2 years of insomnia on Test C- various dosages

[Mark David]

Vermeulen calculated FT is about 15 ng/dL at the daily peak and 9 ng/dL at trough. Labcorp's direct test has been mirroring these values for the last 10 measurements, except for being a factor of 10 smaller, i.e. pg/mL instead of ng/dL. TT is about 700 ng/dL at peak and low 400s at trough. Total estradiol runs about 35-40 pg/mL, though this figure has less meaning because of enclomiphene use. SHBG is 30-35 nMol/L.

Wow! Nice numbers. Was planning on starting at 100mg on cyp a week, but maybe I'll start abit lower, at 80/ wk, pinning ED shallow IM

 

[Gianluca]

Hello everyone,

I have been dealing with severe insomnia while on testosterone cypionate for the past two years. Used androgel (sorry I do not remember the dose) for years prior. Testicular cancer survivor, can’t get off trt. I’ve tried various regimes and protocols and tricks and I’m going insane!! Need a lot of help and advice because sleep is my Achilles heel for life, training, work, school, etc. working with a sleep therapist starting this week but it’s likely my trt to blame.

Main side effects are brain fog and lack of libido and anxiety in the evening and night. No anxiety in the morning or during the day. Can’t nap and get poor quality sleep

Current protocol: 125mg weekly, .1ml everyday except Wednesday, 20mg oral progesterone nightly

Considering lowering this to 100 and injecting nightly, I used to use androgel at night so possibly this would work…

Shots are IM taken in the morning

Current supplements: progesterone 20mg, magnesium citrate 500mg

Past supplements tried: l Theanine, vitamin e Berberine, valerian root, melatonin, liquid ivs
Past meds tried: trazadone, Benadryl, long list but all of these didn’t work… don’t want to take benzos or harsh meds

Most recent blood work:

Test: 720 ng/dl
E2: 41
Shbg: 23
Cortisol: 10.64 ug/dl

Unfortunately this is all I received from my endo, I’m going to request labs soon and if there’s anything that should be tested for next time I will ask for and update ASAP.

Practice good sleep hygiene, sunlight in the morning and I live in Arizona so vitamin D deficiency

Lift 4x a week, box 3-5x and over 10k steps a day. Diet is perfect rn, hit 97% on Cronometer daily. Don’t drink much, occasionally smoke cigs. University student most of the year, wildland firefighter in summer. Can’t sleep a damn during either season. Fan of hockey and boxing… is this enough information?

do you know what is your Progesterone level?

 

[Willyt]

Wow! Nice numbers. Was planning on starting at 100mg on cyp a week, but maybe I'll start abit lower, at 80/ wk, pinning ED shallow IM

Poking shallow IM holes into muscle on daily basis is only going to get old fast. While I prefer IM from subjective standpoint, I shifted to Subq for low dose daily for convenience.

 

[Pnw0031]

do you know what is your Progesterone level?

My most current progesterone level was <.10 ng/ml but this was prior to taking oral progesterone

 

[Gianluca]

My most current progesterone level was <.10 ng/ml but this was prior to taking oral progesterone

I would test progesterone if I were you, just making sure you are not going to high with it. 20mg orally is a pretty high dose

 

[Pnw0031]

I would test progesterone if I were you, just making sure you are not going to high with it. 20mg orally is a pretty high dose

Consequences of a high dose to look out for? I will drop to 12mg orally then

 

[Gianluca]

Consequences of a high dose to look out for? I will drop to 12mg orally then

I would test first before you decrease your dose. Perhaps the 20mg are working well and levels are not too high.

The usual dose of oral progesterone for men is 5/10mg, I'm sure some may need more, or less. I believe there is a U shape curve with pretty much anything, Progesterone helps with sleep, perhaps too much may do the opposite effects?, just a speculation here.

 

[BillyJ03z]

With daily injections of testosterone cypionate your peaks are likely only a few percent over troughs—meaning levels are actually very steady. In healthy young men we see a pronounced diurnal rhythm in serum testosterone, with levels hitting lows in the evenings and then rising overnight. One hypothesis is that relatively high levels earlier in the night are more likely to interfere with sleep, and maybe it's better for hormone receptors to see lower levels for part of each day. No form of TRT makes it easy to mimic a normal diurnal rhythm. The best approximation I've found is to inject an enanthate/propionate blend early each morning. This seems to work pretty well, as propionate raises serum levels fairly quickly, allowing one to "catch up" to the natural pattern. There's still divergence at night, with levels falling steadily rather than rising. But a number of us have found that this pattern still leads to improved sleep, ostensibly due to reduced levels earlier in the night.

In your shoes I would try the simple dose reduction first. That 80 mg of testosterone cypionate per week still represents more testosterone than the average healthy young guy makes naturally. Ideally you'd give it a couple of months for things to settle down. If you're still having problems after that then you can consider further reductions, or else look into using a custom cypionate/propionate blend. In any case, don't be swayed by more-is-better thinking with respect to testosterone. In general it's only better for muscles and athleticism; other parameters, including sleep, tend to suffer from excess. Read through my collection of anecdotes, where guys find lower dosing is better. My experience is similar, with an initial dose of 100 mg testosterone cypionate per week—split to EOD—creating as many problems as it solved. Over the years it's been reduced to the equivalent of 44 mg cypionate per week, taken as daily injections of an enanthate/propionate blend.

As you know I've tested my Prop levels recently at the 4hr (11 am): 1300, 10hr (5pm): 1000 and 24hr (7am): 600

*protocol: Prop 15mg ed/sq, Inject 7am

If the normal diurnal pattern for Testoseterone for men is peaking in Morning and falling throughout the day into the night... then wondering if injecting at 9-10pm would be a better way to go... I'd be at trough at bedtime to help with sleep and then waking up at almost peak in the morning.

 

[Cataceous]

As you know I've tested my Prop levels recently at the 4hr (11 am): 1300, 10hr (5pm): 1000 and 24hr (7am): 600

*protocol: Prop 15mg ed/sq, Inject 7am

If the normal diurnal pattern for Testoseterone for men is peaking in Morning and falling throughout the day into the night... then wondering if injecting at 9-10pm would be a better way to go... I'd be at trough at bedtime to help with sleep and then waking up at almost peak in the morning.

You can try it, but the rise in serum testosterone with propionate is faster than occurs naturally. Your own data suggest you will be peaking around 11 pm to 2 am with 9-10 pm injections. Some of us find later-day injections are completely unworkable due to interference with sleep. In theory injecting at around 3-5 am would put peak testosterone at a more natural time, but I haven't encountered any problems with waiting until I wake up naturally. Maybe it would be problematic for late risers.

 

[BillyJ03z]

You can try it, but the rise in serum testosterone with propionate is faster than occurs naturally. Your own data suggest you will be peaking around 11 pm to 2 am with 9-10 pm injections. Some of us find later-day injections are completely unworkable due to interference with sleep. In theory injecting at around 3-5 am would put peak testosterone at a more natural time, but I haven't encountered any problems with waiting until I wake up naturally. Maybe it would be problematic for late risers.

I do have an unopened vial of Cyp at my disposal... maybe going to a 50/50 or 60/40 Prop/Cyp blend could work with a night time protocol...

 

[madman]

As you know I've tested my Prop levels recently at the 4hr (11 am): 1300, 10hr (5pm): 1000 and 24hr (7am): 600

*protocol: Prop 15mg ed/sq, Inject 7am

If the normal diurnal pattern for Testoseterone for men is peaking in Morning and falling throughout the day into the night... then wondering if injecting at 9-10pm would be a better way to go... I'd be at trough at bedtime to help with sleep and then waking up at almost peak in the morning.

Natty endogenous T levels of a healthy young male start rising gradually throughout the night reaching a peak in the early AM.

Any esterified T even prop will have T levels rising much faster.

T levels will start rising within the first 2 hrs post-injection.

The closest one would get to mimicking the TT circadian rhythm of a healthy young male would be the Androderm transdermal T-patch (late evening application)!


*TT 24 h pattern; moreover, all but one of them differs either somewhat or greatly from the normative one of diurnally active young adult males, which is defined by: (i) elevated and near peak TT level during nighttime sleep, (ii) peak TT level around the time of morning awakening, (iii) moderately elevated TT level during the initial hours of wakefulness, (iv) reduced TT level in the late afternoon, and (v) lowest TT level in the evening

*Consequently, T production occurs in the greatest amount during sleep as recurring pulses at approximately 90 min intervals in healthy young males and approximately 140 min in healthy middle-aged males

Does Patient-Applied TRT Pose Risk for Blood Pressure Elevation?

Does Patient-Applied Testosterone Replacement Therapy Pose Risk for Blood Pressure Elevation? Circadian Medicine Perspectives (2022) Michael H. Smolensky, Ramon C. Hermida, Linda Sackett-Lundeen, *Ramon G. Hermida-Ayala, and Yong-Jian Geng ABSTRACT We reviewed medication package inserts, US...

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Normal Adult Male Testosterone Circadian Rhythm

T synthesis takes place in the Leydig cells of the testes through LH stimulation. LH is secreted by the pituitary gland into the peripheral circulation in pulses in response to pulses of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) emanating from the hypothalamus. LH pulses exhibit 24 h temporal patterning; they occur in greater number and higher amplitude during the sleep than wake span, suggesting the involvement of sleep-facilitating or sleep-dependent processes (10, 17, 57, 164, 175–177). Consequently, T production occurs in the greatest amount during sleep as recurring pulses at approximately 90 min intervals in healthy young males and approximately 140 min in healthy middle-aged males (91). T and its aromatized product estradiol, through negative feedback to the hypothalamus-pituitary axis, induce acute LH suppression and thus reduced T production. In response to the subsequently attenuated serum T concentration, GnRH and LH are again expressed in a pulsatile manner to induce pulsatile androgen hormone synthesis (28, 41, 123, 144).


Figures 2A-2F depict the TT 24 h pattern achieved by the 6 different solution and gel PA-TRTs, and Figures 3A-3D depict the TT 24 h pattern achieved by the buccal tablet, oral capsule, transdermal patch, and subcutaneously injected PATRTs. There are substantial differences between the therapies in the derived TT 24 h pattern; moreover, all but one of them differs either somewhat or greatly from the normative one of diurnally active young adult males, which is defined by: (i) elevated and near peak TT level during nighttime sleep, (ii) peak TT level around the time of morning awakening, (iii) moderately elevated TT level during the initial hours of wakefulness, (iv) reduced TT level in the late afternoon, and (v) lowest TT level in the evening.

*Based upon these criteria, only the Androderm® transdermal patch (Figure 3D), when applied in the evening (∼22:00 h) as recommended, closely mimics the TT circadian rhythm of normal young adult males

*The TT concentration produced by the Androderm® transdermal patch applied to the skin of the back, stomach, upper arms, or thighs nightly before retiring to sleep more closely reproduces the normative TT circadian pattern of young adult males than any of the other marketed PA-TRTs. Following application, TT concentration progressively rises during sleep and peaks around the time of morning awakening; it progressively declines during late morning and afternoon, reaching its nadir (Cmin) in the evening before the next scheduled patch application (Figure 3D)

 

[Willyt]

As you know I've tested my Prop levels recently at the 4hr (11 am): 1300, 10hr (5pm): 1000 and 24hr (7am): 600

*protocol: Prop 15mg ed/sq, Inject 7am

If the normal diurnal pattern for Testoseterone for men is peaking in Morning and falling throughout the day into the night... then wondering if injecting at 9-10pm would be a better way to go... I'd be at trough at bedtime to help with sleep and then waking up at almost peak in the morning.

I figured the same and tried that strategy with Prop last year. End result was even worse early morning awakening than before similar to what Cat had commented. But you never know until you experiment!

 

[Gman86]

I figured the same and tried that strategy with Prop last year. End result was even worse early morning awakening than before similar to what Cat had commented. But you never know until you experiment!

So u felt better on prop injecting it in the AM? are u still on prop? If not, why did u switch back to a longer ester?

 

[Willyt]

So u felt better on prop injecting it in the AM? are u still on prop? If not, why did u switch back to a longer ester?

Definitely morning for Prop-only. I eventually switched to blend of Enan/Prop to even out the ride with some experimentation involving straight Enan low dose.

Test results for 8mg daily blend (Enan + Prop)

Inspired by @Cataceous, I have been tinkering with Enan/Prop blends for the past year. The idea behind the daily blend is to re-introduce daily T fluctuation. Inject first thing in morning to peak early in day and let levels come down overnight. For example, Cat’s personal data based on 4:3...

www.excelmale.com

 

[Mrpower100]

Do u have access to nandrolone at all? Have u considered either lowering ur test dose and replacing those androgens with nandrolone, or even using a nandrolone base with a low amount of test to keep E2 in range?

Gman, I have been thinking about adding nandrolone to my trt, due to pain issues, joints and things, in your opinion can someone do well with just 20-30 mgs a week? everyone is different, but what have you experienced?

 

[JmarkH]

Gman, I have been thinking about adding nandrolone to my trt, due to pain issues, joints and things, in your opinion can someone do well with just 20-30 mgs a week? everyone is different, but what have you experienced?

You may want to start a new post with this question.

 

[Gman86]

Gman, I have been thinking about adding nandrolone to my trt, due to pain issues, joints and things, in your opinion can someone do well with just 20-30 mgs a week? everyone is different, but what have you experienced?

It’s ok, I’ll answer it really quick. If u have any other questions about nandrolone feel free to PM me. But the lowest ive seen anecdotally is someone using 50mg/ week, and reporting that it made a significant difference as far as their joint pain, and overall pain went. But there’s zero downsides in u experimenting and starting with a dose of 20-30mg/ week, and assessing whether u felt any benefits joint wise. If u don’t, just bump the dose up 10-20mg after about 6 weeks, and do that until u find the minimum effective dose for what ur looking for out of the nandrolone

ive seen many anecdotes where guys reported joint benefits using 70-75mg/ week. And a few reporting those benefits using 50mg/ week. But never less than 50mg/ week, that I can recall at least. But im sure a lot of men don’t even try using less than 50mg when they start with it. So there could be a chance that less than 50mg/ week could work as well, for some men

 

[madman]

Gman, I have been thinking about adding nandrolone to my trt, due to pain issues, joints and things, in your opinion can someone do well with just 20-30 mgs a week? everyone is different, but what have you experienced?

Numerous threads on here.

Tread lightly on that upping your dose 6 weeks in bullS**T!

Look up the PK of ND.

That guy dishing out such advice on here is still clueless!

Deca (nandrolone) for joint pain

Hi all, I've been on TRT for 1.5 years now and absolutely love it. Mood, energy levels, libido, are all improved. In the case of libido, my wife says it is TOO improved but that's another story. I'm 48 years old and have been doing BJJ for 6 years. BJJ is really hard on the joints (as is age)...

www.excelmale.com

Something as effective for joints as Nandrolone

Good afternoon Gents, Was wondering if glucosamine, chondroitin, or MSM are even close to nandrolone when it comes to joint pain. Anyone have any experience?

www.excelmale.com

TRT + Nandrolone New Protocol

I have been on TRT for the past 5 months and it has been life changing. In my last consult with my Dr, however, I brought up my history of debilitating joint and tendon pain that I've dealt with for years and we decided to add in Nandrolone decanoate to my protocol while reducing my Test cyp...

www.excelmale.com

 

[Mrpower100]

It’s ok, I’ll answer it really quick. If u have any other questions about nandrolone feel free to PM me. But the lowest ive seen anecdotally is someone using 50mg/ week, and reporting that it made a significant difference as far as their joint pain, and overall pain went. But there’s zero downsides in u experimenting and starting with a dose of 20-30mg/ week, and assessing whether u felt any benefits joint wise. If u don’t, just bump the dose up 10-20mg after about 6 weeks, and do that until u find the minimum effective dose for what ur looking for out of the nandrolone

ive seen many anecdotes where guys reported joint benefits using 70-75mg/ week. And a few reporting those benefits using 50mg/ week. But never less than 50mg/ week, that I can recall at least. But im sure a lot of men don’t even try using less than 50mg when they start with it. So there could be a chance that less than 50mg/ week could work as well, for some men

 

[Mrpower100]

Thanks for the info!!