than you’d like and you may be facing health issues if you don’t start bringing the test back down.
This is what I meant by missing the boat. Whether or not you taper back up to let your metabolism slowly recover and not gain fat, or jump back up all of a sudden and risk gaining a bunch of fat, you’re still going to be 4-6 weeks until your metabolism recovers. By that time, you’re going to have to start bring the test down one way or another. Plan better for the next time you want to blast and take it as a great learning experience for your body.
I hear you – that all makes sense. Thank you again.
I have been on injections for 6 weeks now, and I upped my dose to the current ~250 (from 200) about 4 weeks ago. Provided it takes a couple weeks (as I understand it?) for levels to stabilize, I think I may still have some time to milk the current bulk window. Thoughts?
It’s your body brother and only you can make the decision for it.
If it were me, I’d cut my losses, start walking back up on caloric intake, get my TRT dialed in for 6 months or so, and then plan a blast with high test levels to coordinate with the beginning of a bulking phase.
That’s just me though.
Your insights are much appreciated! I’ll formalize my plan after resetting with my provider tomorrow. Very curious to see what he’ll say about these levels and the ideal protocol for my long-term health.
I do NOT want to risk cutting my life short – or making my later years more arduous than they need to be – by pushing T in my 20s. I’m hoping for long-term well-being as well as symptom resolution and ideal results in the moment – some combination of all of that! It might be a pipe dream, but that’s what I’m chasing.
For anyone curious, I last had HCT tested in February, and it was 45.7 (Ref 42-52). No concern at that point, though it obviously may have increased since!
Do you have your HCT/HGB/RBC numbers from these bloods? I’m curious what those were at, particularly HCT.
Sorry for the delayed response, my man – got caught up thinking about my new labs (would love to hear your thoughts if you get a chance). Really interesting to hear about your experience! Sounds like we’ve had similar progressions.
I also had bad skin reactions to the cream – including back acne, which I’d never before had in my life – but agree that some other components (sleep, zest for life, libido) were strong. Where were you applying the cream? I was applying trans-scrotally. My libido came and went, though – I’d have big rushes, then they’d disappear. But the rushes were epic!
This is exactly where I am with sleep – I don’t want to mess up my body, either, just to apply a band-aid to a bullet wound. I want to address the root problem, as I imagine you do as well.
My injectable T-cyp dose is comparable to yours (before you lowered it), and I also am not taking an AI. I will probably be lowering my dose as well after my follow-up with my provider today.
On the bright side, your numbers look really good. Your Free:Total ratio is 2.4%, which is amazing! What is your SHBG? I’m guessing you’re a low-SHBG guy, given your injection frequency, which would be the difference between our situations (I am high-SHBG guy).
Here you go. Hemocrit for me is always on the high side. I did a double red donation soon after this. I think I’m allowed to give once every 120 days.
Even though your HCT is a little elevated, it’s not THAT high, and your platelets look great. You’re a machine man!
Do you live at high elevation?
No I’m in Texas. Even when I first started TRT I never saw HCT under 50%
Glad to see your bloods are still solid for the most part and you’re being proactive about keeping everything in check! Looks like you are doing really well overall, my man, and have no real reason for longevity concerns – which is pretty amazing considering how jacked you’ve gotten! Appreciate you sharing these numbers with us and lending so much insight into your experience, brother.
My follow-up with my provider today went really well!
TL;DR
More Detail
I was pleasantly surprised to find my provider wasn’t overly concerned about the high numbers. We did decide to lower my dose from 200/week to 180/week. We also decided I will inject 3X/week instead of 2X, which should keep estrogen more steady.
Right now, my Free T is 54.3 (using the decimal-point conversion system), and we are hoping to see it around 40 next time around. We are also hoping to see SHBG go down more and E go down.
Our meeting largely focused on estrogen — he thinks the high E, which is likely a result of the high T dose, is what is throwing off my sleep. I simply have too much energy. I definitely feel this during the day; I’ve been insanely driven since switching to injections. He also is confident the high E is what is throwing off my libido, given my low prolactin. He says our goal is to get the E number to be lower than the SHBG number.
He gave me the flexibility to decide how much to increase my Danazol dosage and was happy to go up to 25 mg ED (previously: 25 mg EOD). I’m hoping for some insight here. I was thinking I would do 25 mg 5X/week. My goal is to get SHBG under 50 (was 72 on these recent bloods after starting at 180 at the beginning of HOT). How much would you increase it? Would you go up to 25 mg ED? I don’t want to overcorrect, plus there’s the convenience factor of paying for/ordering more meds.
It seems Danazol will intermittently be a part of my protocol for the foreseeable future. Once we get SHBG sufficiently low — which will allow me to have a more moderate T level — we will lay off the Danazol for a while, then reintroduce it if SHBG increases too much. This cycling system will be in place to reduce the risk of liver toxicity.
We also talked a lot about my high Reverse T3. My doc believes this is a result eating too few calories — something he sees a lot in bodybuilders who do caloric restriction for show prep (@bmbrady77).
He believes I should be eating a lot more, which I know won’t surprise some folks around here (@The_Myth)! He even said I should be eating twice as much (~3500 cals), though that seems extreme to me and I definitely don’t plan to jump up there. Currently, my T3 is 9% of my Reverse T3, and our goal is for it to be 20% or more. But raising thyroid hormones can also raise SHBG, so we are going to leave this alone for now and just roll with the other changes I outlined above. We’ll continue monitoring.
Final note: he didn’t think I necessarily needed more bloodwork now (as opposed to in 6 weeks), but I asked for it. So, I will have a CBC and CMP in the next week. As I understand it, these tests should include HCT, HGB, and RBC, among other biomarkers.
He wasn’t super concerned about HCT because my level has been stable throughout treatment on the four tests I’ve had (45, 46.6, 44, 45.7). But it will be interesting to see how much it has jumped up, given the rise in Free T.
Does your doc know you were taking 260mg vs the prescribed 200? Otherwise why not drop down to the previously prescribed.
Nope. That’s what I was thinking – 200 would be good.
I applied cream trans-scrotal as well. I had mild rash/bumps/burns where I applied the cream and tried several prescriptions to clear them up but didn’t work. FYI, the acne on your back just means your E2 is high. It’s usually the first symptom. I had that as well.
I’ve spent a LOT of time on this forum and the other leading online TRT forum and talked with 3 different TRT docs and I’ve come to the conclusion that my insomnia is simply a side effect of too high a dose of T Cypionate. The options to stop the insomnia seem to be to lower the dose of T or take an AI. Lots of men with high T doses have insomnia, but many do not. Given that my dose of T was really high to start with and my T numbers were high I chose to dramatically reduce my dose. My insomnia, heart racing, shortness of breath, anxiety have all gotten better over the last 3 weeks. Insomnia is all that is left and I’m taking 5mg ambien to deal with that. I hope that in the next week or two my insomnia will be gone, but I expect my T levels will mid range so will have to up my dose slowly.
One TRT doc I talked to said that roughly 30% of patients have insomnia, heart racing, anxiety, shortness of breath if they take a once weekly injection of 200mg of T Cypionate (which is what he does) without an AI. He gives all his patients 1mg of anastrazole per week along with their injection and none of them have those symptoms.
I actually don’t know my SHBG because I started out on cream and it’s kinda worthless to know your SHBG if you are on cream as your dosing will always be twice a day. I am getting my SHBG numbers now that I am on injections and will know at my next lab in 4 weeks or so (I am guessing it’s mid range to high). My doc does daily injections as standard for his patients that aren’t on cream. That’s the only reason I started on daily.
Good stuff, man. I appreciate you taking the time to share.
Good to know. It’s weird that I haven’t had it nearly as bad since switching to injections, though, considering my E2 is 91.
Totally agree with your conclusion – and this must be linked to high estrogen. Do you know what your E2 number was?
I also do not want to take an AI, given all I’ve read about them (particularly Rouzier’s work). Is that also why you avoided the AI? Have you noticed any negative repercussions of lowering your dose? How much did you lower it, and how quickly? I’m concerned about making too dramatic of a drop too quickly; that seems like a bad idea. So I don’t want to do something like cut my dose in half.
Yeah, this will be a delicate balance. I get it. We’ll both just need to be patient as we dial in the ideal amount. I’m guessing for me it will end up being around 150-160/week, once I have Danazol honed in. Any guess what yours will end up being?
I wonder if that’s related to the more frequent dosage my doc prescribed (3X instead of 2X), which should prevent peaks in estrogen. This doctor still does 1X/week injections, though? 1 mg Anastrozole/week is roughly the same as what I was taking until I cut that off in January. Have you messed around with AIs?
Keep me posted. I’m curious.
So this is the only protocol you’ve used for injections, right? Wonder how you’d fare on less frequent injections.
5 months on TRT
5 weeks into transformation challenge, 3 to go
Weight: 176.6
Waist: 29.5”
Everything feels good! Training has been amazing; I’ve been crushing my lifts, with so much motivation to get after it. Also, I have been sleeping a little bit better over the past week, which may be a byproduct of working out earlier in the day (@bmbrady77).
In the past three days, I have bumped up my calories to 2200 (40P 35C 25F) as a result of my latest bloodwork, which showed an insane amount of T is in my system at the moment (was taking 260 mg/week). I definitely can feel it — my confidence is super high right now. I just feel like an alpha, which is obviously weird to say but feels awesome.
I want to capitalize on this T being in my system but didn’t want to make too drastic a leap all of a sudden; the increase I’ve implemented felt appropriate. Given my high levels of activity and T, my body is probably thrilled to have the few hundred extra calories as fuel. My doctor actually said he thinks I should be eating 3500 cals/day. Maybe eventually I’ll work my way up there.
I will continue monitoring BF pretty closely over these final 3 weeks of the challenge — scaling back consumption if I start to put on fat — and then will deprioritize BF and focus on building mass. Gains season approaching!
As you can see in the thread above, I am lowering my T dose (leaning toward 180/week at the moment), for the purposes of health, but should still have a very high level of bioavailable T, and may actually feel better because of the decrease in E (increasing Danazol to 25 mg/day should also help with this).
