management of E2 and Ferritin

[Shanem]

Due to recent diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis and low ferritin level, I need to get off anastrozole and blood donations. I had been doing IM test 60 mg /3.5 days. Dropped it to 50 mg and still needed anastrozole and blood donations. I am thinking of trying SQ and maybe 25 mg / 2 days.
Thoughts?

 

[Cataceous]

I think it would be useful to have your lab results to get a sense of what dose reductions would work for you. In particular, what's total testosterone at these doses—are these trough values?—and what is your SHBG? What is estradiol like without the anastrozole?

Chances are you have a lot of leeway to lower your dose. For one thing, your new proposed dose is still averaging 8.8 mg of testosterone per day, which is at the high end of natural production. 6-7 mg is typical for healthy young men. For another thing, testosterone metabolism slows with age. I'm about your age and I use the equivalent of 44 mg T cypionate per week, half of what you're proposing.

In any case, if you can get some reasonable estimates of your free testosterone as a function of dose then you can predict what will happen when you reduce your intake. It's possible that some of your symptoms are partly driven by peak hormone levels, in which case injecting more frequently and injecting subcutaneously can each help to smooth out serum levels, reducing peaks and raising troughs.

If you're unable to reduce your dose enough to resolve the side effects without giving up some benefits then you could be a candidate to use an ester blend, which typically includes testosterone propionate. A blend like this is injected daily and lets one tune the amount of variation in serum levels. It's partly why I can use such a low dose and still achieve daily peak testosterone of about 700 ng/dL.