(not for me?) Hombre's TRT Log: 34yo, low E2, norm SHBG and LH [Defy]

[hombre]

forgot to mention to Defy RN about chest tightness when waking up

Pin #7. Tue 9/24 evening. Test Cyp 0.20ml / 40mg. Dorsogluteal Shallow IM. 27g 1/2" 0.5cc
Switched to 40mg TIW. Holding off HCG for now until Thursday morning blood collection. Feels like testicles got smaller. Folliculitis slowly gets better. Lots of edging the last couple days, a lot of sexual fantasies, non-stop, involving an ex from a year ago. No sex so far, pussy out on talking to women in public; erections are kinda softish, maybe I kill them with too much edging.

Waking up really early the last few days, at 5am even, after going to be at 12am. Today only slept 5 hours, felt fine throughout the day, and waking up was easy. Not sure if that's healthy or not, usually I needed 8 hours at least, cranky after 7 hours of sleep. Sleep Apnea diagnosed as 14 AHI. If I can sleep only 6 hours that would be amazing, if that's not going to mess with my skin and anything else. Now I don't to worry about good overnight testosterone production...

 

[hombre]

At an urgent care on Saturday blood pressure was measured at 130/80, my previous measurement before Defy consult was 117/69

 

[hombre]

Pin #8. Thu 9/26 evening. Test Cyp 0.20ml / 40mg. Stomach Subq. 27g 1/2" 0.5cc.
HCG 300 IU. Lovehandles Subq 29g 1/2" 0.3cc
Tinder date flaked on me for the second time (Thursday night scheduled date), ended up masturbating to orgasm without a porn. Soft erections. Sexual thoughts are still there but less obsessive. Edging for the last 7 days, a lot, everyday... 30 days without orgasm before; tomorrow / Saturday my established lover should stop by to see me, might try with her to get sexual without taking european Viagra that I had, and then openly tell her that if it's not going to work I'm going to take Viagra. I probably haven't risked to have sex without Viagra or Cialis in 2018 at all.

I noticed that I have painful soreness when touching injection sites 24-48 hours after an injection, that lasts sometimes up to 3 days maybe even longer. All shallow IM. Makes me think about trying cottonseed or sesami oil for the next testosterone cypionate vial. Or maybe my needles 1/2" are too short to actually do shallow IM...

From Thursday to Friday slept only 6 hours, not enough sleep, previous night: 5.30h. At 11pm I feel very sleepy, and past that point I have a lot of energy and ending up staying up until 1am. Have to get more sleep and stop abusing my ability to sleep less on TRT.

Yesterday's night had a couple occurrences of vertigo after getting up from a couch. Haven't happened in forever... Guessing if it's TRT related or not.

 

[hombre]

Pin #9. Sun 9/30 evening. Test Cyp. 0.20ml / 40mg. Ventrogluteal. 27g 1/2" 0.5cc.
HCG 300 IU. Stomach Subq 29g 1/2" 0.3cc

My lover (S) stayed with me for Saturday and Sunday. Soft erections during sex on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday took 12.5mg Viagra. Sunday was without. By early Saturday it felt like I softened my erections by edging for 10 days before. On Monday right now no libido. Had two orgasms through watching porn late Sunday and morning Monday. Still didn't receive my blood tests results from Thursday.

Haven't been on any first dates since end of May. All my options now live 2 hours away. I have to figure something out quick, go out more in public while it's still light in evenings, maybe start going to bars, and start going on normal dates from Tinder instead of asking girls to come over to theirs and eat their pussy out...

 

[fifty]

Haven't been on any first dates since end of May. All my options now live 2 hours away. I have to figure something out quick, go out more in public while it's still light in evenings, maybe start going to bars, and start going on normal dates from Tinder instead of asking girls to come over to theirs and eat their pussy out...

What is a first date? You mean like new girls or is this some app? Also does asking random girls to come over to their place and *** ***** ***** *** work these days? I'm getting old so my questions are serious, sadly.

 

[hombre]

What is a first date? You mean like new girls or is this some app? Also does asking random girls to come over to their place and *** ***** ***** *** work these days? I'm getting old so my questions are serious, sadly.

First date with a stranger, from dating apps or from anywhere. Lying I had my first instant date with an ivy league school sophomore just a couple weeks ago.

I met a really hot mid 20s being x-rated by in BDSM way before (from Tinder). But this time I got really horny being so long without porn / orgasm / sex, and I really haven't met anyone who really likes cuni since end of June haha. I had one 21 yo wanting to see me but she flaked two times in a row on the day of a meet. And another 22yo wanted to see me but flaked too the last moment. It should work, just very low ratio / odds.

Personally I wouldn't invite a random girl / stranger to my place unless I talk to them somewhere in public first. On a side note, I see myself sexually non judgmental when it comes to a woman's sexually, I have no problem generally getting laid on first dates, sometimes there is just no connection on a first date, which for me generally means the girl is not sexually open enough. Right now I want to meet really sexually oepn girls, sexually comfortable, sexually non-judgmental, and I'm lazy to go on first dates that go no where. So I'm screening hard.

 

[hombre]

Pin #10. Tue 10/2 evening. Test Cyp. 0.20ml / 40mg. Ventrogluteal. 27g 1/2" 0.5cc.
HCG 300 IU. Shoulder Subq 29g 1/2" 0.3cc
Some morning wood Wednesday morning. Lowish libido. I've been stuck with deadlift at 235# x 4 since May, 265# x 4 this morning. Maybe due to test cyp or maybe due to a slight caloric increase.

My folliculitis between scrotum and a leg, in a crease, seem to be staying the same, one week+ of mupirocin cream, plus 2 weeks before with barely any improvement. I won't get laid with that thing, it looks scary like some STI. Checked yesterday that my insurance paid $115 for that 5-10 min office visit, urgent care. I wonder if somehow that folliculitis is tied up to TRT and acne related, but I didn't find anything online yet.

 

[hombre]

LabCorp messed up their machine for E2 Sensitive testing and apparently all E2 testing is backed up, I still didn't receive results since last Thursday and may not even see them this week... and tomorrow I'm doing another E2 Sensitive test, Friday morning I"m going to be as close to as a peak I would get of hourly Test Cypionate release, almost as close (19 mg per day vs 19.5mg per day) according to my 5 day half life calculations.

Some horniness is back, and I'm back to edging... Finding myself being attracted to a wider range of women in public again. Almost chased a tall jewish girl with a chubby ass, damn I miss playing with a nice jiggly butt.

Besides libido another thing I'm expecting from TRT is to get my SELF-DISCIPLINE back, on Thursday's mornings I don't have any appointments, no gym with a personal trainer, nothing, no morning status calls at my job. Today it took me 3.5 hours in the morning to finally leave my house to go to my office job, and I left only at 11.20 am, which is CRAZY. I met some really sexy girl early May, and she was crazy smart, ivy league, future scientist, but she was on ADHD meds. Apparently if she would not take them it takes her a really long time to get ready in mornings, I probably do have some depression or ADHD issues, just undiagnosed.

 

[hombre]

14 days passed and LabCorp finally gave me my E2 and Free T results (measured in a "valley").

Looks like due to me not taking HCG, combined with lowered Test Cyp dose from 44mg TIW to 40mg TIW my Total T dropped to 760, E2 dropped to 26 (Sensitive). And I guess due to my low-low-normal SHBG I got shit ton of Free T floating around.

I should get any day results for blood samples collected when levels were almost in a "pick" (Oct 5th morning, after previous night injections + morning pregnenolone dhea/cream application).

I liked how I felt at 1000 Total T and 40 E2 on Sept 20th, I might have to call Defy to adjust my dosage back, will depend on the latest report.

Sometime I feel lazy to pin, have to push myself a bit to stay consistent... Last three days I felt very energetic at work and pretty social, I haven't felt this way in years. Attracted to a wider range of women. Horny 70% of mornings, but horniness kinda disappears slowly as day goes... Hard to stay away from dry edging (without an orgasm).

 

[hombre]

Got puzzling results from a third set of blood tests. Expected Total T to be around 1000. Turned out that my Total T in a peak and after a week of HCG is nearly the same as Total T in a valley prior to introducing HCG...

I know that I felt pretty good libido wise on the day of my first set of blood tests, I might wait for a week or two and call up Defy to get me back onto the original dosage of 44mg TIW.

It's interesting how HCG 300IU TIW according to test results does almost nothing to Total T and mainly raises E2.

 

[Systemlord]

If you're lacking consistency in libido it may be a sign injection frequency needs to increase to an EOD protocol. A lack of consistency is a sign that levels are still swinging, maybe not enough to show up on labs.

I seen this in myself, labs look consistent but I feel swings 2.5 days after my injection.

 

[fifty]

You’re doing tiw aka 3x per week? Won’t your levels be pretty stable through the week at that dose?

 

[hombre]

@fifty below are fluctuations of testosterone cypionate daily ester release within one week after reaching a steady state based on my calculations, spreadsheet... (3 times a week; tue, thu, sat; Tuesday [I'm doing evening injections] it's going to be the day when the least amount of ester is released per day, because of no injections on Sunday and Monday).

Half life of Test Cypionate, days	Lowest ester release day, mg (Tuesday)	Highest ester release day, mg (Sunday)
5	14.8	19.5
8	15.6	18.6

 

[hombre]

@Systemlord I was 70 days without porn, and now 15 days on daily porn use, which messes up probably with my libido so it's harder to asses TRT impact, although yesterday I was closing the distance to a woman in front of me before stopping her with ridiculous hips to waist ratio and I started getting excited in a sexual way, along with getting anxious, that was an interesting mix of emotions. Haven't happened to me in the last 5 or so years before TRT probably.

But so far since that day when I had Total T 1000 (when I still had my own testosterone being produced probably along with TRT), I haven't had a day like that again, when I had random erections throughout the day, even painful a bit they were so intense.

 

[hombre]

Something weird is happening, recently did a test on usual Thursday morning, 10 hours before next injection (in a "valley"). Expected my T to be around 600 in a valley, since earlier in a peak it was 793. My Total T is 906 this time, high E2, which doesn't make sense if Test Cyp half life is 5 days. Those numbers only makes sense for me if Test Cyp half life was something like 12 days or more.

Libido is nothing to write home about. I think I should drop HCG for 1-2 weeks to see how I would feel and collect numbers after being 1 week off HCG (curious if HCG does give me that E2 bump, and Total T bump, and on that morning I forgot to apply Pregnenolone / DHEA cream, E2 might have been even higher)

 

[hombre]

I haven't updated this for a while.

Starting end of April been trying different protocols for AI: 0.125 x 2 a week and x 3 a week. Both kept E2 sensitive down to 20 (from 40), but I'm still having back acne. Tried both protocols for 4 weeks plus.

Been having very WEIRD issues after starting and while on AI:
- 2 common colds in a row (sick almost all of June)
- 3 cold sores in a row July / August out of nowhere (seems to be correlated with bad sleep, never happened before, only after bad colds)
- shin splits like pains (might be TRT related but not AI), can't run for more than a minute without getting pains
- mood down, depressed, wanting to quit my job and do nothing, or change careers (tired of engineering and how antisocial it is)
- 3 ingrown hairs in a row (1-2 weeks each lasting) under neck (electric shaver), never had them before in 35 years

current protocol:
18ml cyp x 3 week
0.125 Arimidex x 2 week
300 units HCG
1 click pregnenolone / DHEA cream

 

[hombre]

I seem to have shitty sleep the night after evening injections. I'm thinking about switching to morning injections now that I don't have early morning sessions with a gym trainer.

About to collect a full set of labs for Defy tomorrow.

Seeing three potentials options for a protocol adjustment:
- same amount of cyp but decrease AI
- increase dosage of T cyp, keep AI
- drop AI, decrease dosage of T cyp

 

[hombre]

funny thing happened

my sleep apnea are not detectable anymore by an in-lap sleep study (Philadelphia, Jefferson Sleep Center)

Sleep apnea was detected (AHI 14 three days in a row) right before I started TRT by a home sleep study.

Now I have UARS instead which seem to be never mentioned on this forum, but I'd suspect it may also decrease natural testosterone similar to sleep apnea. Both sleep apnea and UARS are misdiagnosed sometimes as depression or ADHD...

 

[hombre]

Been having thoughts to come off TRT after 40 months on on it.

PROS
- amazing recovery after squat and deadlifts (not waking up and being in pain like after a car accident for two days in a row)
- muscle holds up better when gyms are locked down and having the same usual low appetite

CONS
- totally lost any desire to pursue women the last 14 months
- quit my high paying desk job 13 months ago to take a career break due to perceived boredout / mid-life crisis: depression, ADHD symptoms. Haven't had real improvements in a desire to get a job, and not much done in terms of cooking and gym this year (blaming covid partially)

Tried a few protocols so far

40mg TIW test cyp	300 ICU TIW HCG	Pregnenolone + DHEA cream
36mg TIW test cyp	with and without HCG	Pregnenolone + DHEA cream
34mg TIW test cyp	with and without HCG	Pregnenolone + DHEA cream
32mg TIW test cyp	with and without HCG	Pregnenolone + DHEA cream