TRT - Change from Twice Weekly to Three/Week

[FredMertz]

Hi,

I’m currently on TRT administering 100mg Cypinate/week divided into two 50mg injections. My endocrinologist upped my dosage to 120mg/week. How much benefit would there be if any to doing three 40mg injections each week compared to two 60mg injections? Because of the half life I’m not sure if there would be any benefit, plus it’s not like I’m some mega dose.

Thanks

[readalot]

Tool to Assess your TT Dose Response -- Percentile Curves

Summary: Tools to estimate your individual dose response for injectable testosterone ester in comparison to a normal distribution (95 percentile confidence estimate) of adult males (Ref). Plot below shows a summary of data from (1) clinical trials gathered from the literature + (2) crowdsourced data gathered here and elsewhere. I’ll add to the dose response chart as time allows. More background info on charts below can be found here and here in particular. Key considerations: If you are t…

At reasonable TRT dosing, diminishing returns if at all.

[RT_Nomad]

If you were on a testosterone “drip” the peak to trough ratio would be 1.00. Mathematically that would seem ideal.

But our natural testosterone varies throughout the day. Maybe there is a biological benefit to varying available testosterone. Is there any research on that?

[readalot]

@RT_Nomad

But our natural testosterone varies throughout the day. Maybe there is a biological benefit to varying available testosterone. Is there any research on that?

For muscle building, doubtful. If you properly pulse exogenous testosterone there is benefit in maintaining some/most of your HPTA function. Hence, maintain LH, fertility and endogenous production. Look up Natesto on here.

Natesto appears to be one method to do TRT and not completely shut down. Anabolic improvement with true TRT not much though.

[readalot]

Doing TRT while Maintaining/Recovering HPTA & Fertility

Pharmacokinetics of testosterone therapies in relation to diurnal variation of serum testosterone levels as men age [image] 3.6 Nasal administration Approved by the FDA in May 2014, the nasal gel formulation of TTh (NATESTO®) is a product using a metered-dose pump delivering 5.5 mg of T per pump actuation, with the recommended dosing of 2 pumps (11 mg; 1 actuation/nostril) administered intranasally 3 times daily (total 33 mg/day) 6 to 8 h apart.77 Absorption occurs through the nasal mucosa, …

See here.

[readalot]

FIGURE 1 | Percent change in mean gonadotropin levels (LH & FSH), from baseline through 6 months of testosterone treatment. Nasal testosterone (blue), dosed t.i.d., adapted from (15), n = 33. Topical testosterone (orange), dosed daily, adapted from (9), n = 123. IM injectable - 100 mg testosterone enanthate, (red), adapted from (10), n = 10. All changes from baseline were statistically significant. Nasal testosterone—FSH p = 0.03, all others p < 0.001. Standard error calculated using the delta method

Short-Acting Testosterone: More Physiologic?

[bkb333]

Wow, so injections suppress LH/FSH much more than other TRT application methods? Is it that important to keep LH/FSH high? Mine are near 0.

[readalot]

Almost all on test ester injections at a decent dose are shut down. Long term implications of no LH and FSH are unknown.

[FredMertz]

Thank you for the very detailed information I tried to quote below. Seemed like to much at the time to follow but the below graph was really helpful illustrating once/week and twice/week injections for a dose of 120mg/week. As far as benefits with weight lifting would I get better size and strength results with a once or twice weekly dosing and the resulting peak being temporarily supraphysiological and a lower trough compared to a flatter twice or even three times/week dosing where the peak is wasn’t so high but the trough not as low?

“
Finally, here’s 120 mg per week of TC (84 mg/week of testosterone).”

[swoops39]

@FredMertz

How much benefit would there be if any to doing three 40mg injections each week compared to two 60mg injections?

Lower peak and higher trough. What benefit that may be for you, not really sure. Is what you are doing now not working?

[swoops39]

@bkb333

so injections suppress LH/FSH much more than other TRT application methods?

This was a selling point of Natesto (the nasal gel). It was a TRT method that would not completely shut you down, and maintain fertility.

[FredMertz]

I’m not able to grow in size or increase my lifts. Lean body mass remains constant even with gaining weight by increasing calories and protein.

[swoops39]

Gotcha.

I don’t see how changing injection frequency will help that. Could be diet, lifting, recovery, etc.

Good luck

[FredMertz]

I’ve seen MPMD videos discussing injection frequency influencing aromatization to Estrogen and therefore lowering your Total and Free T as well as also influencing your SHBG level and therefore also affecting your Free T. If I understood the material correctly less frequent and larger injections would lead to more aromatization ‘robbing’ someone the benefits of some of that T. I don’t know what is more beneficial to adding muscle, a large temporary spike or avoiding a lower temporary trough. I am guessing a spike would somewhat be akin to a cycle? Perhaps the spike is so brief it really does nothing, especially at the low levels I am achieving? I am guessing at all this and just trying to make the most of what I can.

[beez]

Personally i doubt very much you will feel any different between 1 pin or 3 per week unless you have pre-conditioned your brain to expect it in which case you might, but is it real?

Blood tests and graphs of course will show small fluctuations over the week but can you really feel that?

Certainly i cant anyway