I hope you remember what I said about needing 1200> ng/dL in order to suppress SHBG and increase Free T to optimal levels. I doubt your doctor will allow levels 800> do to insurance guidelines always getting in the way.
This dosage will not be enough and is on the low end of normal dosing, those with high SHBG will need more androgens to suppress SHBG enough to increase Free T to where it needs to be.
Sadly you doctor doesn’t understand things very well and is hindering your recovery. TRT is about optimizing your levels and you cannot fine tune your protocol dosing with auto-injectors, these auto-injectors benefit the pharmaceutical companies which is why the doctor is prescribing it.
As far as your doctor is concerned, optimizing your testosterone levels is an afterthought. You’ve hit a dead end road that leads to nowhere.
It’s interesting, i actually asked about the dosage being lower than that we recommended when doing regular shots, and he said 75mg of subq test enth is the equivalent or even better Than the 100mg IM dosage…
I have low SHBG and I was originally on 75mg weekly, I only got to 550 ng/dL, can’t imagine a high SHBG man getting very far on 75mg, not a chance.
You cannot go to sick care doctors, most of them are TRT ignorant because they tend to specialize in other areas of medicine and know very little about TRT.
He’s a Urologist and claims to be a “Low Test” expert…
Plus having this all go through insurance sure helps.
They took the labs right before my 75mg dose, so anxious to see where I’m at now.
I think that is BS. If anything, you’d think it would be the other way around, though guys do take low dose subq injections and their lab results bear out their test levels elevate. There have been some small studies on this, Abraham Morgantaler is working on one now, and it appears subq is fine.
Sure he does and I’m mickey mouse, doctors make lots of claims, most fall short and he may believe his is a TRT specialists and going by what you tell me it doesn’t appear to be the case.
There is no escaping the fact that you cannot get to the levels you need to be at going to this doctor because he cannot allow it.
You may not see it yet because you are just happy that insurance is paying for it, but you will not be singing this tune in the months to come and you are wasting time by going to these doctors for your TRT.
You may not even feel good on SQ, I didn’t.
Looks like you might be right. I just left yet another Urologist (this would be #3) and he’s suggesting 100mg twice a week.
That’s three urologists now who have all given completely different treatment advice from each other.
1- 100mg weekly (75mg if using auto injector)
2- I shouldn’t even think about going on TRT with my condition as risk becoming infertile and having a stoke due to thick blood. Says just use HCG.
3- 200mg a week (100 mg twice a week)
Really makes me doubt the medical community and any regimen when I can’t even get a semi decent consensus.
And the winner is……………………
3 Likes
It’s what I call the doctor a lottery and you may have just won, let’s hope he understands Total T needs to be at least doubled or more.
Very odd, I did not get the same “feel better” feeling (fatigue going away, energy increase, brain fog decrease) with the second SubQ based injection as I did with the first injection which was 200mg and IM. I guess it could be a placebo effect, but for the first 4 days after my first injection, I felt better than I have in years. That said, today was only two days passed second injection and even though I slept 8 hours, I crashed and took a 2
hour nap as well, which has been my new shitty norm the last 6 months or so. Haven’t been back to the gym in a few days now.
Ive noticed despite only two injections, my one nut has definitely already shrunk a bit which is a bit unnerving.
I keep going back and forth and I’m starting to consider before it’s too late to try out Clomid first and see if I have results with that. Thinking maybe injections should be my last resort…
When I started TRT my left nut would ache and then it would switch over to the other nut and it would swap back and forth until finely it stopped.
Your will likely have to tough it out for the next couple of weeks and more than likely you’ll need to adjust your dosage to get levels where you feel good. The dail-in process can take months to figure out and see what ranges are best for you. You will find your E2 range where libido is strong and where it’s not.
It is so rare than men feel good on clomid, you will not hear of many on this forum who have good things to say about clomid. Know your chances are very poor at best. You go on clomid and levels are higher, yet you feel no better and when you stop levels fall back down to baseline.
I’ve only heard of one successful case in 3 years and I’m here almost every day.
A lot of men seem to second guess things, hormones are swinging and this causes doubt, clomid rarely works out well and only causes symptoms. Clomid will make you feel worse than you ever have in your life, it will increase your SHBG, lower your Free T lower than any point in your life and you will feel like death.
Some men get suicidal and others floaters in the eyes that are permanent.
I feel like I’ve read a lot of people who did just Clomid or HCG alone on here and a fair amount of then seem to recommend it, no?
My big wonder is, because I only have the one nut as it is, if it’s even possible to get more Test from it naturally since it’s probably on overdrive as it is.
Your situation is a little bit different, your SHBG is binding up the majority of your T like a great big sponge and is why Free T is so low, the correct treatment for this situation is TRT. Clomid will increase SHBG and will lower your Free T even more while elevating Total T which is not the usable portion of testosterone.
Your actually have a situation that resembles someone with higher SHBG, there is as variability in the binding force of SHBG from person to person, your SHBG is especially strong at binding androgens, too much for your own good.
Most guys with your Total T and Free T ratios have SHBG 60>.
I’m on the opposite end of the spectrum, SHBG is low at 14 and Total T is 97-119 ng/dL on my latest round of testing. My SHBG isn’t binding up all my T and how I’m able to function at this level. My Free T is in the 7’s, a little higher than yours all with a total T of 119 ng/dL.
Wow, that’s very interesting, especially that your Free T is higher than mine despite Total T being much lower. The more I read the more it seems like Free T is the main lab to look at.
If this is indeed the case based on what you’ve said, shouldn’t I perhaps focus on simply trying to lower my SHBG? Wouldn’t that in turn free more “Free T” effectively?
The only way to lower SHBG significantly is TRT, excess androgens works well to decrease SHBG, not much else does. If there was another way to lower your SHBG, I would be giving you other options, sadly there aren’t any other options.
There was a guy on T-Nation about a year ago and his natural Total T was 1995 ng/dL, insanely high LH in the 20’s and SHBG was 246 and Free T was in the <1’s. This guy would need 5000 ng/dL at least or maybe he would never see Free T levels high enough.
So supplementing with high levels of Boron, Vitamin D which supposedly lower SHBG…all snake oil?
They may make a small difference but are unlikely to do enough to matter
It’s very difficult to ONLY lower shbg. Danazol will lower shbg but will also shut down natural production so then you’re back to needing to take testosterone as well
High shbg isn’t unhealthy, if you have enough T to go along with it
I’ve never heard of this actually working. You testosterone is still low and you need TRT, the high SHBG is making the situation look better than it really is, so by some miracle if born did lower SHBG by half, now Total T is still low and below the cut off point for cardiovascular risk.
Testosterone Threshold for Increased Cardiovascular Risk in Middle-Aged and Elderly Men:
The locally weighted regression showed that total testosterone levels of 440 and 480 ng/dL were associated with increased Framingham CVD risk.
But it’s Free T that really matters right? So if my Total stays in the 400’s, but my SHBG lowers and hence brings my Free T to a healthy number, wouldn’t I feel a lot better?
Again just not trying to rush into something where a few more injections and I’m in it for life.