To TRT or to not TRT. Testosterone Enanthate + HCG

[Systemlord]

For me she was right, I felt noticeably better on Cypionate. I don’t believe this was a placebo effect. I’ve switched back to Enanthate over the years and it just doesn’t feel the same.

I'm an over-responder to TRT (40mg wkly = 300-400 ng/dL) and I can attest to the differences between cypionate and ethanate, on the cypionate I feel the effects more strongly, sooner than the ethanate.

I think it has to do with how I metabolize test and the half-life differences between the two compounds being as sensitive as I am to androgens. I don't know about the muscle gain differences though, just how I feel on both of the esters.

Once the esters become stable I don't think there is much a difference.

 

[at15]

1. no one can tell you what levels your protocol will give you. It depends on your response. Saying that, its a fairly aggressive protocol that will leave most guys high. Consider even the most healthy top end young male produce just 70mg a week. Take off the ester on injected test and thats a top end dose of 100mg per week without hcg.

2. the first month of trt has no relevance to how you are actually going to feel long term. when that pure testosterone hits your blood for the first time you are going to feel like a million bucks but that is not reality. its not something you can really trial for 1 month and make a decision.

3. You should not be having these symptoms with a Total testosterone of 345 ng/dl.
(low libido, anxiety, brain fog, moderate-severe depression). Please look elsewhere for other factors causing your problems. If you want to live in a heightened state on TRT thats fine, but i promise you these symptoms are not because of having a testosterone of 345 ng/dl. TRT may cover it up as a band-aid for sometime providing you with a heightened state of being but its not sustainable.

4. 500iu hcg twice weekly may preserve your fertility for some time. But no one knows if thats enough long term. If you go through with this , a couple years in may reveal low sperm parameters. you would need to at that point run 1500-2500 EOD based on the medical literature to get fertility back.

5. I do not recommend trt in your situation. For people who do not have low testosterone such as yourself, there is only one health perimeter that could benefit based on the medical literature. Metabolic health. But this can be fixed easily with diet alone so there would be no reason to use it for that reason. In short, there are no health benefits for someone not deficient in testosterone to go on trt.

 

[Cataceous]

...
3. You should not be having these symptoms with a Total testosterone of 345 ng/dl.
(low libido, anxiety, brain fog, moderate-severe depression). Please look elsewhere for other factors causing your problems. If you want to live in a heightened state on TRT thats fine, but i promise you these symptoms are not because of having a testosterone of 345 ng/dl. TRT may cover it up as a band-aid for sometime providing you with a heightened state of being but its not sustainable.
...

This is flat out wrong. I had these symptoms when my numbers were similar. Throw in ED as well. TRT greatly improved the situation. One need only look at Tru-T free testosterone to see that free testosterone is an issue, even with normal SHBG. The OP had TT of 345 ng/dL with SHBG of 32. Calculated free testosterone is about 11 ng/dL, with the healthy normal range considered to be 16-31. Worse yet, he's only 38. Testosterone in the 300s isn't "normal" until guys are considerably older, at least 70s to 80s.

 

[at15]

This is flat out wrong. I had these symptoms when my numbers were similar. Throw in ED as well. TRT greatly improved the situation. One need only look at Tru-T free testosterone to see that free testosterone is an issue, even with normal SHBG. The OP had TT of 345 ng/dL with SHBG of 32. Calculated free testosterone is about 11 ng/dL, with the healthy normal range considered to be 16-31. Worse yet, he's only 38. Testosterone in the 300s isn't "normal" until guys are considerably older, at least 70s to 80s.

no absolutely not. like i said you have used trt as a band-aid. you may have problems at 50 ng/dl but not 345! im sorry man its tough to accept this, i used to be just like you screw anything but high levels. but its not the truth based on medical research, gotta be honest about this.

 

[Cataceous]

no absolutely not. like i said you have used trt as a band-aid. you may have problems at 50 ng/dl but not 345! im sorry man its tough to accept this, i used to be just like you screw anything but high levels. but its not the truth based on medical research, gotta be honest about this. the people like madman on this site preaching go for high free-T are promoting cardiovascular events and brain damage. that is the reality !!

So having free testosterone well below the reference range should not be a problem? Why even bother with "normal" values then? You haven't read my posts if you think my attitude is "screw anything but high levels"? Quite the opposite. I'm sure I could get symptom relief with TT of 500-600 ng/dL. But testosterone in the 300s absolutely caused unpleasant symptoms, and TRT directly addressed them; it was no band-aid.

I see you removed this—not fast enough:

"the people like madman on this site preaching go for high free-T are promoting cardiovascular events and brain damage. that is the reality !!"​

@madman will be surprised to learn that he's "promoting cardiovascular events and brain damage".

 

[jacktrade]

What's weird, I've received my free test value from my lab. Free testosterone=6.583 pg/mL which equals 0.6583 ng/dl.

@Cataceous You wrote "healthy normal range considered to be 16-31". Are you sure that range is in ng/dl?

 

[at15]

So having free testosterone well below the reference range should not be a problem? Why even bother with "normal" values then? You haven't read my posts if you think my attitude is "screw anything but high levels"? Quite the opposite. I'm sure I could get symptom relief with TT of 500-600 ng/dL. But testosterone in the 300s absolutely caused unpleasant symptoms, and TRT directly addressed them; it was no band-aid.

I see you removed this—not fast enough:

"the people like madman on this site preaching go for high free-T are promoting cardiovascular events and brain damage. that is the reality !!"​

@madman will be surprised to learn that he's "promoting cardiovascular events and brain damage".

i dont know if he promotes supra physiological levels so i removed that, if he does then yes he is supporting cardiovascular events and brain damage!!
read some medical literature, that is an absolute joke in the 300's thats decent levels !!
well below reference range can be a problem like i said before with 50 ng/dl total. but a lot of guys at borderline levels they dont actually need trt medically. if that want to as a personal choice by all means but not for health, stop kidding yourself.

 

[3DMission]

hints the “she doesn’t know why”

 

[Cataceous]

What's weird, I've received my free test value from my lab. Free testosterone=6,583 pg/mL which equals 0.6583 ng/dl.

@Cataceous You wrote "healthy normal range considered to be 16-31". Are you sure that range is in ng/dl?

Lab ranges for free testosterone are in general not cross-compatible. The direct free testosterone tests are not only inaccurate, but some of their "normal" values of ~20 pg/mL have no relationship with physical reality. We know that free testosterone is a few percent of total total testosterone. So, for example, three percent of 600 ng/dL is 18 ng/dL. This is 180 pg/mL.

BTW, do you mean your free T value was 65.83 pg/mL, which would be 6.6 ng/dL? What kind of test and what normal range?

The free T healthy normal range of 16-31 ng/dL is limited to the Tru-T free testosterone calculation. It should not be used for anything else. The advantage of Tru-T is that measurements of total testosterone and SHBG are closer to being harmonized across different labs; at least they're not off by an order of magnitude.

 

[jacktrade]

6.583 pg/ml not 65.83 (Normal range: 1.000 - 28.280) - US/UK decimal separator

 

[3DMission]

@at15 I respectfully disagree with you. You can’t make decisions solely based on numbers. It’s how you feel. The holistic approach takes into account the whole person, including any additional medical indications. Hints why the reference range is so vast and continues to change over the years. We are not machines that can be diagnosed by a set of numbers as if everyone is exactly the same. Good endo’s treat the whole person, not just numbers. 345 is low and if there’s no other medical indications, healthy diet, and exercise then this is a logical next step. If you read @jacktrade posts you’d see he has a healthy lifestyle with a a decent diet. Assuming he’s explored any other potential medical reasons for the way he feels, then why would you not address these very low range testosterone levels? 300 is the bottom of the range levels. If you’re at 345, that is FAR from normal. Why on earth would you not attribute all the classic signs of low T to someone near the lowest range of T?

Healthy range for sperm count is 15 million to 200 million. What you’re saying is someone who has 15.5 million sperm count is perfectly healthy and should have no issues getting pregnant. Not logical bro.

 

[Cataceous]

i dont know if he promotes supra physiological levels so i removed that, if he does then yes he is supporting cardiovascular events and brain damage!!
read some medical literature, that is an absolute joke in the 300's thats decent levels !!
well below reference range can be a problem like i said before with 50 ng/dl total. but a lot of guys at borderline levels they dont actually need trt medically. if that want to as a personal choice by all means but not for health, stop kidding yourself.

@madman does say that some men need to go a little supraphysiological to get best results. If this is true then I hypothesize that it's in part because the form of TRT is not adequately mimicking natural levels, which include diurnal variation.

Nonetheless, I'm aware of no good evidence that going a little supraphysiological with testosterone is "supporting cardiovascular events and brain damage". It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the majority of guys on TRT injections are going a little supraphysiological around the starts of their cycles. Most never bother to look at peak levels.

At least you're in good company with the urologist I saw, who exclaimed that my low-300s total testosterone was normal and refused treatment. Needless to say I never returned. But I can't fathom why you want to dismiss free testosterone as a more valuable marker than total. In my case Tru-T free T was about 9 ng/dL, about half of the lowest healthy normal value. That's nowhere near borderline.

6.583 pg/ml not 65.83 (Normal range: 1.000 - 28.280) - US/UK decimal separator

Got it. Most likely a direct test. Use the Tru-T calculations for a better indication of where you stand.

 

[madman]

no absolutely not. like i said you have used trt as a band-aid. you may have problems at 50 ng/dl but not 345! im sorry man its tough to accept this, i used to be just like you screw anything but high levels. but its not the truth based on medical research, gotta be honest about this.

Out to lunch on this one I see!

 

[madman]

1. no one can tell you what levels your protocol will give you. It depends on your response. Saying that, its a fairly aggressive protocol that will leave most guys high. Consider even the most healthy top end young male produce just 70mg a week. Take off the ester on injected test and thats a top end dose of 100mg per week without hcg.

2. the first month of trt has no relevance to how you are actually going to feel long term. when that pure testosterone hits your blood for the first time you are going to feel like a million bucks but that is not reality. its not something you can really trial for 1 month and make a decision.

3. You should not be having these symptoms with a Total testosterone of 345 ng/dl.
(low libido, anxiety, brain fog, moderate-severe depression). Please look elsewhere for other factors causing your problems. If you want to live in a heightened state on TRT thats fine, but i promise you these symptoms are not because of having a testosterone of 345 ng/dl. TRT may cover it up as a band-aid for sometime providing you with a heightened state of being but its not sustainable.

4. 500iu hcg twice weekly may preserve your fertility for some time. But no one knows if thats enough long term. If you go through with this , a couple years in may reveal low sperm parameters. you would need to at that point run 1500-2500 EOD based on the medical literature to get fertility back.

5. I do not recommend trt in your situation. For people who do not have low testosterone such as yourself, there is only one health perimeter that could benefit based on the medical literature. Metabolic health. But this can be fixed easily with diet alone so there would be no reason to use it for that reason. In short, there are no health benefits for someone not deficient in testosterone to go on trt.

Come again?

Free T anyone!

 

[madman]

i dont know if he promotes supra physiological levels so i removed that, if he does then yes he is supporting cardiovascular events and brain damage!!
read some medical literature, that is an absolute joke in the 300's thats decent levels !!
well below reference range can be a problem like i said before with 50 ng/dl total. but a lot of guys at borderline levels they dont actually need trt medically. if that want to as a personal choice by all means but not for health, stop kidding yourself.

Playing stupid I see.

You very well know where I stand as you have been on the forum for years.

I will give you a hint.....start low and go slow!