How long have you been on your current protocol? I could barely tie my shoes my ankles were so swollen a month or so in but it all went away on it’s own. Even at e2 over 70 I have no issues now.
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I started at 18mg daily on August 8 then two weeks in dropped to 16mg daily. So I’ve been on six weeks total now with a 14mg dosage drop two weeks in
It takes 8 weeks for me to feel good and no issues on protocol changes. Even switching from daily to same weekly dosage but EOD it took about 8 weeks. Then switching back to daily but from sub-q to IM it took about 8 weeks. At 6 weeks I was thinking IM was a bad decision but starting about the 8th week I started feeling even better than on sub-q. Give it enough time before you mess with it so you know for sure.
Did you go through a period where erections and whatnot were weak due to the higher estrogen levels? That’s kinda where im at right now. A bunch of elevated estrogen symptoms. I just wait and they go away? New to me as both of the other times I was on TRT controlling estrogen was considered pretty important. Also would rather not have my gyno grow back again
@touchindeez
I had diminished libido and weak erections during every protocol change and libido is always the last thing to “come back” after I’m feeling better again. It happened on every dose so I don’t think it’s necessarily high estrogen but more of hormones not in equilibrium for that 2ish month time period.
Going thru this now at 30mg/day. Even w pde5s it’s tougher to get an erection.
On lower doses of test it was easier. Really really hoping it goes away and libido increases.
Wondering if libido occurs at one E2 level, and erections at another.
One weird thing for me before I started T is my erections were insane even with low T and E2. Above average for me
I’m still fine now but it’s not as crazy, more normal, but way easier to get the job done now that I’m not going numb 3 mins in
@enackers - I was reading through some posts and found one you made on another thread that you felt “exhausted” till you started taking thyroid with TRT. Were you having the other low thyroid symptoms such as cold hands and feet, thinning eyebrows, etc.?
I am curious because it seems DIM has improved my mental clarity so maybe my estrogen is a bit better now. But I still feel heavily exhausted. I mean bad. Oversleeping my alarms and it seems that if I manage to get to the gym I “crash” and feel awful the next day. Feel like I don’t have the energy to do anything at all. Does this sound anything like what you were dealing with?
Your symptoms of cold feet and etc are all thyroid. I didn’t have those. I had horrid fatigue and lethargy. Just like what you describe. If on trt for a while and you don’t feel any better with fatigue I would run a trial if thyroid. You want armour thyroid. Try 1 grain am and 1 grain 8 hours later. After a week or so raise the dose in am if it hasn’t fixed you totally.
You’ll feel it working fairly quick. If you don’t take them 8 hours apart you will continue to wake up feeling horrid like I did.
I increase my dose 2 am and 2 Pm. The increase in Pm fixed my mornings and gave me energy.
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Good to know. My tsh has steadily increased for the last year and I’m still tired in the mornings. It’s up to 2.9 or so now, so this may help me as well.
My hands and feet are always freezing unless I’m being working hard or something
Did that dosage have any effect on your heart rate?
Oh man that’s high. You definitely need to get that sorted otherwise you’ll never feel great on trt.
If I had to choose between trt and thyroid I would go thyroid . No question.
Good to know. I have an appt with Dr. Saya on next Monday so I assume he will see the same trend. My TSH went from 2.0 a year ago, 2.6 just before starting TRT and now 2.9something a few months in… so I’m interested to see how I do on thyroid meds. I hate, hate, hate anything that makes me jittery so I don’t want that kind of energy… but normal not tired, motivated kind of energy would be awesome. And who knows, maybe it will help with some other issues at the same time.
Mine was 3.750 last time I tested, waiting on my follow up TSH test to come in. Free t3 and free t4 didn’t seem terrible though. Any input on that?
I’m curious about that combo too.
Ft3 needs to be at the top of the range.
Just got Repeat TSH back and it dropped back down to 2.580 , renin and aldosterone were both in range as well. Started feeling super horny today… first time. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come?
Went to the cardiologist and had an ultrasound… but of course the actual cardiologist wasn’t there so I couldn’t ask him any questions. Nurse said nothing crazy was jumping out at her and my heart looked like a “good, strong heart” but when I told her about my heart rate fluctuations upon moving around she stated that that didn’t seem normal. Also didn’t seem 100 percent sure so idk. I go back Friday for a stress test (freaks me out as I know they will want to max out my heart rate).
So now I’m starting to feel mentally better, just hoping that the weird chest feelings will go away now and that I don’t have any arrhythmias. Pulse still elevated most of the time but can touch as low as 50 when I sleep. Doesn’t really make sense but I will see what the cardio says
Should also add I used the rowing machine for 30 minutes at the gym today and my two minute heart rate recovery was 21bpm… doesn’t seem great. I never measured before TRT but I know for a fact it went down very quickly after exercise. It’s like TRT has the inverse effect on my cardiovascular system that it is supposed to lol
Went to the cardiologist today, ultrasound and stress test came back good. Cardio told me my heart looks strong and he’s not worried about any of it. Says my heart should be fine to handle the levels of testosterone I am taking.
Also gave me a little portable ecg thing that attaches to my phone that will show me if I am throwing an arrhythmia just for peace of mind
Thats good youre atleast finding peace of mind. Same thing happened to me, i wore my holter monitor for 48 hours they said there wasn’t much abnormalities. Gonna see the actual cardiologist in a couple weeks to go over the results face to face but the test results email he didn’t sound concerned.
I switched from e3.5 injections to eod small doses and thats helped me, still a bit of adjusting for me but I’m only in week 3. If the cardiologist is telling you your hearts fine I almost feel your anxiety is building you up, with the palpitations etc. Try and relax mentally for a week straight with the peace of mind your doc gave you and maybe it’ll drop your cortial/adren/nordren and get the ball rolling for you, I just try not to think about what I feel until I see the docs, for now