Hello, new member here. Questions about my start so far on TRT

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Hello everyone,


To start I just turned 37 years old. I'm 6'3" and 215 pounds with id say around 15-20% body fat. I've taken Zoloft a SSRI since I was a teenager for anxiety at 100mg a day. I feel that pill is the reason I have low T (based on low FSH and LH #'s). I still take it today. I exercise twice a week in my gym with free weights and run or bike ride 2 days a week also. I would exercise more but I become run down and over trained fast now these last few years since I started exercising in 2004. I always eat right, slept right and trained right but it has always been a battle. So around the age of 23 I asked my Dr to test my TEST. At that time I was around 340 something. He showed me on the chart it was in the norm and not to worry, at the time I believed drs so I said okay. Today after starting to educate myself I realized how wrong he was for saying those numbers at that age were ok. But at that time I said okay and carried on with my life for years.

For the last few years I have had no energy, desire, focus, strength, libido and my mood is in decline. I decided I had to do something for my family and self. I haven't made any progress in a gym in years and had to cut back my exercising to the current twice a week only so I wouldn't feel completely exhausted for the rest of the week. I remembered my test was low years ago and decided to ask the Dr this year to test my TEST again because of all the symptoms I had. So he said sure. My test results came back with

Total test 243 (249-836)
Free test 47.73 (35.0-92.6)
SHBG 17.6 (16.5-55.9)
T3 total 96 (80-200)
FSH 3.4 (1.5-12.4)
LH 3.8 (1.7-8.6)

He would only give me the andro gel. After getting the script I decided to look into it before getting it. Between the crazy price and being worried about my wife or kid touching it I decided to look into a clinic.

The first one I called the guy wanted to start me at 200 test Cypionate a week (based on BW) a AI and HCG as needed. They would show me the first few times till I felt comfortable doing it myself if needed and then have everything shipped to my house afterwards to do it myself. I'd also get blood work done at all proper times. When he said all of this and with my back round with anxiety my whole life I felt that was too extreme lol. Now how I feel stupid. The second place said they would start me at 90 and if I felt fine raise it every week by ten till I felt great and at 7 weeks I'd have blood work to confirm where my numbers are. I ask about other things being needed and they said ONLY a grape seed extract pill a day (there AI). I felt more comfortable at the time with that and my limited knowledge of this stuff at the time. So I started with place two.

First day Tuesday I meet with head dr will call her dr C. Who told me we would start at 90 of Test C if I felt fine the first week we would go up by 10 every week for a few weeks till I felt great and have blood work drawn to confirm I'm in a good range with all my numbers by week 7. When I went back the second week I saw dr C's assistant dr and said I felt fine after the first shot. She then said she was going to give me another 90 shot which is when I said dr C said we would bump it up. She said no we are going to keep you at 90 till week 7 were we would then do test to see where I was. So for weeks 1-7 I was on 90 of test C and took 240mg of grape seed extract a day. Week 2 and 3 I felt better and was thinking I can get off the zoloft for good. The only thing that did not change I felt during week 2 and 3 was my strength. My recovery and stamina even improved. Including my focus, memory, mood, energy level, appetite ect. My body felt like it was working better mentally and physically. So during that time I increased sets in the gym on my two gym days. Unfortunately starting week 4 I felt no improvements anymore and felt I was going backwards now, which I explained to them, but still she didn't want to raise it. Week 7 they took blood right before my week 7 shot. Week 8 I go in to hear my results and get my shot. Turned out it came back at TT 160 FT 6.23 with my estrogen "ok". Didn't ask for the number at the time. Dr C said I'm using up the test and I will need more... oh really! So they actually lowered my already low levels I started at there even more in 7 weeks!

This was the first time seeing her since week one. I told her about how the other lady didn't raise me from 90 as we discussed and she said she would talk to her and explain we are going to now raise it by 10 every week till I feel better again. So week 8 I go back to see dr C's assistant and I got 100. Week 9 I got my 110 shot and around that week I started a steady decline. I go back week 10 to complain and got her to jump me to 130mg. Was very hard to get her to raise it to 130 and she wanted to draw blood right then to see what my numbers were and to test me for weird viruses or diseases I may have causing my problem. One she mentioned that i remembered was lime disease. She believed 130 was going to be too high and my numbers will come back and prove it. Those results came back better but no where near what they should be and no viruses or diseases found. Test was now TT 342 FT 10.43 and estradiol 24.68 . So they raised me to 140 week 11 and I was to do that for four weeks and then have BW done again. At this point I felt they didn't know what they were doing and they didn't mind taking forever to do it since they were getting $50 cash every visit. So I asked for all my blood work copies which I got.

I decided I better get online and really start learning to understand this stuff and buy some books so I can make a educated decision on what to do. As soon as I started learning about this stuff I felt holy shit I should have gone with the first place. AI isn't a scary thing if used right and that may not even be needed if I go with two shots a week which is what I would do. The HCG sounds like a smart move since it keeps my balls working which keeps the overall system happier. Finally I did feel I needed more Test and seeing how my body responded well at first I wasn't fearful of a larger dose if that's what was needed. So I went back for weeks 12 and 13 as I was setting up and getting tested at the first/other place to do the switch. Week 14 was my last week there which was Tuesday 1/16/18.

So what does everyone think went wrong with me? My theory I was under dosed for too long. Those first couple weeks I had the shot and whatever my balls were still putting out, so my test numbers went up. After a few weeks my balls shut down and my only source of test was a 90 shot in my butt once a week which isn't enough for me. I also worry my zoloft has something to do with my problems?

This Tuesday 1/16/18 was my last shot of 140. My stuff came in the next day. I'm supposed to per Dr.
inject 200 test C once a week
inject HCG 330iu's mon/wed/fri
take 1 .50 AI pill mon/thu

I do have a idea of how I want to do this now but to keep the tread from going all over the place I figure I would like thoughts, ideas about everything leading up to this point so far. Then I'll discuss what I have started doing and should I stay with it or change it around.

Thank you for any help given and for reading this whole thing lol.
 
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Defy Medical TRT clinic doctor
**Blood work attached**

1st (pcp) yearly check up with test #'s added by my request
 

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**Blood work attached**

3rd (clinic 1 old place) 1st test after 7 weeks of taking 90 Test C once a week
 

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**Blood work attached**

4th (clinic 1 old place) 2nd test 9 weeks after 2 weeks of raised dose (100 then 110)
 

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**Blood work attached*

5th (clinic 2 new place) 1st test at week 12 to see where I'm at with the old place. Been on 140 for 2 weeks from old place
 

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BTW, Just to add. Two books I got so far based on reviews on Amazon are

The Definitive Testosterone Replacement Therapy Manual and Testosterone: A Mans Guide.

I started reading the Testosterone: A Mans Guide first and must say its been a great read so far. I should hopefully be done with it by tomorrow since I cant put it down and find all this stuff really fascinating. Definitely looks like a book you will go back to after reading once.
 

CoastWatcher

Moderator
Let me begin by asking just one question: your doctor has prescribed three milligrams a week of anastrozole? That's perfectly sound advice...if you were a woman recovering from breast cancer! Three milligrams a week of AI will send you to hormone hell. The one reference to estradiol that I found in the massive amount of data you submitted indicates that it was measured with the incorrect test. So...

It is going to take a bit more time to sift through the the rest of your posts, but this is something you should NOT even consider doing.
 

Blackhawk

Member
Yet another remarkable form of mistreatment. Besides being told one thing then being administered another which in terms of being given a steady regular dose of T cyp is probably a lot better than increasing dose weekly, the whole thing sounds like a crock.

Ramping up dosage and expecting useful blood results a week later is pretty ludicrous. Search the forum for "half life" info. You don't reach a steady state of T until taking the med 5 times the half life of the med. For T cyp the half life is about 8 days so blood testing will be useful at about 40days on a steady regular dose.

Like CW said, starting you on the AI is bad news. This is one of THE most common mistreatment happening with TRT. Happened to me too.

Personally, I'd move on from that clinic pronto
 

Blackhawk

Member
Gosh, also with the lower shbg, you would do better with more frequent doses like every day or every other day.

And 200 per week is pretty high.

It will be interesting to see what future blood levels are
 

Vince

Super Moderator
I think a good starting TRT protocol would be 70mg of T and 500iu of HCG every 3 1/2 days and no AI. After 6 plus weeks on protocol do labs an injection day before you inject and go from there to get dialed in.
 
Let me begin by asking just one question: your doctor has prescribed three milligrams a week of anastrozole? That's perfectly sound advice...if you were a woman recovering from breast cancer! Three milligrams a week of AI will send you to hormone hell. The one reference to estradiol that I found in the massive amount of data you submitted indicates that it was measured with the incorrect test. So...

It is going to take a bit more time to sift through the the rest of your posts, but this is something you should NOT even consider doing.

Thank you for the reply but I don't remember saying any dr being the old place are new place telling me to take that much a week.

The old place had me taking grape seed extract pills to control my estrogen "their AI".

The new place says take one .5mg Anastrozole capsule mon/thu (1mg total a week)

Also what test was my estrogen tested wrong?
 
Last edited:
Yet another remarkable form of mistreatment. Besides being told one thing then being administered another which in terms of being given a steady regular dose of T cyp is probably a lot better than increasing dose weekly, the whole thing sounds like a crock.

Ramping up dosage and expecting useful blood results a week later is pretty ludicrous. Search the forum for "half life" info. You don't reach a steady state of T until taking the med 5 times the half life of the med. For T cyp the half life is about 8 days so blood testing will be useful at about 40days on a steady regular dose.

Like CW said, starting you on the AI is bad news. This is one of THE most common mistreatment happening with TRT. Happened to me too.

Personally, I'd move on from that clinic pronto

I'm assuming you mean the old place? Towards the end of my long story I mentioned I left there and started a new place. Or do you mean the new place?

The new place is saying
inject 200 test C once a week
inject HCG 330iu's mon/wed/fri
take one .5mg Anastrozole capsule mon/thu

Which I have modified but didn't want to talk about that to soon and make the tread confusing to follow.
 
Thank you for all the reply's so far. For what I'm doing right now...

They said
inject 200 test C once a week
Im injecting 100 on Monday and the other 100 on Thursday. I'm thinking since I was on 140 for two weeks and my numbers were still as low as they were, I need more. I do realize I have HCG helping me now so a part of me was thinking lower the 100 doses if the numbers do come back way high.

inject HCG 330iu's mon/wed/fri
I have heard in my research higher single doses of HCG can make bigger spikes, raise estrogen and effect receptor sites in a negative way I believe. Also heard anything under 1000 is totally safe with few negative side effects. So 250 is less of a shock each shoot and three of those a week add up below that 1000 number.

take one .5mg Anastrozole capsule mon/thu
Now this I was worried about the most. I heard how easy it is to tank your estrogen with those pills. So I decided I didn't want to take one till I get my results back after 6 weeks of this new plan. But another part of me said to take just one pill Thursday with my new 100 shot and see if erections at night or morning get worse or better or if I feel worse or better. So I took one pill. I don't think I noticed a negative effect. That week I did get my 140 shot Tuesday and I injected 100 on Thursday. I didn't minus the extra 40 from the first shot to my second shot I did. So I know I did a 240 grand total last week. I figured since my numbers where low anyways I'd get a little bump. I have noticed the last few nights Ive woke up with more erections. So I'm thinking not to take it as long as my erections don't disappear. If they do I'll pop one pill and see if it makes a positive difference. Hoping erections stay so I don't have to take the AI and can hold out till I have my blood test to confirm if I need it or not.

Anything I said feel free to correct me cause I am first to say I have a lot of reading and learning ahead of me but from my journey so far that's my thinking, feel free to correct me.
 
Last edited:
Thank you for all the reply's so far. For what I'm doing right now...

They said
inject 200 test C once a week
Im injecting 100 on Monday and the other 100 on Thursday. I'm thinking since I was on 140 for two weeks and my numbers were still as low as they were, I need more. I do realize I have HCG helping me now so a part of me was thinking lower the 100 doses if the numbers do come back way high.snip...

Hi WrenchHead welcome to the forum. 2weeks is not very long when deciding 140 is not enough. Give this a read and let me know what you think.

-Medication in system doubles when it reaches it's steady state (5 half lives of that specific medication). So if you took 100mg of test cyp/ week, the milligrams in your body would constantly be increasing until roughly 40 days go by. That means at 40 days, you will have 200mg in your system, not 100mg anymore.

So if you don't feel anything that great even after a few weeks on a specific dosage of testosterone, just be patient. Your total testosterone should constantly be increasing from day one until day 40. So with test cyp, only make dosage changes after 40 days of being on that specific dosage and frequency. This is why people always say it takes testosterone sometimes 3-6 weeks to “kick in”.

It has to do with your receptors getting acclimated to these new testosterone levels, but it also has to do with the fact that maybe that 100mg in your system when you started didn't really make you feel that great or raise your testosterone levels high enough, but after 40 days (5 weeks), you now have 200mg in your system and your total testosterone should now be doubled from when you first started, and this amount of milligrams in your system might be just what you needed to feel good and get your numbers where they should be.

Just think about it, 5 weeks is right there in-between 3-6 weeks. It makes perfect sense that people start feeling it around then, this is exactly when your body reaches a “steady state” on testosterone cypionate. -Gman86

Testosterone Cyp (Half life 8 days) - Steady state in 40 days
Arimidex (Half life 2 days) - Steady state in 10 days
Aromasin (Half life 1 day) - Steady state in 5 days
HCG (Half life 2 days) - Steady state in 10 days.
Clomid ( Half life 6 days) - Steady state in 30 days.

Remember, 5 x half life of a medication = Steady state of that medication.
 
Wow! Great info, thank you . I was wondering if their was a formula to figure that out. So its safe to say 90 is definitely not enough since it made my already low natural numbers worse and that was 90 for 7 weeks.

I was thinking because I'm taking HCG it will help boost those numbers and I would need less Test C. My play it safe side said 85 or 90 twice a week may be enough but my other side said its available to me so why not take it to feel even better as long as I don't have negative side effects to deal with. I do love the gym, bike riding, running and martial arts. So I am kinda pumped up to go at it full throttle finally. I realize 200 is on the high side of TRT treatment from my reading on different sites but it still sounds like within the TRT limit and still on the safe side. I've read of a few people that have been taking 200 for years and sounded totally happy with none or low side effects. I do understand this is a life time commitment and I need to be on something safe for the long trip. I wasn't planning on doing any blast (I believe you call it) i'm interested in cruising at a higher rpm lol. If this helps everyone understand my mindset here.
 
Wow! Great info, thank you . I was wondering if their was a formula to figure that out. So its safe to say 90 is definitely not enough since it made my already low natural numbers worse and that was 90 for 7 weeks.

I was thinking because I'm taking HCG it will help boost those numbers and I would need less Test C. My play it safe side said 85 or 90 twice a week may be enough but my other side said its available to me so why not take it to feel even better as long as I don't have negative side effects to deal with. I do love the gym, bike riding, running and martial arts. So I am kinda pumped up to go at it full throttle finally. I realize 200 is on the high side of TRT treatment from my reading on different sites but it still sounds like within the TRT limit and still on the safe side. I've read of a few people that have been taking 200 for years and sounded totally happy with none or low side effects. I do understand this is a life time commitment and I need to be on something safe for the long trip. I wasn't planning on doing any blast (I believe you call it) i'm interested in cruising at a higher rpm lol. If this helps everyone understand my mindset here.

I will be surprised if after you are at a steady state with your T cyp and you get your first blood test back you will remain at 200/wk.
Total T, Free T, SHGB, E2 prolactin, hematocrit these are the numbers you need to be talking and finding out how much T you need to use to get these numbers optimized.

Also don't be surprized when you find out TRT is not a magic carpet ride in the gym. Exersize for gains still hurts like hell.
Best of luck to ya.
 

Matt Leiser

New Member
Thank you for all the reply's so far. For what I'm doing right now...

They said
inject 200 test C once a week
Im injecting 100 on Monday and the other 100 on Thursday. I'm thinking since I was on 140 for two weeks and my numbers were still as low as they were, I need more. I do realize I have HCG helping me now so a part of me was thinking lower the 100 doses if the numbers do come back way high.

inject HCG 330iu's mon/wed/fri
I have heard in my research higher single doses of HCG can make bigger spikes, raise estrogen and effect receptor sites in a negative way I believe. Also heard anything under 1000 is totally safe with few negative side effects. So 250 is less of a shock each shoot and three of those a week add up below that 1000 number.

take one .5mg Anastrozole capsule mon/thu
Now this I was worried about the most. I heard how easy it is to tank your estrogen with those pills. So I decided I didn't want to take one till I get my results back after 6 weeks of this new plan. But another part of me said to take just one pill Thursday with my new 100 shot and see if erections at night or morning get worse or better or if I feel worse or better. I don't think I noticed a change. That week I did get my 140 shot Tuesday and I injected 100 on Thursday. I didn't minus the extra 40 from the first shot to my second shot I did. So I know I did a 240 grand total last week. I figured since my numbers where low anyways I'd get a little bump.

Anything I said feel free to correct me cause I am first to say I have a lot of reading and learning ahead of me but from my journey so far that's my thinking, feel free to correct me.

First, welcome!. This is the place to be to get the best info to decide what is best for your protocol. Let me also congratulate you on how quickly you have smelled the turd. It took me a year to figure out I wasn’t on the right protocol. What you are doing now makes more sense based on your current SHGB level and maybe will try an every day or EOD protocol if you don’t feel dialed in after testing. I like the others will caution you regarding the AI out the gate without getting the ultra sensitive E2 test (estradiol test for men) after testing your current protocol for 6 weeks.
 
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