It still takes longer for the results to “settle” for whatever reason. I’ve always thought it was downstream hormones that had to balance out. It’s not just your levels of T stabilizing like everyone seems to say. At least, that’s my opinion. I have no actual facts to back that up, though.
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Interesting, I am considering experimenting with 40mg EOD to see if the less frequent injections has any effect on shbg. Also if I can get my free T up higher at that dose. I don’t see my doctor for another 4 months so if anything gets too out of whack I’ll have plenty of time to adjust.
I’m also hoping that now that I am not really feeling as much anxiety on the testosterone that small changes won’t affect me as much. Since the small dose of proviron had me feeling exactly how I think “dialed-in” would feel, I am thinking/hoping that maybe slightly higher peaks may translate to a higher dht level as well.
I’m taking 42mg EOD and feel pretty good. I used to do intermittent fasting every day, probably for about 8 months and during that time, my shbg ranged between 31-38. My latest blood work where I haven’t been fasting has my shbg at 27. Attached are my most recent labs -
I inject at night before bed. I will say, I feel really good the day after my injection - energy, great sense of well being, clear headed and able to put some real good thoughts together. In not feeling totally like that the day if my shot… I’ve been considering moving to every day, but don’t know yet.
What are some of the symptoms you are trying to relieve by going EOD?
So in the past I did once per week and twice per week shots, however on each of these protocols I had a fair bit of anxiety. But, my shbg never rose astronomically like it has been doing on the every day protocol I am on now. I am not fasting or anything so I dont believe it should have gone up so much. I am thinking that since higher peaks are supposed to push down shbg, I might get better results by switching to a bit higher dose EOD. The hope is that it lowers shbg a bit and therefore raises free T. I’ve never has super low shbg so I don’t think that the test wearing off too fast should be a problem.
As far as symptoms go, I still don’t feel quite like I should and when I took proviron for a couple days, raising free test, I felt much much better. So I am thinking I need to tweak my dose to bump my free test up a bit (it is still under 20 on the 12-25 scale so not that great) and hopefully improve that
Topical cream on the testes will get you the increased DHT. I tried the masteron route for a while but T cream worked better for me with the DHT effect, and allows it to be produced in the same natural rhythms.
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I was thinking the same thing, but I am going to keep trying to get dialed in on the injectables for a bit just to see if its possible. Hard to give up paying $10 for a vial
It’s unfortunate that I can’t just tell my doctor about the proviron test… would make things much easier I think
So since my last post I have been doing 36mg every other day. All good so far aside from the fact that my resting heart rate has jumped again from 63 to 67, although from looking back in my logs it seemed to do this when I first started as well so I’m going to ride it out. Had some palpitations the other day but they were very brief and I believe it was due to a lack of sleep. Will follow up with labwork in a few weeks
BP still 120/80
On a side note, this may be a weird question but I’ve noticed that since I started the TRT my urine has started to smell awful. I live in a one bedroom apartment and if I dont flush the toilet (opposite side of the apartment from my front door) and I leave to run an errand and come back I can smell the damn piss when I go back into my house. Anyone else noticed something like this on their TRT or know what it could be?
Starting to have what feels like low e2 symptoms all of a sudden… mouth is constantly dry, anxiety is a bit up and I’m starting to feel more lethargic. Not bloated all and I’m urinating a bit more frequently. Is it worth getting bloodwork within 3 weeks after this dosage change or do I need to wait the full 6 weeks?
What are you taking now?
To me the answer is no, assuming you aren’t taking an AI and haven’t made any huge changes. It probably is just going to take some time to adjust.
I’m on 36 mg eod. Started last Tuesday. Just feel super dry, it’s very odd. Joints are alright though
Just to update, I have been feeling great on this protocol so far. Got bloods for the hell of it and im at around 780 TT, 21 FT and 18 e2. I’ve started taking some flax oil daily to see if I can’t raise that estrogen a bit.
On a side note, however- now that I am feeling good mentally and I can look toward the future/plan ahead in my life I have begun worrying about fertility again. To reiterate I have frozen sperm, I believe about 14 tries worth. However, I was thinking it would be great to see if I could keep my fertility while on TRT. Although there are many stories of people bouncing back after many years it still makes me nervous. It’s an odd thing- when I’m low T I can barely think forward to the next day and I’m just wanting to feel better, but when my T level is corrected I start planning for the future and getting nervous about fertility. I see all these beautiful women and think of how great it would be to have a kid of my own. Frozen sperm is great but IVF is also very expensive and I’m not even close to where I will need to be financially yet.
So I was thinking today that it was likely the HCG causing me to feel so poorly on previous TRT attempts. To test this, I took a very very small dose of HCG today, around 25iu. Plan being if I experience no side effects to slowly ramp up, just starting at once a week dosage. My testicles have been aching since I started and this both hurts and feels wrong, as though a part of me is dying. It’s been a couple hours since this small injection and I feel somewhat similiar now to how I did on previous attempts. Flushed face, I feel hot, my heart rate has picked up, I’ve had a heart palp or two. Not nearly as bad as it was on 2000iu HCG but nonetheless, not very positive. I swear my thyroid is stimulated by this stuff. When I was taking 2000iu before I had the heart events I had a terrible swelling feeling on the left side of my neck for days after each injection. Skin felt like it was on fire. I later had bloodwork a couple months after stopping TRT/hcg and my free t3 was right at the top of the range, not a single decimal below.
So with this crappy reaction to even a microdose of HCG, what are my options? It seems that when people try to regain fertility later down the line they use HCG and HMG (or FSH if going through defy). However I can’t be throwing heart arrythmias every time I try to have a kid, so that rules out HCG at least at a high dose… Start saving for the IVF now I suppose? It is depressing to think that I may have so much trouble having a child in the future and I am trying to set myself up for success.
Other options I have seen:
-Try recombinant HCG instead, as the urinary-derived HCG sometimes causes more bad reactions- I can’t really find sources for this and something tells me it will be hard to get prescribed
-Take HCG at a low dose but not consistently, just frequently enough to remind the testicles that they exist and have a purpose-tough out the anxiety for a couple days, which will honestly be difficult even if done infrequently (I remember reading a forum post somewhere where a guy took HCG every 21 days at a dose of 250 iu each time) and was later able to regain fertility and conceive.
-Look at doing the same thing but with HMG, although this is something I would not be able to start for a while due to $$$. I am currently working and in school to switch my career path but this will take a while and I still won’t be getting paid the big bucks by any means once I am done. I have a feeling this would work without giving me the thyroid issues due to the fact that it is composed of LH and FSH, and not just the units that mimmick these molecules. In fact, I may have ordered some to test. Who knows
-Cycle off once a year: makes sense but obviously would suck very badly
-Maybe get off and bank more sperm? Also very expensive, it took me about 2 grand just to get the 14 vials frozen and that is an ongoing yearly payment as well.
I am probably overthinking a lot of this but reading that HCG seems to be the main tool in one’s arsenal to regain fertility makes me very nervous. I really don’t think I can handle the HCG at all as the side effects are awful. Just trying to think ahead for once in my life. Now that my confidence/charisma/general outlook on life is increasing I feel it will be much easier to find my partner eventually and I don’t want to get to that point and then crush them because I can’t have kids with them. I’ve been depressed just thinking about it.
So yeah, that and the ball pain kind of suck. Can I take a serm along with TRT from time to time to stimulate some LH production?
I’ve seen that argument and also the argument that the longer you are on without any stimulation the harder it is to bounce back. I guess I can’t control everything and as long as the sperm bank gets my payments I’ll at least be able to have a kid using that route. Depression has gotten a lot better so of course now my brain is jumping to the next thing to solve. Scary being 26 and dealing with this as who knows how many years I may be on before I end up having an opportunity to start a family
I have friends that blast and cruise at high doses for a decade and have multiple kids. The body is a bad mutha clucka.
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I actually just read a thread where a guy stated he was on from 2010-2018 and took hcg and clomid for 6 months and had a kid. Insane for being on that long
So HCG cannot be a thing for me at all at this point. After some more reading I believe I may have a hypersensitivity to it. Which is supposedly pretty rare but here we are a day later and I am still having symptoms consistent with this. The more I Think about it the more I realize 25 mcg of HCG is not enough to stimulate my thyroid to this extent so something else is going on.
However, I also thought back to the only cycle I’ve done, in which I used 2000 mcg of HCG before bridging into PCT. I don’t remember getting any such reaction. I looked into possibilities and found a study that showed some men have hypersensitivy reactions due to the other proteins found urinary-derived HCG, and not due to the HCG itself. They have “highly purified” versions of HCG that are supposed to be better for this purpose. I have sourced some and I will be trying within two weeks once this reaction calms down to see if it has the same effect- I should add that I dont plant on taking this every single week, it is something I want to have on hand in the case that my testicular shrinkage gets out of control because I’d be lying if I didn’t say that may bother me a bit
Not sure of the validity of it, but there was one guy on here saying that if you have adrenal insufficiency and begin HCG you may feel worse before getting better. I probably will butcher how he described the mechanisms going on but this is my attempt. He was saying the HCG back fills those adrenal pathways or something to that effect and can cause a cascade of corrections being made by the body causing you to feel bad especially if you have been insufficient for a while. I believe he said it could take up to three months for it to turn for the better. Just something to think about. I tried tagging him but looks like his account is disabled.
That’s interesting, however after this reaction I’m fairly responsible that HCG was the cause of my arrhythmia… either the hcg itself or the reaction to it. Just that 25 mcg had my heart racing/skin burning/pure anxiety/sweating/dizziness feeling going until about today, so about 36 hours. Took a beta blocker and it didn’t do much even for my heart rate so that leads me to think it’s more than just plain thyroid stimulation. Just now starting to feel normal again. It’s the same feeling I used to associate with testosterone. Now I realize that is not the case as T alone has me much less anxious than before. I took 2000 iu hcg in the past for three months and month three I had afib twice because my heart would never calm down. Either I’m overstimulated by it or having a reaction so I’m going to test it out and see what’s going on. Really hoping it’s just a matter of purification
Interesting. HCG sure does a good job of making me feel like shit, that’s for sure