i had horrible sleep prior to TRT. would go to bed at 1030pm and would be wide awake by 1am. was like that for a couple months. had high hopes that TRT would help that, i wear a fitbit to track my sleeps and in a year have never had a sleep score in the 80’s and average around 5hrs of sleep now. i have never tried an edible, but do occasionally drink socially; sometimes it seems to help sleep, sometimes it doesn’t.
My Dr had me on tryptophan shakes for a while but they had no effect. then tried pregabalin, with same result. Gone down the melatonin and ZMA road with no luck.
A couple years ago i took a couple gravol and that put me out but woke up groggy as f*ck for a few hours and didn’t feel rested.
BTW i have been on ED or EOD for the past 8 months. I have resigned myself to the fact that i just don’t sleep, so i go to the gym at 5am
@kal-el2213 I had similar when I started TRT. I would be waking up 5-6 AM every morning without getting enough sleep. Otherwise I was feeling awesome, totally optimized - libido, energy, mood, confidence, lack of anxiety - everything was perfect. Even the lack of enough sleep couldnt decrease the quality of my day.
A rush of energy would come and there was no way I could fall asleep again. I was doing then daily sustanon injections sub-q. Thats why I started to try other esters like enanthate and cypionate changing protocols and messed myself a bit.
Then my t levels fell and sleep improved, but many of the pre TRT symptoms came back. A lot of time I stayed on some mediocre for my needs t levels like 800-1000(I felt best at 1400) and last month I started to get my levels up again by switching to IM injections. Now I havent reached yet 1400 because it takes time, but I suppose to be around 1200 and my sleep is very good at least most of the days. The day before yesterday I woke up at 6 but I had personal issues that were troubling my mind.
My sleep issues have started in 2011. The events that seems have led to me being on TRT today and that I think have damaged my peripheral nervous system. But that is a long story 
ANd even so pre TRT the sleep was relatively good the last 5-6 years, Ive never had this exact pattern of waking up early with rush of energy. Just there were nights from time to time I wasnt sleeping good. What I believe is that the pattern of testosterone release from the ester somehow messes cortisol pattern to cause this. How it should be fixed I have no idea.
You have no idea because there is zero science that demonstrates this theory. But you can keep trying.
People believe lots of things. Doesn’t make them true.
As you clearly like to pick me again I have two simple questions for you:
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Why I was waking up on my initial TRT protocol. 22.5mg daily sustanon sub-q injections, nothing bad uh?
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Why is this guy waking up?
How does your evidence based medicine explain that?
Testosterone has an effect on the central nervous system. Not a theory. We can demonstrate this and there is a ton of literature on the subject.
Some men experience insomnia by either too high a weekly dose or too much injected all at once. Again, we can demonstrate this.
Your sleep improved when your levels went down. This represents the expected outcome of what I just discussed.
It has nothing to do with esters affecting cortisol. Esters have no effect on cortisol. If you have any evidence that demonstrates this, please provide it.
Just one hole in all that theory. My sleep issues started within the first week of TRT when my t levels were 600-800. And they were the same on 1400
I was doing daily injections so clearly was not too much at once, right?
So it is not levels to high at least for me, 100 percent sure
And what evidence you have to be so sure testosterone metabolization has NO ANY effect on cortisol daily patterns?
There is no hole.
Testosterone affects central nervous system. You started TRT and had sleep issues. Your body was adjusting. Happens all the time. Nothing to do with ester.
Exogenous testosterone can effect cortisol. The ester itself has nothing to do with it.
This adjusting has been a little more than 3 months and suddenly this issue stopped when I switched to cypionate and I started feeling worse.
And one more observation. When I was on the sustanon I tried changing injections time to late afternoon, everything else the same - 22.5mg daily. For 10 days I felt worse in reagards to mood energy and libido - body was adjusting to change, right? But in this 10 days the sleeping issue disappeared. Then the other things improved like before that change and the sleep issue was back
Ten days to assess a protocol goes against all demonstrated science.
You made a change and your body was adjusting. The outcome after a few days is not demonstrative of anything.
You never get dialed in because you obsess over the tiny details that the rest of us don’t. I inject every other day, doesn’t matter what time of day, and I go on with my life. You’re breaking your head over esters affecting cortisol and microdosing hcg, 0.5mg increments of T etc. This obsessing in itself, each time you make a change, will spike cortisol because it’s the only thing you’re thinking of while life passes you by.
I think you didnt grasp the effect of this small change and why I told you about it
I know you think I didn’t grasp it. That’s what makes it funny.
Thanks for all your information. I want to confirm my understanding. In your experience, more frequent and because of higher frequent, lower dose per injection, the spike will far less great and thus the negative impact on sleep is less likely? I should as I am at .3 (200mg) E3D. Which is going well outside of the sleep thing and my anxiety has seemed to be high which could be other various issues.
Give more frequent shots a try just to see if it has any favorable impact. If it does, you could a solution. If it doesn’t, you can rule it out.
All i know, for me, the higher i dose, the crappier I sleep.
I’ve been on 400mg/week in an experiment. Last night, i laid there until 1130pm. Generally i fall right asleep at about 930. Then, i’m up at 130 laying there.
YMMV
Okay, I’m on week 5 of switching to IM and going with E3D. I’ll wait it out a few more weeks to see if things get better, if not I’ll make the switch to EOD. Do you think it matter where you do IM? I am doing delts which is fine but just curious
Doesn’t matter… just get it into the muscle… any muscle works
One thing I’ve found that really helps is a topical progesterone cream (available on Amazon). I use ~1/2 pump, which is somewhere around 10mg, and apply it onto my inner wrist areas/forearms.
I experience longer periods of delta and REM sleep, which are the restorative phases of sleep. Now some people found they convert progesterone–>cortisol and that wakes them up, but that didn’t happen to me. YMMV.
Be careful with benzodiazepines, like temazepam. While they will usually knock you out, they disrupt sleep architecture and disallow you sufficient delta and REM sleep.
My take is it’s due to the conversion of T into E2 and that acts as a stimulant. It’s affected me the same as you, higher dose of T = worse sleep.
E2 is a stimulant now?
Is it also responsible for toe wax and ingrown chest hairs?
Sigh
Testosterone affects the CNS. When you raise testosterone levels too high it can definitely affect the CNS. Estradiol doesn’t have that affect.