Dialing In My Protocol

[Gasndiesel34]

Hello Everyone,
I wanted to give some details on my TRT journey and see what kind of feedback and tips that experienced members of the community may have.

I have been on TRT for 25 months. I am 37 years old, 6’3”, and 225 lbs. I work out/train regularly and understand the nutritional requirements of this lifestyle.

I started off on the cookie cutter 200 mg/ml administered IM weekly. I also took .25 mg of anastrozole twice weekly. I experienced benefits from this, but knew it could be better. My libido was very strong most days, but performance was up and down. Sometimes erections we fantastic, and sometimes they weren’t as strong as I would have liked. Acne and up and down mood were other side effects.
I split the dose into 2 shots weekly. I honestly didn’t seem to notice much from doing this.

After experiencing achy joints and and anxiety for a few months, I decided to drop my AI. After about a week of no AI, my libido was insane, and I could get an erection at will or for no reason at all. After sex, I could go clean up in the bathroom and be ready go again when I arrived back in the bedroom. I had never been this way, so it was very strange (but very welcomed!).

This eventually leveled out and I wasn’t really as commonly aroused as before. I still knew I could feel better, and had pretty severe body acne, so I decided to drop my dosage to 160mg/week divided into 2 shots. Keep in mind that I never changed protocols before sticking with one for at least 8 weeks. I felt pretty bad for a while after this change. Depression, being emotional, and anxiety all plagued me. At about the 8 week mark, the 160 mg started feeling great. My acne was clearing up a bit, my mood was much better and consistent, and my libido and erections were very reliable and consistent. I could easily go every night, and even for a second round much of the time. Also during this time, I was able to last much longer than I had ever had the ability to do. I had very good control. I was loving the sexual side of things.

Well, I couldn’t leave well enough alone and wanted to slowly increase to see if I could keep the benefits and add some muscle and strength. After a bit, my performance started going up and down again, and I lost the control to last as long.

I am now back to 160 mg/week, but am injecting shallow IM every other day. My acne is slowly getting better again, but libido/performance is not consistent. I really want back that “go at the drop of a hat” feeling again, along with the stamina.

Any similar experiences here? I am wondering if the is linked to e2? Could more frequent injections possibly raise e2? I expected the opposite. My next plan is to go back to 2 shots per week at 160 since this is when I was killing it in the bedroom. Thoughts, suggestions, theories?

 

[madman]

Hello Everyone,
I wanted to give some details on my TRT journey and see what kind of feedback and tips that experienced members of the community may have.

I have been on TRT for 25 months. I am 37 years old, 6’3”, and 225 lbs. I work out/train regularly and understand the nutritional requirements of this lifestyle.

I started off on the cookie cutter 200 mg/ml administered IM weekly. I also took .25 mg of anastrozole twice weekly. I experienced benefits from this, but knew it could be better. My libido was very strong most days, but performance was up and down. Sometimes erections we fantastic, and sometimes they weren’t as strong as I would have liked. Acne and up and down mood were other side effects.
I split the dose into 2 shots weekly. I honestly didn’t seem to notice much from doing this.

After experiencing achy joints and and anxiety for a few months, I decided to drop my AI. After about a week of no AI, my libido was insane, and I could get an erection at will or for no reason at all. After sex, I could go clean up in the bathroom and be ready go again when I arrived back in the bedroom. I had never been this way, so it was very strange (but very welcomed!).

This eventually leveled out and I wasn’t really as commonly aroused as before. I still knew I could feel better, and had pretty severe body acne, so I decided to drop my dosage to 160mg/week divided into 2 shots. Keep in mind that I never changed protocols before sticking with one for at least 8 weeks. I felt pretty bad for a while after this change. Depression, being emotional, and anxiety all plagued me. At about the 8 week mark, the 160 mg started feeling great. My acne was clearing up a bit, my mood was much better and consistent, and my libido and erections were very reliable and consistent. I could easily go every night, and even for a second round much of the time. Also during this time, I was able to last much longer than I had ever had the ability to do. I had very good control. I was loving the sexual side of things.

Well, I couldn’t leave well enough alone and wanted to slowly increase to see if I could keep the benefits and add some muscle and strength. After a bit, my performance started going up and down again, and I lost the control to last as long.

I am now back to 160 mg/week, but am injecting shallow IM every other day. My acne is slowly getting better again, but libido/performance is not consistent. I really want back that “go at the drop of a hat” feeling again, along with the stamina.

Any similar experiences here? I am wondering if the is linked to e2? Could more frequent injections possibly raise e2? I expected the opposite. My next plan is to go back to 2 shots per week at 160 since this is when I was killing it in the bedroom. Thoughts, suggestions, theories?

Post labs from your previous protocol (200 mg/week) and current protocol 160 mg/week (80 mg every 3.5 days).

What is your SHBG as it will have a big impact on not only where your FT sits on such dose of T but will dictate what injection frequency may be best.

Hard to give any feedback with absolutely no idea where your TT/FT/e2 levels sit on such protocols.

You were experiencing side-effects because your FT was most likely too high on the cookie-cutter starting 200 mg/week dose which many would never need to achieve a healthy FT level let alone it may very well still be too high on 160 mg/week (80 mg every 3.5 days).

You are doing this all wrong.

You need to understand that 8 weeks on a protocol (dose T/injection frequency) is not enough time to gauge how you truly feel regarding relief/improvement of low T symptoms.

The most commonly used esters for trt are enanthate and cypionate.

When starting trt or anytime a protocol is tweaked (increase/decrease dose T) it will take 4-6 weeks for blood levels to stabilize and hormones will be in FLUX in the weeks leading up until levels stabilize (4-6 weeks) and it is common to experience ups/downs along the way during this transition.

Even then once levels stabilize it will take 2-3 months for the body to adapt and this is the critical time period when one should gauge how they truly feel overall regarding relief/improvement of low-t symptoms.

The first 6 weeks are misleading and seeing as you stated that you gave a protocol at least 8 weeks it was far from enough time for the body to adapt to those new levels.

After decreasing your dose from 200--->160 mg/week you did not give it enough time to gauge how you truly feel let alone you went and f***d it all up by increasing your dose again to try and add muscle/strength which unfortunately is going to be minor on trt doses!

Now you went and lowered your dose again down to 160 mg/week split EOD.

You keep going on about libido/erections and although having a healthy FT level should have a positive impact on such there is much more to it than simply FT let alone e2 levels.

Hope you are not expecting to have a raging libido and titanium erections 24/7 on trt as it is not going to happen.

The body will always adapt to whatever dose you throw at it and it is common to experience a strong increase in libido/erections when starting trt or increasing T dose when tweaking a protocol but it is usually temporary and short-lived as the body will eventually adapt.

Labs are critical and you need to pay attention to where your TT/FT level sits a trough on such protocol (dose T/injection frequency) as it will have a huge impact on the overall results.