Latest Bloods. Appreciate Advice.

[Azza23]

Hi guys,

I followed the advice of some of the members on here after I was put on 250mg a week and them that shall not be named and dropped my dose down to 118mg a week broken into daily doses on 16mg a day.

After 7 weeks my bloods are as follows;

SHBG - 25nmol/L

Free T - 506 pmol/L (range - 225-725)

T - 20.8 nmol/L (range - 10-35)

E2 - 17 pg/ml



Im still not feeling great with anxiety being the biggest issue as well as always feeling sore in muscles and joints.



I think the main reason is my low e2 (never touched an AI). I would like to get this higher.



I would appreciate any advice and direction.



Thanks in advance



Aaron

 

[Systemlord]

Free T - 506 pmol/L (range - 225-725)

E2 - 17 pg/ml

These two hormones need to go up.

I would appreciate any advice and direction.

^up^

 

[Azza23]

These two hormones need to go up.


^up^

Whats the best way to go about this? Increase T and what injection protocol? E3D maybe?

 

[Systemlord]

I would just do every 3.5 days or twice weekly, so Monday morning and Thursday night.

 

[Cataceous]

Your testosterone numbers are fine, right about average for healthy young men. Estradiol is a little low relative to testosterone, at 0.28%. Do you have access to a transdermal form of estradiol? That's the simplest way to see if higher levels would be helpful. In the U.S. you can buy this on Amazon.

 

[Vince]

Hi guys,

I followed the advice of some of the members on here after I was put on 250mg a week and them that shall not be named and dropped my dose down to 118mg a week broken into daily doses on 16mg a day.

After 7 weeks my bloods are as follows;

SHBG - 25nmol/L

Free T - 506 pmol/L (range - 225-725)

T - 20.8 nmol/L (range - 10-35)

E2 - 17 pg/ml



Im still not feeling great with anxiety being the biggest issue as well as always feeling sore in muscles and joints.



I think the main reason is my low e2 (never touched an AI). I would like to get this higher.



I would appreciate any advice and direction.



Thanks in advance



Aaron

My two cents is, increase your T dose. Any chance you have access to HCG? If you could add that to your protocol, It should increase your e2 levels.

 

[Azza23]

Your testosterone numbers are fine, right about average for healthy young men. Estradiol is a little low relative to testosterone, at 0.28%. Do you have access to a transdermal form of estradiol? That's the simplest way to see if higher levels would be helpful. In the U.S. you can buy this on Amazon.

Really hard to find a doctor who will put a male on estradiol in Australia. We dont have a reference range as such, its more that it needs to be under a certain level

 

[Azza23]

My two cents is, increase your T dose. Any chance you have access to HCG? If you could add that to your protocol, It should increase your e2 levels.

What would you recommend increasing my dose to? I was thinking to 140mg a week split into 2 injections

 

[Azza23]

I would just do every 3.5 days or twice weekly, so Monday morning and Thursday night.

What dose would you recommend?

 

[Systemlord]

What dose would you recommend?

Well based on your current levels, I would go with 70 mg twice weekly for a total weekly dosage of 140 mg.

I don't think 65 mg twice weekly (130 mg) is going to get you where you need to be.

 

[Vince]

What would you recommend increasing my dose to? I was thinking to 140mg a week split into 2 injections

I agree Systemlord, try 70 mg twice a week. If you do have access to HCG I would include that in your protocol.

 

[JimGainz]

I second adding hcg. You will feel better and it will increase E2.

 

[Mastodont]

Unless you are the weird kind like me who gets less aromatization wtih added small amounts of hcg

 

[Jurek Kletsy]

Your testosterone numbers are fine, right about average for healthy young men. Estradiol is a little low relative to testosterone, at 0.28%. Do you have access to a transdermal form of estradiol? That's the simplest way to see if higher levels would be helpful. In the U.S. you can buy this on Amazon.

This does not make sense. instead of increasing his dose, you would have him take transdermal E?! Just take more T and let the body convert.

Also, define what makes these “healthy young men” healthy. Is it having a BMI < 30, not having diabetes, cancer or having had an episode of cardiovascular disease (Travison et al)?
Not only is that a very limited definition of health, it is just a bad one too.
1) BMI is a terrible proxy for body fat. There are loads of people with a BMI < 30 that have low muscle mass % and high fat %. These people are not healthy.
2) Cancer, but especially diabetes and cvd doesn’t happen overnight. It takes years of being unhealthy before you ”suddenly“ have a health problem. Do you think these people had healthy T levels before that?

 

[Cataceous]

This does not make sense. instead of increasing his dose, you would have him take transdermal E?! Just take more T and let the body convert.
...

If he only increases his dose then estradiol will remain relatively low compared to testosterone, at least until he gets close to the bounds of normal physiology. As things stand there's about a 50% chance that the free testosterone he's currently running 24/7 is already higher than the daily peak that he would have had when young and in good health.

...
Also, define what makes these “healthy young men” healthy. Is it having a BMI < 30, not having diabetes, cancer or having had an episode of cardiovascular disease (Travison et al)?
Not only is that a very limited definition of health, it is just a bad one too.
1) BMI is a terrible proxy for body fat. There are loads of people with a BMI < 30 that have low muscle mass % and high fat %. These people are not healthy.
2) Cancer, but especially diabetes and cvd doesn’t happen overnight. It takes years of being unhealthy before you ”suddenly“ have a health problem. Do you think these people had healthy T levels before that?

I would exclude the overweight range of BMI > 25, as in this study. Do you have evidence that the sampling used in this and other studies is skewed because some of the subjects will get sick later in life?

 

[Jurek Kletsy]

If he only increases his dose then estradiol will remain relatively low compared to testosterone, at least until he gets close to the bounds of normal physiology. As things stand there's about a 50% chance that the free testosterone he's currently running 24/7 is already higher than the daily peak that he would have had when young and in good health.

Could you be more specific? Normal physiology being defined as the reference range, is that what you mean? The same range that causes doctors to turn away patients with low T symptoms because they are “within the healthy range”?

I would exclude the overweight range of BMI > 25, as in this study. Do you have evidence that the sampling used in this and other studies is skewed because some of the subjects will get sick later in life?

You want me to provide evidence that the test subjects developed diabetes or cvd? How would that be possible without acces to the data? Fortunately, the burden of proof isn’t placed on those pointing out the limitations of a study, but on the researchers who compiled the data (and those using the study to support their claims).

It is, however, a medical fact that diabetes and cvd are diseases that develop slowly in unhealthy individuals. So you can either do 2 things:

1. Acknowledge that the studies only look at a diagnosis of diabetes and cvd, but don’t look at markers attributing to the development of these diseases, such as, ironically, low testosterone itself.
2. Provide evidence that the study you posted did exactly that and start by providing a link to the full text. I assume didn‘t just base am argument on methodology on the abstract of the study alone.

 

[Cataceous]

Could you be more specific? Normal physiology being defined as the reference range, is that what you mean? The same range that causes doctors to turn away patients with low T symptoms because they are “within the healthy range”?
...

I was making the wrong point there—higher dosing skews the relative amount of estrogen to be even lower; as you near the upper bounds of normal physiology the aromatase enzyme is increasingly saturated and the E2/T ratio decreases as you increase testosterone. This would potentially be bad for someone whose E2/T ratio is already on the low side.

As for reference ranges, they are different than healthy ranges. I view the healthy range for Vermeulen calculated free testosterone as about 10-20+ ng/dL. With Tru-T it's defined as 16-31 ng/dL.

...
You want me to provide evidence that the test subjects developed diabetes or cvd? How would that be possible without acces to the data? Fortunately, the burden of proof isn’t placed on those pointing out the limitations of a study, but on the researchers who compiled the data (and those using the study to support their claims).
...

You seem to be claiming that because a certain fraction of seemingly healthy young men will develop diseases later in life they will have lower testosterone numbers decades before they present with symptoms. Because you're talking about diseases of aging, I think that puts the burden of proof on you.

 

[swolg8r]

Hi guys,

I followed the advice of some of the members on here after I was put on 250mg a week and them that shall not be named and dropped my dose down to 118mg a week broken into daily doses on 16mg a day.

After 7 weeks my bloods are as follows;

SHBG - 25nmol/L

Free T - 506 pmol/L (range - 225-725)

T - 20.8 nmol/L (range - 10-35)

E2 - 17 pg/ml



Im still not feeling great with anxiety being the biggest issue as well as always feeling sore in muscles and joints.



I think the main reason is my low e2 (never touched an AI). I would like to get this higher.



I would appreciate any advice and direction.



Thanks in advance



Aaron

Did you end up increasing your test dosage and are you feeling better? I have low estradiol as well at 18 pg.

 

[Systemlord]

We dont have a reference range as such, its more that it needs to be under a certain level

Even if you did have reference ranges, it most likely would include men and children.