Man SixHouse - sorry to hear all of this. After several years, I can't imagine the frustration. Your posts and a few others scratched a nerve.
I'm in the same camp as you and several others in this thread. With the exception of the honeymoon period immediately after starting TRT, I can't say I feel any better. Perhaps some better workouts etc just after starting. But now, I feel the same as I always did, except for that now I spend lots of money on TRT, have more acne, a tight scrotum, and have to worry about injecting medication 2x per week and watching my E2 levels, and monitoring hematocrit, etc. All that might be worth it if I really felt amazing, but I don't. Sexual function has deteriorated. I have never had any sort of sensitivity issues and now I do, and that is just straight up bizarre. HCG hasn't seemed to help much. What was very mild and occasional ED pre-TRT has worsened.
Unlike you, however, I have only been on for a few months. Given the short duration of my TRT, the onset of these negative side effects has been quite noticeable and obvious. There is no sort of "well that was 8 years ago, so perhaps time is the culprit and not TRT" sort of logic that can be used. Also, my last labs were pretty solid all around - decent numbers.
Some of the things I read here and elsewhere just don't seem to jive. You will often see ED listed as a symptom for consideration for TRT, yet I have not seen much evidence that TRT effectively treats ED - and cases like ours would seem to indicate the opposite. In terms of muscle building etc, what I have gathered is that at TRT doses, healthy guys are unlikely to see any significant changes by going from say 375 TT to 750TT. I certainly haven't noticed a difference in that department. And like you, my libido has markedly decreased since TRT - TRT is something that is often touted as something that can increase libido. And my wife is still just as hot now as she was a few months ago.
The responses that someone like myself will receive to these thoughts are that you need to wait a while to get dialed in. Maybe up to a year. I think ok the negative side effects sure didn't take anywhere near that long to show up, but perhaps that is true. Just stay the course. Or that I need to find a really good TRT doc - hard to argue with that one really. So I did - found one of the more respected docs around. But then I hear from guys like you that have been trying for years, or sh1973 that has been trying for 8 years, been through multiple docs, and start to feel like maybe I'm being a sucker and that I should get out while I'm only a few months and maybe just under $1000 in.
Like you, I was "low normal" and am beginning to think that perhaps the medical establishment does actually have something figured out with those ranges. When doing my research prior to starting TRT, I read about how those ranges are basically b.s., why be at 350 when you can be at 750, I had the T levels of a 80 year old at 39, etc. But maybe younger and healthier guys that are "low normal" are not good candidates for TRT after all.
The groups I read about that really benefit from TRT seem to fall into two camps. One group that seems to benefit are guys that had a really legitimate need to start - like people whose hormones were wiped out by chemo, etc. or people who are truly hypogonadal.
The other group that seems to be happy with it are guys that are in my opinion pushing the boundaries of what might be considered TRT, going above the normal ranges and donating blood, using AIs, to deal with sides, and getting ripped. And frankly I have no problem at all with that, but as someone who is interested in more general health and well-being, that's not what I am going for.
So that's the Catch 22 I find myself in. "It can take a year or more to see results, it takes a long time, stay the course" vs "I've been trying unsuccessfully for 8 years now to get dialed in, have been shut down the whole time, and now don't know if I can come off".
I assure you that in terms of psychology and "being turned on," I'm not lacking stimulation. I'm lacking desire (almost definitely psychological), but more importantly I'm lacking the ability to get and maintain an erection, even with Viagra. When I am able, my penile sensitivity is such that I can't have an orgasm. So if I do have psych issues they surely stem from physical issues. If the physical issues would go away my psych issues will vanish, that I'm sure of.
