Holy $hit - Update 3 weeks on TRT

[Seanazul]

I joined this site in May after reading Nelson's book and suspecting that my T was low.

I'm a 49 year old fit white guy living in CA. I've been working out and following a low carb diet for 15 years and do a 30 minute HIIT routine 3-4x a week along without 30 minutes of stretching.

At the end of May I got the results of a Total and Free test and found out that my Total T was 307. I was both devastated and relieved. A few days later I contacted Dr. Saya and they ran a full workup. Everything was good except the T. (Ok, my cholesterol was a little high but not crazy.)

I had a consultation with Dr. Saya's practicioner and she diagnosed me with primary Hypogonadism. My options were pretty simple:

1. Try a month of HCG mono therapy and test again.
2. Go straight into Testosterone Cypionate injections.

Being a pretty conservative person when it comes to medications, I decided to try HCG for a month. The protocol was 300IU a day for a month.

We tested after 28 days and my T rose...to 310. Well at least we gave it a try.

In my follow-up we decided it was time to go straight to twice weekly injections of 200mg Testosterone Cypoionate .35L and 400IU HCG.

I started a little less than 3 weeks ago and have been amazed at the changes so far.

• Morning boners are back. Along with afternoon and evening boners.
• Workouts have been amazing and I've put on about 7 pounds of muscle and lost some belly fat.
• I'm sleeping great and able to focus much better.
• Did I mention the boners?

I am having a little bit of water retention, but I'm taking some water pills to help.

I may be wrong but based on what I'm seen so far, I'm starting to think I've had a T problem for most of my life.

Thanks again to Nelson for creating this forum. It's been a big source of information and encouragement.

 

[Vince]

You may be having a honeymoon effect, when your natural production has yet to be shut down and you enjoy a period of remarkable well-being. I hopefully it continue and increases.

 

[Vince Carter]

You may be having a honeymoon effect, when your natural production has yet to be shut down and you enjoy a period of remarkable well-being. I hopefully it continue and increases.

Indeed thats what it is...

 

[madman]

I joined this site in May after reading Nelson's book and suspecting that my T was low.

I'm a 49 year old fit white guy living in CA. I've been working out and following a low carb diet for 15 years and do a 30 minute HIIT routine 3-4x a week along without 30 minutes of stretching.

At the end of May I got the results of a Total and Free test and found out that my Total T was 307. I was both devastated and relieved. A few days later I contacted Dr. Saya and they ran a full workup. Everything was good except the T. (Ok, my cholesterol was a little high but not crazy.)

I had a consultation with Dr. Saya's practicioner and she diagnosed me with primary Hypogonadism. My options were pretty simple:

1. Try a month of HCG mono therapy and test again.
2. Go straight into Testosterone Cypionate injections.

Being a pretty conservative person when it comes to medications, I decided to try HCG for a month. The protocol was 300IU a day for a month.

We tested after 28 days and my T rose...to 310. Well at least we gave it a try.

In my follow-up we decided it was time to go straight to twice weekly injections of 200mg Testosterone Cypoionate .35L and 400IU HCG.

I started a little less than 3 weeks ago and have been amazed at the changes so far.

• Morning boners are back. Along with afternoon and evening boners.
• Workouts have been amazing and I've put on about 7 pounds of muscle and lost some belly fat.
• I'm sleeping great and able to focus much better.
• Did I mention the boners?

I am having a little bit of water retention, but I'm taking some water pills to help.

I may be wrong but based on what I'm seen so far, I'm starting to think I've had a T problem for most of my life.

Thanks again to Nelson for creating this forum. It's been a big source of information and encouragement.

You are definitely experiencing the honeymoon period and you may encounter some rough periods before you truly notice improvements and you still need to see how a higher end dose 200mg/week test affects your total/free and estradiol levels as they may end up being too high which can cause issues in the long run let alone what effect that dose will have on your hematocrit/hemoglobin levels. You are in good hands but give it time.

 

[James]

Seanazul, for clarification, you're injecting 70mg twice weekly (140 mg per week) of 200 mg/ml cypionate and 400 IU of hcg (800 total). Is that correct ?

 

[xml]

Interesting. I didn't feel anything until about week 6 or 7.

 

[Vince]

Interesting. I didn't feel anything until about week 6 or 7.

I felt it almost immediately, it also scared my girlfriend away.

 

[Loki]

If I take a shot in the morning, I'm feeling the effects that night....

 

[Seanazul]

Seanazul, for clarification, you're injecting 70mg twice weekly (140 mg per week) of 200 mg/ml cypionate and 400 IU of hcg (800 total). Is that correct ?

70MG mg per week, not 140MG per week

 

[Seanazul]

60 Day update.

Still feeling great, maybe a little more tired than the first month. I had to stay away from the gym for a couple of weeks to let a Sciatica flare up heal, but I'm down 2 waist sizes in my jeans but my overall weight has only dropped about 7 pounds as I've put on muscle and gotten leaner.

Here are my 60 day labs

Total T: 1371
Free: T: 36.6
I don't have the number but unfortunately my Estradiol was 3x what it should be, so we've made some changes to my routine below to reduce the T a little, counter the high Estradiol, and introduce some more consistency overall.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday
.22ML Testosterone Cypionate 200mg/mL
400IU HCG
NEW: .2MG Anastrozole

 

[Re-Ride]

Seanazul, Welcome to the forum. James suspected that you meant in your initial post 0.35 mL volume twice per week which is 140 mg per week split in to two doses. You replied that no it was 70 mg total weekly and that this yielded the serum results you posted today. Because you and your doctor felt that 1371 total T / 36 free T is too high you -increased- your dosing from 70 to 132 mg per week? Your posts and results suggest that James might have been correct as it is unlikely that your reported results from initial protocol reflect 70 mg/week dosing. May I suggest that you always think in mg when dosing testosterone and report same? The way I read this is you dropped your dose 8 mg/week, increased dosing frequency from two to three days, increased the hCG by a third and introduced a small dose of anastrozole to bring the estradiol down. It can take time for the Leydigs to respond to the hCG. Someone is optimistic that they will respond otherwise the hCG would be discontinued which makes me wonder why you were told that your hypoganadism is primary. Did you report any change in testicular size or function since initiation of hCG therapy?

 

[Seanazul]

Sorry - I use MG and ML interchangeably when referring to liquid volume, so maybe it was confusing.

Initial dose: .35MG twice weekly for a total of .70MG/Week
New Dosage: .22MG three times weekly for a total of .66MG per week.

I tried HCG monotheraphy for six weeks before before going on Testosterone.
Dosage was 300IU Daily.
My Total T went from 307 to 310.
There wasn't a noticeable difference in testicular size.

The current dosage is to prevent additional atrophy.

Sean

 

[madman]

Sorry - I use MG and ML interchangeably when referring to liquid volume, so maybe it was confusing.

Initial dose: .35MG twice weekly for a total of .70MG/Week
New Dosage: .22MG three times weekly for a total of .66MG per week.

I tried HCG monotheraphy for six weeks before before going on Testosterone.
Dosage was 300IU Daily.
My Total T went from 307 to 310.
There wasn't a noticeable difference in testicular size.

The current dosage is to prevent additional atrophy.

Sean

1371 total t from 35mg twice weekly wow something seems off!

 

[Gene Devine]

Wait a minute...the OP said he was diagnosed as Primary and was put on a HCG mono-therapy?

If so, HCG is going to do squat to produce endogenous testosterone as the testes are shut down.

Did they test you for any testicular pathology?

Or are you sure they didn't say you were Secondary hypogonadal???

Somethings not adding up here...

 

[Seanazul]

Diagnosis was Primary but I opted to try MonoTherapy before committing to long term Testosterone theraphy. It was a long shot to see if they could restart the testes.

 

[Gene Devine]

Diagnosis was Primary but I opted to try MonTherapy before committing to long term Testosterone theraphy. It was a long shot to see if they could restart the testes.

Okay, that was a more then a long shot...just a waste of time IMO.

What was the diagnosis for Primary? Any pathology?

Where your LH levels very elevated when you were diagnosed?

 

[Re-Ride]

Sean, When you pull back the pistion on cyp uptake what markings?

 

[Seanazul]

LH was 7.1

 

[Seanazul]

Sean, When you pull back the pistion on cyp uptake what markings?

Im not sure what youre asking here.

 

[Re-Ride]

Im not sure what youre asking here.

Sean, We are suspecting that your dosing started at 140 mg per week and was then adjusted to 132 mg per week. It's not unusual for newbs to confuse milligrams and milliliters.

["I use MG and ML interchangeably when referring to liquid volume"]

Dosing testosterone, as with most other drugs, is always by weight (mg) not volume (mL). Testosterone cypionate is an ester in powder form which the pharmaceutical producer solubilizes in an inert oil so you can inject it. You correctly noted in your post that the strength of your preparation is 200 mg of drug per mL of preparation. The nurse or pt, as a practical matter, calculates the volume (mL) of preparation required to administer the prescribed dose (mg). Most of us are using syringes graduated in tenth of a mL. Every tenth of one mL delivers 20 mg of medicine in a 200 mg/mL strength preparation.

Since we are always concerned in medicine and on the forums about dose, not volume of preparation posting volume is strongly discouraged as it inevitably leads to the confusion seen here.