How are things now? I too am a outlier and my body hates T shots. I’m on 50mg E4D very low dose by this groups standards but the more I take the more ramped up and anxious I feel.
Hey there, thanks for asking. I’ll check in with a longer post at some point but things are still going well for me. I have a hunger/protein issue caused by TRT that keeps cropping up and is affecting my quality of life in a huge way, but other than that most things are roughly as I reported last time. I wish you luck with your treatment!!
Try more frequent shots… Say every other day… You won’t be injecting so much all at once and may find yourself tolerating more.
Thanks for replying… I have a hard time getting my estrogen above high 20’s unless I take my TT above 2500/free 35… so the only thing I theorize I can do is mess with my dose until I find a proper balance but I have found that the longer I wait to inject the better I feel which leads me to believe my estrogen may hold longer in my system than my T? and I actually need to space my dose even more? I have tried a lot of different frequency’s and mg and felt the best (but far) from dialed on 100 E3.5 Still at that dose at trough I was over 1200 and felt ramped up 24/7.
I’m only 3 weeks in on 50mg E4D so I’m still feeling out of sorts as the previous protocols 1/2 lives drop off. You think maybe I should try hcg? My dhea is top of range but maybe supplementing that would help raise E2? I do feel a lot more resilient To the T spikes since I’ve been on a protocol for the last 2 years. Just struggling to feel my best day in and day out.
This may sound crazy to you, but docs I know would actually prescribe estradiol in this case. A very low dose, obviously, but there are guys like you who have an aromatase deficiency. Surprised you’re only getting a free of 35 with a total of 2500? How high is your shbg?
I am curious about your shbg as well. I thought I held the record for the craziest total t to free t ratio but it sounds like you might be close!
The first lab work I ever had done came back at 1100 total T [264-916] and 7.2 free t [8.7-25.1]. Unfortunately didn’t check shbg directly that time.
My shbg is usually around 45.
Last bloods based on 70mg E4D
TT 1431
FT 22.0
Shbg 47.1
E2 28.5
With these numbers do you think low dose estradiol?
How you feeling mate?
Hey there, thanks for asking. Funny I must have checked in last about 12 days ago and saw nothing, and then you posted the next day.
I’m good overall. I smidged my dose back up a little and it’s given me a little relief from my hunger issue. I still need a shitload of protein every day - well a shitload for me. Maybe it’s what I should have been doing my whole life. But if I don’t get at least 80% of my body weight in protein (in grams) over the course of 2 or 3 days I really suffer. Meals have been filling me up a bit more, but I am so hungry when I wake up it’s unreal. I used to not eat for an hour or more when I woke up. Now I have to eat within minutes, or even seconds. I keep food by the bed. Situation is very gradually improving, except for the waking up bit.
Energy is just okay, mood is okay (although I think that has more to do with life events than T), I can’t get rid of this anxiety (though again that may be a life thing), and oddly enough libido is probably the best it’s been in 10 years. On the other positive, I have been working out a little bit, trying to get rid of this gut and build some strength. I know that has caused me to need even more protein, but my hunger issue certainly predates any working out.
Overall (based on past experience) I don’t feel like I can do much more T than this, but I may continue inching the dose up in bits to see if I can get to a better place. I weigh more now, although I’m trying to change that.
I’m definitely still confident inside, but I am really missing that T calmness and the zooming mood I once had. They may yet kick in as I’ve only been on this slightly upped dose 10 weeks and sometimes the great mood doesn’t kick in until 11 weeks or so.
Sounds like progress mate. When are you due to to the labs next?
What is your T protocol now?
I’m back on a total of nearly 60 a week. About 25 E3D. The last time I measured my trough, I was on much less - closer to 40 a week, and it was clearly just too little. My TT trough was under 350.
My thyroid has really seemed to decline this last year. It’s been measured three times and each time the number gets higher. It was in the 3’s last time, which would likely explain why I’m sleepy more often than I should be. And yet my overall energy has generally been pretty good. And libido is very good. The body is strange.
I tried seeing an endocrinologist about this hunger thing - it was quite bad over the summer - would not go away no matter what I ate or how much - to see if he had any answers. But unfortunately he was a caricature of everything you hear about on this forum.
Very much against T replacement treatment. He told me I would have to come off T to get measurements and determine where to go from there. I asked if he meant to come off it with the aim of going back on, and he said no not necessarily. I was totally gobsmacked. I even explained to him how T had completely transformed me - taken me from barely existing to feeling excellent most of the time. He seemed to want to diagnose me with ED, because I said to him that’s how I got clued into the fact that something wasn’t right a couple years ago. I explained to him that T had fixed that, and it was like he had rags in his ears. A little later he said to me “and you have ED” and I was like “no… I don’t have ED”.
I asked him if he would at least do a full hormonal panel so I can see where I was - especially with free T - and he said there was no reason to do a full hormonal panel while I was on injections of T. He was only interested in doing one if I was off T.
I don’t know what it is about these doctors around here, or just doctors with T in general. Needless to say I didn’t go back. Next scheduled doctor visit isn’t for a while now.
Hey everyone. Just a quick update. Usually my updates aren’t quick but I’m going to try to make this one quick.
So I back in December I was on the equivalent of 58 a week and was doing okay (or so I thought) but as the protocol began to settle, I started to get some crazy night sweating and daily anxiety symptoms and even some depression. Libido was actually fine but everything else was out of whack. I started to suspect thyroid and all kind of other things.
Long ago I discovered that I was on “too much” T, and that too much T actually gave me many Low T symptoms back. In January my hunger was also insane again, just about worse than ever. I started to suspect that 58 was too much for me so I nudged myself back down to exactly 50. The way I do my nudges, plus with it being such a small total change, I was hoping it wouldn’t initiate a full “dose change” - which basically means 6 to 8 weeks of up and down hell before I can tell how everything is really going.
You wouldn’t think 8mg a week would make any difference, with manufacturing tolerances and all, but lo and behold the hunger has gone from painful lion ravenous all the time to just “pretty to very hungry depending on when I last ate”. I do get some nice breaks now in between meals where I can forget about it. For much of last year I couldn’t go an hour during the day without eating some protein. Sugar and carbs made no difference at all, and my sugar tests were all fine. It was destroying my quality of life.
Anyway, with the 8mg drop (!) anxiety and depression have both just about vanished, as have the night sweats. Libido is still rolling. As far as I can tell, I am just about dialed in now.
I write this update to let people know that I think a lot of the reason people have trouble getting their dose right is the Low T symptoms can absolutely appear or persist if one’s dose is too high. I am clearly a hyperresponder but people have to stay aware that even small changes (in my case 8 stupid mg a week, or 14%) can make a huge difference. And if you’re sensitive, you also need to be consistent with your dosing and keep to it for 10 weeks or more before changing anything. Wish everyone luck, as always.
** also if you are having trouble, please keep a darn log of how you are doing each day, along with your dose. That was how I initially figured out that my hunger was a lot better when I was on 50 than when I had upped to 58. Took a lot of logging and time to be able to zoom out to the bigger picture
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Hello all! Two years since the last update. Where do it go?
At 50mg a week, I was dialed in pretty good or so I thought. But I haven’t been feeling great lately, super emotional and shit, plus anxious and incredibly, incredibly jumpy. And my super protein hunger, which I thought I’d seen the back of for about the last 20 months or so, has come roaring back this last few weeks.
Doc tested T routinely (thank God) and saw that I’m peaking at about 1400 TT and 27 FT. On 50mg a week (22 E3D). So he wants me to lower my dose and I want to lower my dose and the whole thing is just a giant pisser. The big difference now I guess is I lost 35 pounds (of fat) between April '21 and October '22. I am startled that my T is getting so high on such a small dose but I already knew I was a hyper responder.
Gonna lower to 40 a week even though doc suggested I maybe try 30. It just seems like 30 is too big a drop. I don’t know. I’m lost at this point. This journey has honestly been hell and I’ve been diligent as fuck.