Ok here’s your question, and why it’s not a fair comparison.
Someone who takes oxy for pain from an injury, is not fixing the issue. Someone who is hypogonadal, and is on testosterone, is taking testosterone to fix the issue.
Not sure. But my whole point is that if someone takes the least amount of testosterone that alleviates symptoms directly caused by low t, how is that overuse?
Simple. I mean we clearly are going to have to agree to disagree which is ok too. Just having a debate. But IMO too many guys expect TRT to “cure all” which is not its intent. When you overuse testosterone you can “force” symptom resolution for things that may not be T related. Excess T increases dopamine after all. But what @tareload is expressing, I believe, is that this forced symptom relief comes at a cost. As does the abuse of almost any drugs. As he stated, I’m happy you have found your symptom relief. I just hope you and anybody reading this is very proactive in following up on overall health but most importantly long term cardiac health.
The new Greg is a Pain. I used to love his channel.
The new Greg looks exactly like someone who claims natty because he’s “only on TRT bro” even though he microdoses 200mg/wk with a 1145ng/dl trough.
That, paired with his fuckass Toucan Sam/ Gilbert Gottfried voice.
At least at least Yágo was funny. RIP
No worries. Gotcha. @blshaw put it much better than i can…
But we are back to this…
I see why that message gets a lot of play. Labs? Huh, we dont need no labs so since we dont know what the correct ref range is anyway!
Best wishes!!
Do you mind answering the actual question I asked?
Here:
If someone takes the least amount of testosterone that alleviates symptoms directly caused by low t, how is that overuse?
I’m talking specifically about symptoms caused by low T.
And if you understood what I’m saying, I’m not so sure we’d actually disagree.
To be clear again, I’m talking about symptom relief of symptoms caused by low T. I’m not talking about symptoms directly related to a poor diet, poor sleep habits, drug use, sedentary lifestyle, etc.
That’s misrepresenting what I said. I never claimed we shouldn’t get labs on other things besides total T.
But hey, I’m used to people here claiming I’m saying something when I’m not. You must’ve gone to equel’s school for straw man building.
His work out advice is also questionable at times, he usually backtracks it with playing with what he means by saying certain words.
I believe I did but let me clarify. I don’t believe any of you guys on here “need” above range TT/FT combined to relieve your symptoms. I believe you’re masking something else. Many on here think they are unique but bordering on hormone hypochondriacs. Please don’t be offended by this as I will clarify this is MY OPINION rather than fact, and, you asked me for my answer.
Let me also add that I don’t think being at or a little above range, TOT style, is all that detrimental. Just be sure to know what you’re doing and advocate for health check ups. I’m guilty as charged for running high doses of T in the past couple years on and off. I did so though to build muscle and am fully open that I abused those doses in that past.
I guess that would depend on if you think I’m “in range” if my trough is around 1000-1100. Because the protocol I’m on now has alleviated pretty much all of my low t symptoms. Take 1/4 of my dose away, and I’m not getting the same symptom relief that I get now.
And for reference, I was on double my dose for a period of maybe 4 months, and I felt great, but I got no greater low t symptom relief on that dose, than I do now.
Does it really matter what I think? I’m one guy on a forum. I think I’ve expressed my opinion on the matter but that’s all it is at the end of the day. We could debate the this matter until the end of time. The only facts we know are that each lab has its own acceptable range and that you can be within or not.
It matters what you think as far as what you said about not believing that anyone here needs above range t levels to get symptom relief.
So, either you think that 1000-1100 trough is in range, or it’s out of range and you think I’m lying. Not that it really matters a whole lot if you think I’m lying, other than we probably can’t have a productive conversation, if you’re calling me a liar.
I literally stated that so I’m not sure if this is a question or seeking reaffirmation?
Sorry I’m not sure what I’m supposed to clarify as to whether or not you’re lying. I don’t recall any discussion of truths. But to answer you, I haven’t seen your labs. Most scenarios I can think of you are indeed above range most of the week though. That’s just a fact as you performed a blood draw and are either outside of acceptable parameters by said lab company or not.
Good point. Thats why i have adopted the “mean” TT terminology in the last few posts as opposed to trough as many dont truly appreciate how absurb once weekly dosing with a 1000 ng/dl trough really is. E3.5D with 1000 ng/dl trough is a little better.
Check out some of those red data markers above.
The doc shows the patient 1000 trough and says there you go, you are high normal. But the patient wonders why they have headaches, high BP, high Hct, PVC, insomnia. Hey, but my trough is in range.
But of course now the range isnt the “range”.
Oh well. Now i got to go back to the intro post and make some changes few will read. Oh whoops, thats right i cant change that post, this isnt my thread 
.
Ehh… Nevermind this @readalot fella said it just fine.
“Labs” as in multiple TT labs to dial in your serum TT level. The same phrasing as Danny used it above. Of course if there is no known ref range then we are just collecting data since we cant use the data to dial in wrt a range.
Thanks for helping collect data for this new TT reference range. I appreciate the data @highpull provided to help make the plot above.
I certainly did not straw man you. To be clear we are talking about TT (fT) ref range. If you’d like to visualize what your TT level looks like over the course of a week i am happy to help. Give me your SHBG and we can do fT as well.
I will give more thought to your hypothesis that hypogonadal men need their own “TCT” ref range. Certainly there is precedent for using supra levels of hormones to treat disease. Supra TT for prostate cancer and supra T3/T4 for depression come to mind.
I am glad you found what works for you. Congrats.
You lowered the AUC with satisfactory symptom resolution? If so, congrats!
Although same troughs, very different mean TT levels with those two protocols.
See items 3, 4 and 5 related to our discussion here. Nice job @TC_Luoma. Thank you.
You may want to consider weaving in some of the dose response information in this thread to support the 100 mg/week claim.
For the most part, but I don’t particularly see much difference in outcomes with either dose or schedule. I’m just not sure a 25% difference is that significant for most. It’s not like taking 200mg or 600mg. Regardless, common sense would dictate there is no point in taking more if the results are the same with less. It is not very many, but I have some as high as 250mg.
Don’t wanna jump in the middle of this discussion, but TRT also isn’t fixing an issue, it’s treating the symptoms, just like using opiates for pain. We’re not curing hypogonadism here.
I think the confusion here is with the term “feel” or “fixing symptoms” since those aren’t concrete terms. If my labwork looks “perfect” but I say I don’t “feel” any better then the solution isn’t to take more testosterone, it’s to look elsewhere.
Some docs rely too much on just labwork and ignore symptoms, which is bad. But we can’t go to the other extreme of ignoring labwork and only looking at symptoms
