High Testosterone on only 80mg/week

[Systemlord]

so my understanding from this forum is that more frequent injections would be counterproductive.

That's not entirely true, high SHBG men can more easily get away with less frequent injections, but I have seen high SHBG men do well on daily injections in an attempt to control estrogen.

 

[SkyWarn]

Follow-up: Feeling so much better the past week.

1. Donated blood (had not done so in 2 years).
2. Started 5mg of amlopidine daily- I'm not going to play around with guessing at my blood pressure rise and trying to lower it 'naturally', just going to deal with it. I would prefer to try Losartan but due to the recall mess, my PCP wants to wait.
3. Set a baseline of 220 IU HCG/32mg cyptionate 2x a week. I was on 250 IU HCG 2x a week prior but my blood pressure starting going up and I cut it out for a few weeks to see if it was a culprit.

So far, blood pressure is down from 140-150/90 to 125-30/80, better morning erections, more libido, feeling more calm, not feeling the hot flushes, etc. Will retest in probably a month or so to assess.

Does HCG raise blood pressure?

 

[Systemlord]

Does HCG raise blood pressure?

HCG increases estrogen and high estrogen can increase blood pressure.

 

[jdthoosier]

That was my theory - and so I dropped the HCG for a while to see if there any BP benefit. I had my BP under control for the first 3.5+ years but it snuck up on me as I got complacent. I decided to bite the bullet and go with a BP med.

 

[Logan24]

So far, happy with the results as far as how I feel. I'll do labs in about a month and see what the numbers are.

Note that this is my 5th year on TRT and 4th year of injections. I've found it hard to find that "good" range that I can sustain. I know that I feel best with my trough in the 700's and estradiol in the mid to upper 20's. It's been hard to consistently keep it there. Seems like the troughs keep rising higher over time and I have to reduce dosage.

I started with 100 mg/week. Felt great for a while but the troughs kept going up, at one point it was up to 1220, and estradiol hit 49 and I did not feel good. Since then, it's been a gradual reduction of cypionate + adding in HCG to try to maintain a reasonable range.

 

[Logan24]

So far, happy with the results as far as how I feel. I'll do labs in about a month and see what the numbers are.

Note that this is my 5th year on TRT and 4th year of injections. I've found it hard to find that "good" range that I can sustain. I know that I feel best with my trough in the 700's and estradiol in the mid to upper 20's. It's been hard to consistently keep it there. Seems like the troughs keep rising higher over time and I have to reduce dosage.

I started with 100 mg/week. Felt great for a while but the troughs kept going up, at one point it was up to 1220, and estradiol hit 49 and I did not feel good. Since then, it's been a gradual reduction of cypionate + adding in HCG to try to maintain a reasonable range.

Same here. I haven’t been able to consistently make this work more than a few weeks at a time. I too started at 100mg but have deviated much from that. Back in November my e2 went up to 48 and I felt terrible. Lowered my dose to 90mg (45 e3.5 days) and started .25mg AI. felt great for a while but e2 went to low. Been trying to get dialed in ever since. My shbg is 70 so free t is kind of low at 13. I can’t decide if I should increase the dose to optimize free t or reduce the dose to keep e2 in check without an AI. did you ever try an AI as opposed to reducing your dose?

 

[Gman86]

Same here. I haven’t been able to consistently make this work more than a few weeks at a time. I too started at 100mg but have deviated much from that. Back in November my e2 went up to 48 and I felt terrible. Lowered my dose to 90mg (45 e3.5 days) and started .25mg AI. felt great for a while but e2 went to low. Been trying to get dialed in ever since. My shbg is 70 so free t is kind of low at 13. I can’t decide if I should increase the dose to optimize free t or reduce the dose to keep e2 in check without an AI. did you ever try an AI as opposed to reducing your dose?

Sounds like you just need to keep the ai dose consistent, and keep raising your T dose until free T and E2 are where you feel best.

 

[jdthoosier]

Same here. I haven’t been able to consistently make this work more than a few weeks at a time. I too started at 100mg but have deviated much from that. Back in November my e2 went up to 48 and I felt terrible. Lowered my dose to 90mg (45 e3.5 days) and started .25mg AI. felt great for a while but e2 went to low. Been trying to get dialed in ever since. My shbg is 70 so free t is kind of low at 13. I can’t decide if I should increase the dose to optimize free t or reduce the dose to keep e2 in check without an AI. did you ever try an AI as opposed to reducing your dose?

Nope. Never had it recommended to me, and have no interest to complicate the procedure by adding it.

 

[JRos895]

This isn't as unusual as you think. I've been on 63 mg T enanthate per week taken EOD and it gets serum levels to around 800 ng/dL when combined with 250 IU hCG EOD. Typical natural testosterone production is said to be 5-7 mg per day, which would correspond to 50-70 mg T cypionate a week. The better question might be why do some guys need so much, e.g. 200 mg per week to achieve decent serum levels?

Do you have studies regarding 5-7mg per day number?

 

[Cataceous]

Do you have studies regarding 5-7mg per day number?

https://www.em-consulte.com/showarticlefile/75864/pdf_49404.pdf

See also:

How Many Milligrams Of Testosterone Do Men Naturally Produce?

How many milligrams of Testosterone do men naturally produce? The answer is 3-10 milligrams per day, with the average being 6-7 milligrams per day.

moreplatesmoredates.com

The references trace back to work by Nieschlag and Behre.

 

[eli]

Your E2 looks low for that TT to be honest with you

 

[ricky1357]

I'm somewhat confused. I had not been feeling great - as though my levels have been off. My cypionate schedule is 40mg (0.2 ml) on Sundays and Thursdays. So, I went in for a blood test on Thursday before my next injection:

Testosterone - 907 ng/dL
Estradiol (Sensitive) - 18.7 pg/mL
Hematocrit - 50.2

If the trough is that high, I think that would explain why I do not feel well. I do not feel good when my T gets too high and that is the highest hematocrit test I've ever had. I feel much better when my trough hits 600/700. I'm also a high SHBG guy. I'm thinking to go down to 30mg (0.15 ml) 2x a week which seems ridiculous as I don't think I've seen anyone with a dosage this low.

Don't worry, you're not the only one like that. My level get high like that too, so I'm down to 35mg 2x weekly, total 70mg for the week and I'm around 500-700 and I feel great, no side effects and I feel "off" when levels get close to 1000, everyone is different and it's all about the way you feel not about high or low your numbers are. You have to try new things to "fine tune your dose"

 

[Forty2]

Don't worry, you're not the only one like that. My level get high like that too, so I'm down to 35mg 2x weekly, total 70mg for the week and I'm around 500-700 and I feel great, no side effects and I feel "off" when levels get close to 1000, everyone is different and it's all about the way you feel not about high or low your numbers are. You have to try new things to "fine tune your dose"

Are you taking hCG too?