Daily injections-what is the average dose of people that inject daily?

[Willyt]

how do you feel?

Mixed. I am still tweaking both the blend ratio and dose, which is fun but also bit of a fool's errand (which I do very well lol).

I have tried Enan/Prop ratios of 3:1, 2:1 and 4:3. For dose, I have been targeting Enan range of 4-6mg and Prop range of 2-3.5mg. Total dose has ranged from 7mg to 9mg.

It's been maddening because I find myself falling into same trap. I often feel wonderful during the first 2-3 days of new ratio and/or dose, some of which is probably placebo effect. Then blah for several days, which convinces me to increase the dose, which eventually leads to side effects like emotional flatness w/ sleep problems, which leads me back to a lower dose. A viscous (and stupid) self-imposed cycle and a constant reminder that my problem appears to more related to dopamine deficiency than testosterone.

Long story short, I do feel like I am zeroing in on the right combo. It's just taking longer than I expected. The good news is that the aforementioned side effects are so much less than I experienced on standard 100mg per week protocol.

 

[FunkOdyssey]

Mixed. I am still tweaking both the blend ratio and dose, which is fun but also bit of a fool's errand (which I do very well lol).

I have tried Enan/Prop ratios of 3:1, 2:1 and 4:3. For dose, I have been targeting Enan range of 4-6mg and Prop range of 2-3.5mg. Total dose has ranged from 7mg to 9mg.

It's been maddening because I find myself falling into same trap. I often feel wonderful during the first 2-3 days of new ratio and/or dose, some of which is probably placebo effect. Then blah for several days, which convinces me to increase the dose, which eventually leads to side effects like emotional flatness w/ sleep problems, which leads me back to a lower dose. A viscous (and stupid) self-imposed cycle and a constant reminder that my problem appears to more related to dopamine deficiency than testosterone.

Long story short, I do feel like I am zeroing in on the right combo. It's just taking longer than I expected. The good news is that the aforementioned side effects are so much less than I experienced on standard 100mg per week protocol.

This speaks to a fundamental problem with TRT: that it takes a full 6-8 weeks to properly assess a protocol, and there isn't enough time remaining in your lifetime to test all of the possible permutations and combinations for 6-8 weeks each.

 

[DaytonaJonah]

Why bother with HCG if you are doing well on low dose?

Do you feel any non-sexual benefits to daily Cialis? After having experimented with micro-dosing Tadalafil, I am beginning to think there may be something to the purported ancillary benefits. 10mg a pretty sizeable dose for daily which is normally 2.5mg. Any reason why you choose the 10?

I think there are other benefits hormonally that hCG provides that I think are helpful. I just FEEL better when I take it even though the amounts I take are quite small compared to so many other guys here. Even with the small amount I take, I do notice that my testicles have filled out better than without hCG. Are they back to normal? I couldn't really tell you.

2.5 & 5mg. Cialis daily was simply just okay and there were times it didn't provide the needed boost when I truly needed it. I've played with the amounts and 10mgs daily works very well for me. And as I mentioned earlier, I take a 5-6 day break each 28 days or so to have it clear my system before I get back on it. 18 months has proven itself to be a good indicator that it works well for me.

As for "non-sexual" benefits, I may have a fuller flaccid hang much of the time, but that is unimportant to me. When I first started taking Cialis, I was hopeful it would also help me with the BPH symptoms I had, yet my prostate continued to grow in spite of taking Cialis. Last December, I went in for a Prostate Arterial Embolization(PAE) procedure to have the micro-spheres block off blood flow on 2 side lobes of my prostate. The procedure was successful and my prostate is back to normal size and I no longer have any difficulty urinating & not nearly as frequent. It was a good decision on my part, as I feel normal again in that regard.

 

[Jerajera]

After having tried straight Prop for one year, I would agree to a point. I definitely felt less emotionally flat on Prop perhaps because of those overnight troughs.

However, it does seem to be a function of dose as well. If I increase the dose into what feels like supra-physiological territory, the flatness comes back quickly. Same experience with the prop-enan bend.

That is interesting on the DHEA...

Interesting, I only tried 15mg/day, which I calculated to be roughly equivalent to the 18mg/day of Test C I was taking before.
Felt a lot less flat but definitely too wired, couldn't sleep long enough or deeply enough.

Best I ever felt including sleep was for a few days after i dropped from 4 clicks/day to 2 clicks/day of the compounded cream. I had 3 days of clear mind, drive/motivation, and perfect sleep for the first time in my life.

Unfortunately after that I went back to feeling "meh...", although my libido and EQ are always very good thankfully, but the brain fog, zero drive and terrible sleep, are crippling.

The closest I felt to that clear mindedness in the past was when I play with Anastrozole for a bit, so my hypothesis is that the antagonistic nature of DHT towards Estrogen is what contributed to my feeling much better for a while. i probably hit a sweet spot of hormone balance and unfortunately couldn't stabilize it.

Either way it might not be sustainable since my DHT is 6x the range on just 2 clicks/day at trough levels, and 8x the range on 4 clicks/day

 

[Fortunate]

My hCG journey in the past hasn't been a good one. I don't tolerate it very well as some men find out. However, that said, I have found that by titrating up every few weeks or so, my body has adjusted to the ever-so-slight added amount, that I am now up to 11.5 units on my syringe/110iu eod. My goal is to be able to handle 500iu per week and then on up gently thereafter to 1000iu.

When I first started, I couldn't even do 25iu without having a great amount of anxiety/panic show up. I've started and stopped maybe 4-5 times. Yet, this time I started with 10iu and gradually added 10iu every several weeks or so until I am where I am now.

Daily Cialis is just a 20mg tablet cut in half that I take every day(10mg.) to keep my unit always ready to go. I've done that now for about 18 months straight with only taking time off for the 5 or so days every month of my wife's cycle to help clear my system. Works great. When I first started Cialis, I had the usual sides of leg and lower back cramps, but gutted it out and after about 10-14 days, those sides all went away.

This is interesting. I think I may have posted this elsewhere, but anecdotally, I was on hCG, low-dose daily for years. I recently went off as part of a new protocol trial and was totally off of it for about two weeks.

After being off of it for two weeks, several times in the last two weeks, I have injected hCG and have found myself with moderate to moderately severe anxiety. I’ve never experienced this in the past. Seems like my system “reset“ itself with respect to exposure to hCG, after which I was much more sensitive.

For now, I’m probably going to stay away, and this is after years of being on it. I find it really odd. On the other hand, it may be easier to control one less variable.

 

[SSHSSA74]

Mixed. I am still tweaking both the blend ratio and dose, which is fun but also bit of a fool's errand (which I do very well lol).

I have tried Enan/Prop ratios of 3:1, 2:1 and 4:3. For dose, I have been targeting Enan range of 4-6mg and Prop range of 2-3.5mg. Total dose has ranged from 7mg to 9mg.

It's been maddening because I find myself falling into same trap. I often feel wonderful during the first 2-3 days of new ratio and/or dose, some of which is probably placebo effect. Then blah for several days, which convinces me to increase the dose, which eventually leads to side effects like emotional flatness w/ sleep problems, which leads me back to a lower dose. A viscous (and stupid) self-imposed cycle and a constant reminder that my problem appears to more related to dopamine deficiency than testosterone.

Long story short, I do feel like I am zeroing in on the right combo. It's just taking longer than I expected. The good news is that the aforementioned side effects are so much less than I experienced on standard 100mg per week protocol.

Cool. Good to know. I get very impatient as well and end up changing protocol before my body can adapt and adjust. I am getting better at not doing this though. Down the line I want to try something like what you are doing.

 

[GreenMachineX]

I started feeling very flat and anhedonic, no interest or excitement for anything. I used to dream and think a lot, get excited about new ideas and things to do; after a while on daily Cyp I felt like a zombie, but a zombie in a good mood. My depression and suicidal thoughts completely went away, but so did everything else.

Personally I believe it's due to HPTA shutdown. My DHEA-S dropped by 60% after I got on TRT, 200 to 80, confirmed on many blood tests.
Anecdotally on daily Prop and now daily compounded cream, my DHEA-S comes back to 90% of my pre-TRT levels, which can't be a coincidence.

I think shorter esters creating more variation in Test levels and allowing your levels to come down, lead to less suppression of the HPTA. I completely disagree with the idea that HPTA shutdown is binary (100% online or offline).

Think about it this way. Take the extreme of using TNE (Test no ester) which has a half-life of 2-4 hours and is in and out of your system in a matter of hours. Do you think injecting that daily will 100% suppress your HPTA? No chance.

In terms of HPTA suppression I don't think you can do much worse than a longer ester injected daily, where you're at the top of the range 24/7 with less than 5% variation in levels.

Interesting you say that about dhea. When on higher doses TRT they kept my hct around 52, my dhea was 40. Now, on TRT at 4mg daily cyp, my hct is 47 and my dhea came up to 80. Dhea isn't where I want it, but backs up your theory. I do feel a little off that anhedonia and flat, but unsure what that's due to. Unsure where my e2 is now.

 

[tropicaldaze1950]

Nothing else except vitamins at the moment. I haven't used hcg in years and have no access to it. My DHEA levels are quite low, but I didn't really feel better when I got it in range either. The couple times I've tried pregnenolone my BP went way too high (160/90). I'm wondering if I'll have better results with a low dose EOD protocol. Even the last time I tried EOD I used 20-25mg EOD, and felt revved up most of the time (not as bad as now though I don't think).

This will sound ridiculous, but I might go with 4mg EOD for a few weeks to see how that feels. After 8 years on TRT, natural recovery is unlikely.

I've read this thread several times and you sound like me. 11 years on and off test E, different doses & injection frequencies. My last one, which broke my depression, anhedonia, anxiety and response to stress, was 100 mg 2X weekly. When it kicked in, it was the best I felt, mentally/emotionally, in 20 years...but that dose jacked up dopamine and wrecked my sleep. For 20 years I've been treading water, psychiatrically & emotionally. I emailed my urologist and he suggested splitting it EOD but still destroyed my sleep. Then we started reducing the dose and playing with injection frequency. The depression and all other psych symptoms returned. Being caregiver to my wife is also taking its toll, but the 100 mg 2X weekly, made me more resilient. That surprised me!

Daily micro dosing sounds appealing but to give it 3 to 6 months or longer... It sounds more like torture to me. And I don't know if I'd experience the same mood improvements. Hope you're doing well with whatever protocol you're currently on.

 

[FunkOdyssey]

11 years on and off test E, different doses & injection frequencies. My last one, which broke my depression, anhedonia, anxiety and response to stress, was 100 mg 2X weekly. When it kicked in, it was the best I felt, mentally/emotionally, in 20 years...but that dose jacked up dopamine and wrecked my sleep.

Try daily test propionate if you haven't yet. Ideal combination of "jacked up dopamine" during the day and lower levels at night that allow you to sleep.

 

[tropicaldaze1950]

Try daily test propionate if you haven't yet. Ideal combination of "jacked up dopamine" during the day and lower levels at night that allow you to sleep.

I recall you were trying test P from a source that didn't use BA & BB. I'd want my urologist to know I was trying that. I don't know how it would sit with him. We never discussed UGL in the 11 years he's been my doctor, unless he knows a compounding pharmacy that uses a different formulation.

 

[FunkOdyssey]

I recall you were trying test P from a source that didn't use BA & BB. I'd want my urologist to know I was trying that. I don't know how it would sit with him. We never discussed UGL in the 11 years he's been my doctor, unless he knows a compounding pharmacy that uses a different formulation.

Have you tried regular propionate? I wouldn't hold out for the Pharmacom propionate if UGL is going to be a big problem for you. Standard prop is a big improvement over long esters and probably works just as well for most people.

 

[tropicaldaze1950]

Have you tried regular propionate? I wouldn't hold out for the Pharmacom propionate if UGL is going to be a big problem for you. Standard prop is a big improvement over long esters and probably works just as well for most people.

I had tried Empower's formulation and experienced side effects; scratchy throat, nasal congestion, pressure in the eyes, likely from benzyl alcohol and/or benzyl benzoate. IIRC, you had similar issues. At the moment, I still have Test E from the last refill, before rx expired.

 

[FunkOdyssey]

I had tried Empower's formulation and experienced side effects; scratchy throat, nasal congestion, pressure in the eyes, likely from benzyl alcohol and/or benzyl benzoate. IIRC, you had similar issues. At the moment, I still have Test E from the last refill, before rx expired.

I understand now - you probably do need the solvent-free formula then. If I had to choose between feeling and performing my best while upsetting someone in the process, versus making other people happy while I feel like garbage, that's an easy decision for me.

 

[tropicaldaze1950]

I understand now - you probably do need the solvent-free formula then. If I had to choose between feeling and performing my best while upsetting someone in the process, versus making other people happy while I feel like garbage, that's an easy decision for me.

I've been a patient of my urologist for 11 years. We brainstorm, he works with me, is open minded and progressive. I'm his problem patient. There's no certainty that using Test P is the answer. At the moment, I'm shifting my focus to my non-restorative sleep by using desiccated thyroid. Without sustained restorative sleep, my health and ability to function will never be achieved.