Low dose protocol?

[Runnerman]

Just curious if anyone has tried a low dose protocol and how that worked out long term? I had been injecting T cypionate 50mg twice a week for quite a while. Having hematocrit concerns and tanking my ferritin with frequent blood donations, I dropped the T down to 40mg twice a week. Then I missed a dose and kind of tried an experiment to see how long could I go and feel ok. The past few months I've been injecting 40mg once every 9 days. I haven't done any labs with this but I have noticed a few things, I feel lighter and more mobile with slightly less water weight, only talking maybe 3 pounds, not a lot. No real libido or erection concerns. Feel like I have more energy.

Anyway, I know this is not ideal and I'm sure my labs would show on the low side but it kind of got me thinking and thought I would ask.

Thanks

 

[Vince]

Just curious if anyone has tried a low dose protocol and how that worked out long term? I had been injecting T cypionate 50mg twice a week for quite a while. Having hematocrit concerns and tanking my ferritin with frequent blood donations, I dropped the T down to 40mg twice a week. Then I missed a dose and kind of tried an experiment to see how long could I go and feel ok. The past few months I've been injecting 40mg once every 9 days. I haven't done any labs with this but I have noticed a few things, I feel lighter and more mobile with slightly less water weight, only talking maybe 3 pounds, not a lot. No real libido or erection concerns. Feel like I have more energy.

Anyway, I know this is not ideal and I'm sure my labs would show on the low side but it kind of got me thinking and thought I would ask.

Thanks

Your levels must be extremely low. It will be interesting to see your lab results.

 

[Cataceous]

... The past few months I've been injecting 40mg once every 9 days. I haven't done any labs with this but I have noticed a few things, I feel lighter and more mobile with slightly less water weight, only talking maybe 3 pounds, not a lot. No real libido or erection concerns. Feel like I have more energy.
...

Very interesting. Many guys do better with doses well under 100 mg per week, but this is the lowest dose I've seen. There's a guy over at PeakTestosterone who's taking 50 mg of enanthate (Xyosted) every 10 days. However, Xyosted has a half-life that's double what's typical for enanthate or cypionate. In your case the average testosterone intake of 3.1 mg per day is still in the normal range of 3-9 mg/day, but I'd expect low serum testosterone at the pre-injection troughs—unless you've got some natural production contributing. It would be interesting to see your LH along with trough testosterone and SHBG.

My protocol gives me 4.4 mg T per day, equivalent to 44 mg T cypionate per week. While this is also considered low, it still puts my daily testosterone peak around 600-700 ng/dL, right at the average for healthy young men.

 

[Gman86]

Here’s an active thread where a guy is on 70mg/ week and going to be going down to 60mg/ week. I’ll link it below if u want to check it out


https://www.excelmale.com/forum/threads/high-free-test-—-change-protocol.23731/#post-204240

 

[Gman86]

40mg E9D would equate to 31mg of testosterone per week. At that dose I would assume that ur levels would be lower than before u started treatment. You say u feel a little better, but it’s only been a few days, and ur levels are going to continue to decline for roughly 4-6 weeks after a dosage change with test cyp. So I would assume in a few weeks ur going to start feeling worse. But if u do end up continuing to feel better, I would definitely get labs done to see where things sit, and in ur case, I would throw LH and FSH in there. Normally they’re pointless to check while on TRT, as they’ll both be about zero, but with u being on such a low dose, I’m curious if u would have some natural production going on, or if literally any exogenous testosterone, no matter how low of a dose, will completely shut down LH and FSH levels

 

[JA Battle]

I get 100ng/dl increase for every mg of test enanthate I use.

 

[mooseman109]

I am currently doing 8mg/ day, down from 12/ day. I can say libido has dropped off a tiny bit. Energy is the fine, cognitive fine as well. I run at 53-56 hct at 12 mg/ day. Trying to drop that back some.

 

[Runnerman]

I appreciate all the feedback. I'm sure my T levels are probably pretty low at this rate and as someone pointed out, probably lower than when I started this journey. I'll see how it goes. If I find anything interesting, I'll let you know. Thanks

 

[Runnerman]

I am currently doing 8mg/ day, down from 12/ day. I can say libido has dropped off a tiny bit. Energy is the fine, cognitive fine as well. I run at 53-56 hct at 12 mg/ day. Trying to drop that back some.

So are you injecting that on a daily basis?

 

[mooseman109]

Yes. every morning

 

[Willyt]

Just curious if anyone has tried a low dose protocol and how that worked out long term? I had been injecting T cypionate 50mg twice a week for quite a while. Having hematocrit concerns and tanking my ferritin with frequent blood donations, I dropped the T down to 40mg twice a week. Then I missed a dose and kind of tried an experiment to see how long could I go and feel ok. The past few months I've been injecting 40mg once every 9 days. I haven't done any labs with this but I have noticed a few things, I feel lighter and more mobile with slightly less water weight, only talking maybe 3 pounds, not a lot. No real libido or erection concerns. Feel like I have more energy.

Anyway, I know this is not ideal and I'm sure my labs would show on the low side but it kind of got me thinking and thought I would ask.

Thanks

@Runnerman - do you have any update on how the low dose worked for you?

 

[JRos895]

Very interesting. Many guys do better with doses well under 100 mg per week, but this is the lowest dose I've seen. There's a guy over at PeakTestosterone who's taking 50 mg of enanthate (Xyosted) every 10 days. However, Xyosted has a half-life that's double what's typical for enanthate or cypionate. In your case the average testosterone intake of 3.1 mg per day is still in the normal range of 3-9 mg/day, but I'd expect low serum testosterone at the pre-injection troughs—unless you've got some natural production contributing. It would be interesting to see your LH along with trough testosterone and SHBG.

My protocol gives me 4.4 mg T per day, equivalent to 44 mg T cypionate per week. While this is also considered low, it still puts my daily testosterone peak around 600-700 ng/dL, right at the average for healthy young men.

I’ve seen you post here before that the 600-700 average TT level that is often quoted as the “healthy normal range” refers to the average peak TT level.

Where did you read that?

I believe the Xyosted 75mg pen produces a Cavg of around 650. Are you saying that someone taking Xyosted 75mg actually has a higher TT than the 600-700 figure we often hear quoted?

 

[Cataceous]

I’ve seen you post here before that the 600-700 average TT level that is often quoted as the “healthy normal range” refers to the average peak TT level.

Where did you read that?

I believe the Xyosted 75mg pen produces a Cavg of around 650. Are you saying that someone taking Xyosted 75mg actually has a higher TT than the 600-700 figure we often hear quoted?

I think the term "healthy normal range" is best applied to free testosterone. In particular, for the Tru-T calculation it is given as 16-31 ng/dL. I like to use 10-20 ng/dL for Vermeulen, although technically a plus/minus two-standard-deviation reference range goes a little higher and a little lower.

In any case, there are various studies showing that 600-700 ng/dL is about average total testosterone for healthy younger men. Samples:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1258/000456306778520115

Reference ranges for testosterone in men generated using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry in a community-based sample of healthy nonobese young men in the Framingham Heart Study and applied to three geographically distinct cohorts - Pub

Reference ranges generated in a community-based sample of men provide a rational basis for categorizing testosterone levels as low or normal. Men with low TT or FT by these criteria had higher prevalence of physical dysfunction, sexual dysfunction, and diabetes. These reference limits should be...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Consider that someone taking 75 mg of Xyosted per week is averaging 7.7 mg of testosterone per day. This is a little over the average production level for healthy young men, which is about 6-7 mg. Therefore I would expect Xyosted at 75 mg/week to yield free testosterone that's a little above average.

 

[JRos895]

I think the term "healthy normal range" is best applied to free testosterone. In particular, for the Tru-T calculation it is given as 16-31 ng/dL. I like to use 10-20 ng/dL for Vermeulen, although technically a plus/minus two-standard-deviation reference range goes a little higher and a little lower.

In any case, there are various studies showing that 600-700 ng/dL is about average total testosterone for healthy younger men. Samples:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1258/000456306778520115

Reference ranges for testosterone in men generated using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry in a community-based sample of healthy nonobese young men in the Framingham Heart Study and applied to three geographically distinct cohorts - Pub

Reference ranges generated in a community-based sample of men provide a rational basis for categorizing testosterone levels as low or normal. Men with low TT or FT by these criteria had higher prevalence of physical dysfunction, sexual dysfunction, and diabetes. These reference limits should be...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Consider that someone taking 75 mg of Xyosted per week is averaging 7.7 mg of testosterone per day. This is a little over the average production level for healthy young men, which is about 6-7 mg. Therefore I would expect Xyosted at 75 mg/week to yield free testosterone that's a little above average.

Many thanks. However, I never understood why injecting the same amount of testosterone would yield greater variations in TT than in FT. I’ve heard you mention this theory before but I still don’t quite understand it.

My intuition would be that you inject a given level of T, and people would have similar levels of TT but different FTs due to varying levels of SHBG. Instead, according to you, they would have similar levels of FT but different levels of TT.

Are you sure of this theory and could you explain that? Do you have studies that demonstrate the above?

 

[BigTex]

Very interesting. Many guys do better with doses well under 100 mg per week, but this is the lowest dose I've seen. There's a guy over at PeakTestosterone who's taking 50 mg of enanthate (Xyosted) every 10 days. However, Xyosted has a half-life that's double what's typical for enanthate or cypionate. In your case the average testosterone intake of 3.1 mg per day is still in the normal range of 3-9 mg/day, but I'd expect low serum testosterone at the pre-injection troughs—unless you've got some natural production contributing. It would be interesting to see your LH along with trough testosterone and SHBG.

My protocol gives me 4.4 mg T per day, equivalent to 44 mg T cypionate per week. While this is also considered low, it still puts my daily testosterone peak around 600-700 ng/dL, right at the average for healthy young men.

I have had to drop my dose to 80mg ever 10 days, it was 100mg/10 days. I had a ~890 T level and 56 - HCT. I have done 2 blood dumps in the past 4 months. I am going to do some blood work in a few weeks on my own to see if there are any changes.

 

[Cataceous]

Many thanks. However, I never understood why injecting the same amount of testosterone would yield greater variations in TT than in FT. I’ve heard you mention this theory before but I still don’t quite understand it.

My intuition would be that you inject a given level of T, and people would have similar levels of TT but different FTs due to varying levels of SHBG. Instead, according to you, they would have similar levels of FT but different levels of TT.

Are you sure of this theory and could you explain that? Do you have studies that demonstrate the above?

With injections you are controlling the rate at which testosterone becomes available for your body to use. Similarly, normal men have a rate of production of testosterone. In either case, at steady state the body is metabolizing and eliminating testosterone at the same rate. Basically outflow equals inflow. The assumption is that metabolization is proportional to free testosterone. This implies that free testosterone—not total—is proportional to the dose rate, which you control. In this model SHBG simply acts as a storage container; more SHBG means more testosterone stored and thus more total testosterone.

The idea must still be characterized as a hypothesis, and one that's linked to the free hormone hypothesis. The latter has a decent amount of supporting evidence, so I am pretty confident that the basic concept is sound, even if it is neglecting some subtleties.

A couple posts outlining things:

SHBG cause or consequence of hypogonadism?

Dear all, I'm pretty amazed by this website and the quality of all the discussions in that forum. I recently did some tests because I had the feeling that something was wrong with my T level, and also because I had a shock down there while doing sport a few months ago. My result is 720 ng/dL...

www.excelmale.com

SHBG cause or consequence of hypogonadism?

I'm young healthy and not obese yet only at 10 ng/dl. Total T is over 1000 though It's easy to get mixed up but you're supposed to inject testosterone, not SHBG.

www.excelmale.com

See also the paper referenced here:

SHBG cause or consequence of hypogonadism?

I'm young healthy and not obese yet only at 10 ng/dl. Total T is over 1000 though It's easy to get mixed up but you're supposed to inject testosterone, not SHBG.

www.excelmale.com

 

[JRos895]

With injections you are controlling the rate at which testosterone becomes available for your body to use. Similarly, normal men have a rate of production of testosterone. In either case, at steady state the body is metabolizing and eliminating testosterone at the same rate. Basically outflow equals inflow. The assumption is that metabolization is proportional to free testosterone. This implies that free testosterone—not total—is proportional to the dose rate, which you control. In this model SHBG simply acts as a storage container; more SHBG means more testosterone stored and thus more total testosterone.

The idea must still be characterized as a hypothesis, and one that's linked to the free hormone hypothesis. The latter has a decent amount of supporting evidence, so I am pretty confident that the basic concept is sound, even if it is neglecting some subtleties.

A couple posts outlining things:

SHBG cause or consequence of hypogonadism?

Dear all, I'm pretty amazed by this website and the quality of all the discussions in that forum. I recently did some tests because I had the feeling that something was wrong with my T level, and also because I had a shock down there while doing sport a few months ago. My result is 720 ng/dL...

www.excelmale.com

SHBG cause or consequence of hypogonadism?

I'm young healthy and not obese yet only at 10 ng/dl. Total T is over 1000 though It's easy to get mixed up but you're supposed to inject testosterone, not SHBG.

www.excelmale.com

See also the paper referenced here:

SHBG cause or consequence of hypogonadism?

I'm young healthy and not obese yet only at 10 ng/dl. Total T is over 1000 though It's easy to get mixed up but you're supposed to inject testosterone, not SHBG.

www.excelmale.com

Very interesting.

My own experiences and labs I’ve seen across forums seem to support the hypothesis. When I did 75mg Xyosted for example, my FT was about 15/16–just above the male average.

Also the Xyosted studies seem to support the hypothesis, as each dose produced a relatively large variation in resulting TT.
Assuming people were injecting the same way and correctly, the only explanation for this large variation appears to stem from the above hypothesis. It would have been fascinating to see what the FTs would have been and if there would have been smaller variations, but unfortunately the studies did not measure FT.

I’d bet most doctors in the field, even the most experienced ones, are not aware of the above hypothesis. I think most would simply assume that higher SHBG requires higher doses. If the above hypothesis were true, there would really never be a need to use dosages outside of the range of 60-100 mg (assuming no concurrent HCG, serm, etc.). There may not even ever be a need to deviate outside 60-80.

If the above hypothesis is true, you deserve tremendous credit for shedding light on it. You are way ahead of the field on this.

 

[Cataceous]

... If the above hypothesis were true, there would really never be a need to use dosages outside of the range of 60-100 mg (assuming no concurrent HCG, serm, etc.). There may not even ever be a need to deviate outside 60-80.
...

The dosing of Xyosted is in line with this. You start at 75 mg per week. Based on results you either stay there, go up to 100 mg per week, or down to 50 mg per week. No other options needed.

 

[JRos895]

The dosing of Xyosted is in line with this. You start at 75 mg per week. Based on results you either stay there, go up to 100 mg per week, or down to 50 mg per week. No other options needed.

I don’t even see why 100mg is ever necessary though. I bet the makers thought that it would be necessary for those with high SHBG.

 

[gallant]

Bumping up this thread. I recently (3 weeks) switched to a lower dose protocol of 44mgs twice a week due to high HCT issues. Seem to be sleeping better and lower resting heart rate yet haven't done labs yet. Curious Big Tex how it's working for you since you went to 80mgs every 10 days. Any labs?