So if any of you kind, experienced gentlemen have the time - I could use to borrow some. Advice on which way to go from here based on the criteria im trying to meet (where possible) would be good. I'm hoping to reduce the amount of time it takes to "dial-in" so to speak.
I did post here with my first set of labs after starting TRT a good while (6 months give or take) back, which i'll repost here.
Apologies in advance as this will likely be relatively long.
So i started TRT for the usual reasons, and the return on investment has been hit or miss. A lot of direct hits, some misses in areas i wish were hits, and a few drawbacks thus far.
FTR - I dont mind injections, and I did try subQ twice. Both times I felt like utter garbage and switched back. The second time I waited as long as I could. Strength took a nosedive.. hell everything took a nosedive. After about a month I gave it up. I would have preferred smaller needles, but it is what it is. Since I am using IM, I rotate 8 sites. I began every 3.5 days (not averse to less frequently if it would benefit) and am currently doing e3d in an adjustment attempt. I dont want to inject any more frequently than e3d so thats the cutoff as far as any potential advisement would go.
My labs may be affected by diet to a degree, so i'll post pertinent info when relevant. Labs always taken the day of my next injection.
Where I'm at now. Energy is substantially better. Night and day. Mood is better overall, although when I get mad, its a sharper rise for sure. Good weight is up. Orgasms are legitimately profound relative to what they used to be, although i find arousal a bit harder and as such, erection quality suffers. (do have an Rx for ed meds should i decide to fill).
The things im trying to accomplish relative to how i feel now, are an increase in libido, a decrease or at minimum tapering off of the rise in hematocrit, and for the love of god - stop/reverse some of the hairloss. An improvement in sleep would be great too, however its been bad for years, the only time I had an improvement was at the very beginning of trt, it was short lived. Numbers wise, I want to get my total T down while maintaining top of the range Free T. This is where the causal relationship between my shbg, my dose, and my schedule gets fuzzy for me.
So when I started, I had a total T of 195. Also a free T below bottom of the range. My shbg was 55. (however to be fair, I was also coming off of a ~2000 calorie a day months long cut).
My first labs which will follow this excerpt were on 80mg e3.5d. with adex .25 eod I felt stupendous. My libido was raging, absolutely ideal. Bordering on too much but after being married 10 years, it was sooo welcome. Aided me mentally quite a bit. Labs came back a bit on the high side, but it didnt bother the doc. The only drawback was the oily face/acne. It wasnt obnoxious, but any more it would have been. These were taking during a (not so clean) bulk that I planned on running from sept-dec. Learned alot about my body here when I put on 40lbs in 4 months and systolic bp went up like 25 points lol. No more not-clean untethered bulking.
The next labs are on my current protocol. 60mg e3d. with adex .25 eod. This was a overall dose drop from 160 to 140 and I did this plus an increase in frequency for a few reasons. First was to minimize the sides, namely the oily skin and acne, but also in an attempt to bring the total T down a bit. Finally it makes it much easier to schedule bloodwork with several days on different days of the week always being AM. I want a long term protocol and at my age (36) the doc may have been ok with slightly out of range TT, down the road when i move into an older age bracket, I would be even further out and wanted to avoid having to change things due to that. Plus, less can be more, as im still sussing things out - and dropping the AI completely would be a win. These labs are a few months after starting to cut @~2300 cals a day. I drop about 1.5lbs a week and have been going since Jan1. Unsure if this is related to my increase in SHBG here or its due to protocol relative to my last labs. This has me feeling the same as the prior mood wise and energy wise. However on the flip side, libido has dropped dramatically. It did get rid of just about all of the acne though.
The two tests missing (they werent in when I took the SS) was
5-a-Dihydrotestosterone which registered 660 pg/ml on a scale of 106-719
Estradiol, Serum which registered 14.9 pg/ml on a scale of 10-42
As you can see, shbg is up (not sure if its due to the fact im now eating a deficit, or due to the protocol change). Hematocrit is borderline so I want to put an end to that as opposed to having to get a phlebotomy on the regular. Trying to make this entire process as normal as possible and strike the best balance i can, like most of you im sure.
Ideally id like to drop my TT on trough day to 900-1000 while keeping my FT where it is. But libido and my current hairline thinning before my eyes are more of a concern than the numbers.
This leaves me unsure of where to go from here. Due to the most recent labs with my E2 coming back @15 i changed my arimidex to .25 e3d with the injections instead of eod. That coupled with my continual leaning out (and staying that way this time) I'd like to think ill be able to get by with even less arimidex potentially.
Still based on the shbg, the lackluster libido, and the hairline - what are my options? What would you change? Is there a way to have my cake n eat it too? I started rogaine and nizoral about 2 months ago but so far, no positive fruit has been bore as best i can tell.
I dont know enough to determine if my raging libido @ 80mg e3.5 day was due to the higher spike in T, or the higher FT i carried. at 60mg e3d I ended up with lower FT and higher TT relative. Didnt get DHT tested with the first labs, but with the second im at tippy top of the range, and while im sure this is probably the root of my hair loss, evidently its not tied to my libido (unless it was higher yet, past some arbitrary tipping point on the 80mg e3.5 and it was too early to notice the hairloss as much). Would larger less frequent shots keep my overall DHT lower, or the opposite?
Do i have to choose between hair or libido? I believe 80mg e4d would also come out to 140mg a week, unsure if this would be preferable for me? In the end - it could be the food (or lack thereof) effecting my shgb hence effecting my libido.
I wouldnt know, hence im consulting the professionals. Though i do lean towards it not being the food as im not in THAT large of a deficit.
Sorry for the literal book, but I could keep spinning my wheels and frustrating myself - getting more and more depressed about the hairloss and hct creeping upward - or i can ask for advice from more experienced folks based on the numbers.
Thanks for any time and advice you can share
I did post here with my first set of labs after starting TRT a good while (6 months give or take) back, which i'll repost here.
Apologies in advance as this will likely be relatively long.
So i started TRT for the usual reasons, and the return on investment has been hit or miss. A lot of direct hits, some misses in areas i wish were hits, and a few drawbacks thus far.
FTR - I dont mind injections, and I did try subQ twice. Both times I felt like utter garbage and switched back. The second time I waited as long as I could. Strength took a nosedive.. hell everything took a nosedive. After about a month I gave it up. I would have preferred smaller needles, but it is what it is. Since I am using IM, I rotate 8 sites. I began every 3.5 days (not averse to less frequently if it would benefit) and am currently doing e3d in an adjustment attempt. I dont want to inject any more frequently than e3d so thats the cutoff as far as any potential advisement would go.
My labs may be affected by diet to a degree, so i'll post pertinent info when relevant. Labs always taken the day of my next injection.
Where I'm at now. Energy is substantially better. Night and day. Mood is better overall, although when I get mad, its a sharper rise for sure. Good weight is up. Orgasms are legitimately profound relative to what they used to be, although i find arousal a bit harder and as such, erection quality suffers. (do have an Rx for ed meds should i decide to fill).
The things im trying to accomplish relative to how i feel now, are an increase in libido, a decrease or at minimum tapering off of the rise in hematocrit, and for the love of god - stop/reverse some of the hairloss. An improvement in sleep would be great too, however its been bad for years, the only time I had an improvement was at the very beginning of trt, it was short lived. Numbers wise, I want to get my total T down while maintaining top of the range Free T. This is where the causal relationship between my shbg, my dose, and my schedule gets fuzzy for me.
So when I started, I had a total T of 195. Also a free T below bottom of the range. My shbg was 55. (however to be fair, I was also coming off of a ~2000 calorie a day months long cut).
My first labs which will follow this excerpt were on 80mg e3.5d. with adex .25 eod I felt stupendous. My libido was raging, absolutely ideal. Bordering on too much but after being married 10 years, it was sooo welcome. Aided me mentally quite a bit. Labs came back a bit on the high side, but it didnt bother the doc. The only drawback was the oily face/acne. It wasnt obnoxious, but any more it would have been. These were taking during a (not so clean) bulk that I planned on running from sept-dec. Learned alot about my body here when I put on 40lbs in 4 months and systolic bp went up like 25 points lol. No more not-clean untethered bulking.
The next labs are on my current protocol. 60mg e3d. with adex .25 eod. This was a overall dose drop from 160 to 140 and I did this plus an increase in frequency for a few reasons. First was to minimize the sides, namely the oily skin and acne, but also in an attempt to bring the total T down a bit. Finally it makes it much easier to schedule bloodwork with several days on different days of the week always being AM. I want a long term protocol and at my age (36) the doc may have been ok with slightly out of range TT, down the road when i move into an older age bracket, I would be even further out and wanted to avoid having to change things due to that. Plus, less can be more, as im still sussing things out - and dropping the AI completely would be a win. These labs are a few months after starting to cut @~2300 cals a day. I drop about 1.5lbs a week and have been going since Jan1. Unsure if this is related to my increase in SHBG here or its due to protocol relative to my last labs. This has me feeling the same as the prior mood wise and energy wise. However on the flip side, libido has dropped dramatically. It did get rid of just about all of the acne though.
The two tests missing (they werent in when I took the SS) was
5-a-Dihydrotestosterone which registered 660 pg/ml on a scale of 106-719
Estradiol, Serum which registered 14.9 pg/ml on a scale of 10-42
As you can see, shbg is up (not sure if its due to the fact im now eating a deficit, or due to the protocol change). Hematocrit is borderline so I want to put an end to that as opposed to having to get a phlebotomy on the regular. Trying to make this entire process as normal as possible and strike the best balance i can, like most of you im sure.
Ideally id like to drop my TT on trough day to 900-1000 while keeping my FT where it is. But libido and my current hairline thinning before my eyes are more of a concern than the numbers.
This leaves me unsure of where to go from here. Due to the most recent labs with my E2 coming back @15 i changed my arimidex to .25 e3d with the injections instead of eod. That coupled with my continual leaning out (and staying that way this time) I'd like to think ill be able to get by with even less arimidex potentially.
Still based on the shbg, the lackluster libido, and the hairline - what are my options? What would you change? Is there a way to have my cake n eat it too? I started rogaine and nizoral about 2 months ago but so far, no positive fruit has been bore as best i can tell.
I dont know enough to determine if my raging libido @ 80mg e3.5 day was due to the higher spike in T, or the higher FT i carried. at 60mg e3d I ended up with lower FT and higher TT relative. Didnt get DHT tested with the first labs, but with the second im at tippy top of the range, and while im sure this is probably the root of my hair loss, evidently its not tied to my libido (unless it was higher yet, past some arbitrary tipping point on the 80mg e3.5 and it was too early to notice the hairloss as much). Would larger less frequent shots keep my overall DHT lower, or the opposite?
Do i have to choose between hair or libido? I believe 80mg e4d would also come out to 140mg a week, unsure if this would be preferable for me? In the end - it could be the food (or lack thereof) effecting my shgb hence effecting my libido.
I wouldnt know, hence im consulting the professionals. Though i do lean towards it not being the food as im not in THAT large of a deficit.
Sorry for the literal book, but I could keep spinning my wheels and frustrating myself - getting more and more depressed about the hairloss and hct creeping upward - or i can ask for advice from more experienced folks based on the numbers.
Thanks for any time and advice you can share
