I totally understand. I quit smoking about a year ago and I was vaping. I quit vaping when I caught Covid back in July. So I am about 60 days without any nicotine as well. I have been an on and off smoker for the past 20 years and quitting nicotine cold turkey is no picnic! I am about 2 weeks in on daily .15ml SC test cypionate. I haven't had the blood work done but I hoping that daily subq and no longer smoking will help with elevated hematocrit levels that occurred when I was getting IM shots weekly.
The most commonly prescribed TC is the 200 mg/mL strength.
If you are injecting .15 mL (15 units) daily then you would be injecting 30 mg daily (210 mg T/week) which is a whopping dose!
Such dose daily would be overkill for most and will most likely have your FT level through the roof let alone have a big impact on your hematocrit.
Most men can easily achieve a healthy let alone very high or in some cases absurdly high FT on 100-150 mg T/week split twice weekly (every 3.5 days), M/W/F, EOD let alone daily.
Sur some men do need what would be considered the higher-end dose of 200 mg T/week but it is far from common.
Where does your SHBG sit?
If you have low/lowish SHBG you will be able to run a lower TT and still achieve a healthy FT level.
When using exogenous T RBCs/hemoglobin/hematocrit will increase within the 1st month and can take up to 9-12 months to reach peak levels.
T formulation, the dose of T, genetics (polymorphism of the AR), age all play a role in the impact a trt protocol will have on blood markers (RBCs/hemoglobin/hematocrit).
Other factors such as sleep apnea, smoking can have a negative impact on hematocrit.
Injectable T has been shown to have a greater impact on increasing HCT compared to transdermal T.
3–18% with transdermal administration and up to 44% with injection.
In most cases when using injectable T
high supra-physiological peaks post-injection and overall T levels (running too high TT/FT level) will have a big impact on increasing HCT.
Manipulating injection frequency by injecting more frequently using lower doses of T resulting in minimizing the peak--->trough and maintaining more stable levels may lessen the impact on HCT but it is not a given.
As again running very high TT/FT levels will have a stronger impact on driving up HCT.
Although injectables have been shown to have a greater impact on HCT you can see even when using a transdermal formulation that maintains stable serum concentrations that
the impact it has on HCT is DEPENDANT ON THE DOSE AND SERUM LEVEL OF T.
Using higher doses of transdermal T and achieving higher TT/FT levels will have a great impact on HCT levels.
How high an FT level you are running is critical.
It is a given that most men on trt struggling with elevated RBCs/hemoglobin/hematocrit are running too high an FT level.
Sure some men are more sensitive than others as they may still struggle with elevated blood markers when running lower T levels but it is far from common and many may already have an underlying health issue contributing to such.
If you are struggling with such blood markers then in most cases finding the lowest FT level you can run while still maintaining the beneficial effects may very well be the solution.
Easier said than done as many men on trt tend to do better running higher-end FT levels within reason.
Mind you some are lucky and never have an issue or levels tend to stabilize over time.
Others will continue to struggle until the cows come home.
Unfortunately too many are caught up in running absurdly high trough FT levels due to the herd mentality spewed on the bro forums and gootube!
