100 is definitely a better starting point. Most guys end up around 150, but plenty of guys need less. It;s easier to go up, and you know what it does faster than letting half-lives roll off.
Beginning of Week 10 of 36mg per week!
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Not a ton different to report right now, which is a good thing.
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Everything is pretty much rolling along. Mood is excellent, motivation is good, concentration is good, libido is good. Self-assuredness and confidence also good. Basically I’m now very close to where I was before this thing went off the fucking rails in September.
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My energy is weird. I have bouts here and there during the day of real tiredness and other bouts of crazy energy. Doesn’t seem normal but really it’s just a slightly exaggerated version of what I’ve been going through the last few years. I wake with energy, get very sleepy in the evenings but I’m wide awake the rest of the night. Late, too. Zero coffee. It’s possible I need more sleep but no matter how much sleep I get, I do get that evening tiredness.
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Not much anxiety to report anymore. The only anxiety I get, happens right at the very “end” of my dose. I’m talking like maybe six hours before a shot. An hour or two after the shot it’s gone. This is not typical for me. Maybe the last four shots? I expect this will stop, just as it did last go-round.
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I’ve started a very moderate cardio routine to go along with my yoga. And I mean moderate. I need to get in shape badly, so I’ve started. A week of it and I’m already feeling better. This is a good reflection of my motivation, which is finally really kicking in.
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My memory has been fucking around this last 24 hours. This hasn’t happened in a while. I mean… I do something, then forget it completely 60 seconds later. I reviewed this log with the handy search feature… and way back in August when I last was on this dose, I actually reported memory issues during Week 10. Seems like it was brief. Weird though, right? These logs are super helpful for people like me who tend to get spooked easily.
Beginning of Week 11 of what I hope is my last dose change for a long time. Relatively quiet and stable week, as one would hope/expect on a good dose.
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My memory issues from last week faded after a few days. It was maybe 72 hours max. As I said, a very similar weirdness happened as I was settling into this dose last time.
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One thing I haven’t mentioned here is my balls sweating. LOL there’s a sentence I never thought I’d type. As my Low T really crept in from 2016-2018, I had the craziest sweaty balls. It’s like a between the legs sweating. Very uncomfortable, and nothing to do with the weather. Never had it before. I decided to use the “medicated” corn starch powder each morning and otherwise didn’t question it. On T, this had mostly disappeared and I stopped needing the corn starch. Last three or four weeks, though, it came back with a vengeance. You’d think maybe it was my low dose, but of course there’s just about zero other symptoms of my “low t” hanging around. And the last couple days it has thankfully stopped. I’m hoping it does stop because it’s just uncomfortable. I wonder if anyone else here gets this.
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I think the little workout routine I’ve started has begun to aid my lingering libido issues. Although not what I would call perfect, some things are really falling into place there. Getting close to the best I’ve been since starting T. It could simply be the effects of being on the right dose but I don’t think so. My sleep seems better and deeper lately, too.
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Everything else is really rolling. My motivation has been lagging a bit but mood, energy, concentration, anxiety, libido, are all very good. These are strange times so it’s tough to gauge everything as being solely T-related.
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I’m not ready to say with 100% certainty that I am dialed in but I would say I’m a strong 95%? I will give a small shout to @enackers, who I promised about five weeks ago I would update with my progress. I appreciate all insight and advice so this is anything but an “I told you so”. It seems I really am a crazy outlier with T, being on such a low dose (36mg per week) with success. Hoping to finally be able to provide some labs when things get a bit more normal out there. I think it will hopefully be of interest to several people.
Get them labs . looking forward to seeing you stay stable. I think it will help you more than you know. I started a dose and stuck to it for one year. I had all types of symptoms and issues I could of blamed on Trt, but I didn’t. I am about 1 year and 4 months in and I feel great today. Those labs help in gauging what the dose is doing for our levels. Most men will achieve the longevity and protective benefits when they are above 20 ng/dl. as long as e2 and dht rise with it naturally.
Thank you. I will get what I can when I can and post them. I’m glad to hear you’re doing well.
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Been a while since my last update. I am closing in on the end of Week 12 of my dose reduction.
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I’d say everything is still pretty much rolling. Energy levels have been down a bit but picked up this last few days. Motivation is kinda the same but it’s a little difficult to tell much about motivation in these strange times. I think most people are a little depressed right now.
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That said, my mood is very good. No depression, and anxiety seems to basically be in the past. Most of the anxiety I have had this last 4 years has been related to Testosterone. I had really done well to get on top of my anxiety since the early 2010’s but Low T really brought it back to the fore. And as for TRT, when I am dialed in, anxiety is pretty rare. I walk around with a very nice energetic calmness. When I am not dialed in, or on a dose change, my anxiety ranges anywhere between annoying, debilitating, and nightmare.
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I am still doing mild cardio and that seems to be working well. I went from having trouble doing 10 jumping jacks a few weeks ago to basically being able to do infinite jumping jacks now. That’s where I had been most of my life but I had obviously let things get out of hand. I never had trouble with pushups before either - and I do them correctly - but when I started back up a few weeks ago, I was having issues doing even five of them. That itself was a wakeup call. I don’t want to be there again.
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I have a small frame but my midsection (since a long course of prednisone 10 years ago) is quite round. I can see that is just now starting to tone in from the sides which is pleasing to me no end. If I can shift this gut, I will be thrilled.
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In terms of my other Low T symptoms, my concentration, memory, mental sharpness and libido all seem to be doing well. I wouldn’t say top of my range but at least the first three are better than they’ve been in a very long time.
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My TRT hunger episodes have come back this last few weeks, possibly due to my working out. I’m still considering doing a separate thread about the subject, as I have read about others going through this - but I am reasonably clear now on what it is, and why. And also how to deal with it. It’s certainly nowhere near what it was when it started a few months ago. It was an intense painful hunger that would not go away no matter what or how much I ate.
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I am pretty certain it has everything to do with the change my body is going through and I do expect it to resolve in the next month or two. I have muscles developing now that I just have never had in my life, even when I was in my 20’s and fairly fit, and doing Karate every day. And I think that alone is causing a major demand on my system. I have upped my protein intake by quite a bit.
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Interestingly I have gone from at least twice-daily carb cravings for as long as I can remember (including much of my time on TRT) - to basically no carb cravings at all. I can’t say it’s anything I’ve done, either. I mean, I’ve modified my diet but it’s mostly been a response rather than a regime I’ve instituted. I don’t even really get sugar cravings anymore either, and I used to have plenty of those. All of that is quite welcome, but I’ll be glad when I don’t have to think about this hunger thing anymore.
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End of Week 13. Still going strong here. I’m basically in the same place I was the last time I was in Week 13 of this dose (36mg split x2). At the time I didn’t know I was on such a low dose - being delivered half-assed by some bum 3ml syringes - and only discovered so several months later.
I think this confirms that at the beginning of this log, when I reported I was on 100mg per week, I was actually only on between 30 and 40mg per week.
But yeah, right now is where I was back in early September right before I switched to an accurate 1ml syringe, and ended up doubling my dose to 80mg per week, which ended up being a disaster. And early September is the last time I felt consistently good every day.
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Mood is great. Surprisingly even and happy, even while being trapped inside with some degree of uncertainty all around.
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Anxiety is virtually nonexistent. I am very calm most of the time.
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Libido and related function are predictably good. It’s not off the charts, maybe not even raging, but it’s good.
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Energy is pretty good. I get sleepy in the evenings, which I mention every few posts. But in the morning and at night my energy is very good. It’s nearly 1am where I am and I’m wide awake.
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Motivation is getting better all the time. I definitely have a bit of get up and go that was pretty much non-existent for the first 10 weeks of this dose. Seems to be getting better. Evidence of this is that I have implemented a small cardio and exercise routine which is going well.
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Concentration and memory firing on all cylinders. I’ve had a ton of work to do and it all flows pretty easily.
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Creativity seems to be coming back after a hiatus.
All of this stuff, save creativity which was extraordinarily high while I was Low-T (I really got way back into my art for a few years), is stuff where I suffered very badly before TRT. I was depressed, moody, anxious, stressed, unable to concentrate or remember basic things that happened minutes before, low motivation, and to top it all off my member was numb and had pretty much stopped responding to stimulus. Not a good life.
That has pretty much all turned around right now and I have no intention of doing any major alterations to my dose.
Greetings,
I’m not sure if I posted in this thread yet. but it has taken me a few weeks to read through this log. I’m saying that because it was a good read. I thought I would have more to say, but only thing coming to mind is that your log is inspirational and has definitely influenced how I will/am dialing in my protocol.
Also throw some push ups in to your routine. I’m sure you do plenty during the yoga session when you transition from pose to pose, try some Hindu push ups.
Stay Strong
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Hi! Haven’t updated since late April, but I have thankfully not disappeared from the planet. I thought this was going to be a brief update. I thought wrong…
First off even though it was a while ago, let me say I appreciate your post @sam_i_am1. It’s nice to know people read this log and maybe get something out of it. I did initially do this log to help others, the way I had been helped by reading other people’s experiences. Who knew a year ago it was going to be such a bumpy ride…?
Shocker of all shockers - I have had to make another couple T adjustments. This wasn’t a matter of voluntarily playing around or fucking with things because I could. Nor was it about obsessing over how I’m feeling. I’m way over all that. Just want to get on with life.
As last reported in late April, I felt pretty great in all areas, but one thing I had been struggling with since the beginning of the year was these “sugar episodes” as I called them. They were like hypoglycemic attacks almost, but without any actual low blood sugar. I would feel suddenly weak, out of breath and couldn’t do a whole lot. This was happening more and more frequently. It had gotten to the point where I couldn’t trust myself even to get halfway around the grocery store.
Because this hunger/sugar/weakness thing seemed to have started before my last drop in dose (from 56 a week to 36 a week) in January, I didn’t think it was directly related to T. But I looked back in my personal log and saw that the first time I had complained about being strangely out of breath was a couple weeks after I switched to 36 a week. There were so many different things going on then it was honestly hard to keep track of what was what.
Anyway I felt so bad a couple days leading up to May 1, and ended up at an emergency visit to the doctor, complaining of all these seemingly related issues, insane hunger, a weak feeling, etc, got checked top to bottom and totally cleared of anything being wrong. But I knew something wasn’t right.
So on May 5th I increased my dose back to 48 a week (up from 36). I know, I know.
And guess what? Within 72 hours, the breathless episodes completely stopped. Gone. I was back being able to do just about anything - including hard garden work - (let alone walk around a grocery store) - without maybe feeling like I was going to die.
But it turns out I still wasn’t completely right! After observation over the next couple weeks, I realized that often when I wasn’t feeling good, it was in the hours leading up to my E3.5D shot. The last straw was when I had been feeling pretty good all week on the new dose, and then suddenly on Thursday night - again - on May 14, this weird weak low energy lightheaded feeling started out of absolutely nowhere. The next shot was due Friday morning.
This is actually very similar to what happened to me in January. That was Thursday night too, and I had to actually cancel a weekend trip because of it.
With nowhere to turn and no easy answers, I decided I was going to just take my shot right away, see what effect it would have if any, and probably move to E3D.
With two hours of that shot - not shitting you - I was all better. Like I never felt bad at all. When this had happened the other times - including when I canceled that weekend holiday in January - nothing was curing or fixing it, except obviously the next shot. But this was certainly not happening every time, or I would have obviously noticed.
To wrap up, I am now on the equivalent of 48mg per week except now I’m injecting E3D. Which is actually nice because it means no more morning shot. It’s a pain to remember the days but I have it on my calendar with a reminder on my phone. And the upshot of all of this is I am feeling better overall today than I have in a very long time. The first five weeks of a dose change always sucks. Been a bit depressed and certainly tired, with an absolutely terrible time getting out of bed most days.
Today was the first day in quite a while I can say I’m back to doing “well”. I also sprang out of bed. I have no idea what the future holds - if that’s not completely fucking obvious by now - but on this dose and interval, so far so good. I have not had a single “episode” since I switched to E3D and the slightly higher dose seems to be doing the trick all around. But 76 – 56 – 36 – 48 -----> This is why they call it “dialing in”. It’s like tuning in a radio station that’s 300 miles away.
That is crazy low doseage!
You have sex drive and erections on that level?!
I was totally numb and dead pre-TRT. Drive is pretty good now and I’m always chasing my wife around with my steel bar at random times of day.
Fantastic news.
Just wondering how many of the guys on TRT that can’t seem to realize any differences are just taking way way too much T?
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I like to always note that I seem to be a crazy exception to the rule. Also my previous dose was apparently critically, dangerously low, causing me not to be able to do much activity at times without getting breathless and weak.
You certainly wouldn’t think raising the dose by a precious 12mg a week would fix that, but it has.
If someone is at a total dead end and has tried absolutely everything and stuck with it, I don’t think it can hurt to try going lower and seeing what happens.
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Just checking in real quick. Hope you all are doing okay - not that I’m observing anything new here but this year has been such a rat bastard for so many people. Sincerely hope you are hanging in.
Just about 9 weeks since I started on E3D and raising my dose to the equivalent of roughly 50mg per week and I’m still doing well. Every time I post here that everything is perfect, it goes to shit within the next couple weeks so everything is most definitely NOT perfect.
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Actually energy kind of sucks right now. I am tired a lot of the time, especially the last week or so, but we had a death in the family a couple weeks ago - very close to my wife - she is grieving and so I think a lot of my energy has been going toward worrying about and taking care of her. As one would expect. Not everything is T-related, much as it seems it is sometimes. It still sucks to feel so tired all the time. More than probably any time I can remember in the last five years. I only started TRT two years ago.
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On the other hand libido is both very good and surprisingly predictable. Even when I was feeling great last year for a time, libido was never quite right. This feels pretty close to right. It is quite probably the least of my complaints right now.
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Mood is fine other than the worry about my wife. I do feel like good things are on the way in that department.
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Concentration is good and my creativity has even been present which is nice. I wouldn’t say I’m as sharp as ever right now, but my memory has certainly not messed around for quite a while. Which is nice. When I was low, and then intermittently on TRT, I was getting some scary memory problems.
So I won’t sum up here by saying my usual shtick when I get like this, which is to say something like “everything is fantastic right now and by gum I’m not changing anything and this will always be exactly as it is right now and I probably won’t even ever need to post any updates to this log ever again”.
But I will say everything is stable and other than being dog tired a lot this last week or so, I am not complaining about much. Let’s say I think I am closer to where I’d like to be and leave it at that!
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Hi there! Another good report here. I would say I’m doing even better than when I last checked in 2.5 weeks ago. This is now the beginning of Week 12 on the equivalent of 50mg a week, dosing E3D.
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My Energy which I was quite unhappy with at last checkin, has rebounded somewhat. I am getting less sleep and that generally means I’m less tired. And yes, the first thing does precede the second. I have tested it many times. If you search the intertubes for “The more I sleep…” it will autofill with “the more tired I am”. I am one of those people. It’s weird. That said I still nap in the evenings for varying lengths. Sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes up to 90. But when I am awake the rest of the time, I am pretty lucid and even feeling rather springy at times.
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Libido, which I have never been able to get quite right since starting T two years ago, is the best it has been for sure. In five years? More? Oddly I’m not remembering a lot of crazy morning wood - which I have had more than my share of on T - but I do get sponaneous ones like when I was in puberty, and yeah just overall I am “feeling it” and things are working.
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Mood is unbelievably bright. This is something I was ecstatic about when I first started the log. About ten weeks after switching to twice a week, I was in an incredible mood almost every day. It didn’t feel real, or possible. But since the roller coaster started last September, this has been more an on and off thing for me. Mostly off. This has returned in a big way. Hoping to keep it going.
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As everything can never be absolutely perfect, I have had some strange Memory issues for the first time in a while. These come and go (rarely) on T and were heavily present when I was Low. This has been a little different in that instead of having short term memory issues (things happening in the last 30 seconds), they have been slightly longer term, as in not remembering something from yesterday. It does seem to be getting better.
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As I mentioned in another thread, I am back on Vitamin D. I was on 3000iu a day last year and then kind of dropped off when my GI doctor told me he didn’t really like me being on it, even though I’m critically low. After feeling like utter shit off D for three months, and struggling terribly with getting my T dosing right, I have decided to go to about 5000iu a day. So far this does not seem to be hurting me, and if anything it appears to be helping again.
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I have also taken @dextermorgan’s advice about very slightly varying dose week to week. I believe he says it helps with his libido. I’m already on a very small dose, so although I am very precise, varying it purposely may not actually be any different than just trying to shoot the same amount every week. Since concentrations supposedly vary from bottle to bottle, user error etc. But so far I would say it is different, and it is working. See note about libido above. Fingers crossed.
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This gives some of us hope that can’t find libido at normal and higher doses. Just to clarify, you’re taking 25mg of test, every 3 days, correct, for a total of 50mg/week?
In regards to libido: i am missing that “arousal” during hooking up with a woman. Not just erections, but that warm, flushed feeling you get upon activity. Like the whole body experience of making out… which leads to your body just NEEDING to get laid.
Is that what you’re feeling when you say “libido”? Or is “libido” to you meaning just feeling attraction to women?
Thanks for updating btw.
It’s definitely both. Base level of attraction is better overall, and also the feeling you describe. Full monty. I wouldn’t say it feels like I’m in my 20’s again, but maybe early 30’s?
Oddly I noticed when I first got on T and libido had returned after being totally numb for a couple years, it felt different somehow than I remembered. I described it as feeling “fake”.
What I think it was, however, was that while the physical components had returned, along with desire, something was missing. It felt cold somehow. It’s interesting to hear you describe it.
I wouldn’t say that something is completely back, but it’s definitely there and welcome.
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What’s odd to me, and some others’ comments i’ve read, is that they had libido, albeit very little, prior to TRT. And then, after starting, it totally goes away.
SO, if they had SOME prior to TRT at very low levels, it would make sense it may return if those levels are just increased slightly. Kind of like the way you’re doing. Your levels must be very low still, but probably a little better than PRE TRT.
I’d be curious where your blood levels of FT, E2, and SHBG are at.
I am too. I have enough info to go out on my own and get tests even though I’m in a place where I’m not allowed to do so.
No matter what I say, doctor absolutely refuses to run anything but TT. I keep saying I’m going to do it myself but it’s an expense.
I watch porn. And still get horny… Just saying.