Jason Sypolt
Administrator
I'm 37 and have primary hypogonadism and have been seeing a urologist for a little over a year now. My initial Total T blood tests came back at 224 and 159, but thyroid function, FSH, LH, etc. were normal.
The urologist seemed a lot more knowledgeable than from the horror stories that I've read on this and other forums, works with me on things like administering my own frequent injections so I can find out what works best within reason, mentioned AI's for managing estrogens, etc., but when I've started exhibiting symptoms and side effects of treatment (high Estradiol only) he tells me that it's beyond his experience and that he isn't comfortable prescribing anything and that I should seek a second opinion. He has even emailed me links to hormone therapy clinics that do testosterone and HGH.
I've tried the following dosages and have given each at least a couple of months to see how effective or not they are:
200mg / every 2 weeks
Of course I feel terrible by the time of next injection
100mg / every 1 week
I didn't like the rollercoaster fluctuations. Total T was 832.
50mg / every 3 days
Physical changes started like losing some weight and gained some muscle tone for pretty much the first time in my life, but it felt like I might as well have been injecting saline as far as mood and sexual function improvements. Total T was 956 and E2 was 32.7
60mg / every 3 days
I definitely felt this, and it was great - until I got really bad symptoms of high E2. Total T was 1059 and E2 was 42.6
40mg / every 3 days
Urologist wanted to try cutting the dosage back, and this is the worst I've ever felt in my life. Some of that was probably from crashing down from such a high level. Total T was 540 and E2 was still elevated at 27. I've read that the low 20's for E2 is optimal for most men.
I'm currently back on 50mg / every 3 days and started taking Anastrozole on my own because I really feel like I don't have another option for that at this point. Things have improved somewhat - I had every symptom in the book for high Estradiol, and they are slowly going away now since starting to take the AI. I had to demand to get the Estradiol blood test and after seeing the 42.6 result, the doc finally acknowledges that there is a problem. His response was to just try cutting back the injection dosage, but that just wasn't effective.
Something else - it seems like this is a problem of needing a waterfall to fill up a bucket so that I can feel any benefits at all. I don't have a lot of lab results since the urologist didn't seem to think they were necessary and I initially didn't know any better. But looking at what I do have, at 100mg of Testosterone Cypionate every week my peak 48 hours after injection was 832ng/dl. The low right before the next injection was 150. Is that right? I thought T Cypionate had a half life of about 7 days. That seems like a pretty fast drop in just 5 days.
Even with frequent injections every 3 days - if I miss an injection (had to go out of town at the last minute), it takes a week to get rid of the fatigue. It just seems like the testosterone leaves my body at a ridiculous rate.
So can anyone offer any advice and/or does anyone have any experience with these hormone therapy clinics? The message that I'm getting from the urologist is that he doesn't want to treat me since he doesn't know how. I live in nowhere western Ohio and there aren't many other options that are close by. The links I was sent were for Evergreen Life and Defy. I seriously think that he got them from a Google search. What sucks is that I have awesome health insurance. If I have to go to one of these clinics then that obviously falls outside of that.
I hope this post makes sense. I thought I had this all figured out up until a few months ago. I'm sort of not sure what to even ask for because I'm still trying to put all of this together and figure out what to do now.
The urologist seemed a lot more knowledgeable than from the horror stories that I've read on this and other forums, works with me on things like administering my own frequent injections so I can find out what works best within reason, mentioned AI's for managing estrogens, etc., but when I've started exhibiting symptoms and side effects of treatment (high Estradiol only) he tells me that it's beyond his experience and that he isn't comfortable prescribing anything and that I should seek a second opinion. He has even emailed me links to hormone therapy clinics that do testosterone and HGH.
I've tried the following dosages and have given each at least a couple of months to see how effective or not they are:
200mg / every 2 weeks
Of course I feel terrible by the time of next injection
100mg / every 1 week
I didn't like the rollercoaster fluctuations. Total T was 832.
50mg / every 3 days
Physical changes started like losing some weight and gained some muscle tone for pretty much the first time in my life, but it felt like I might as well have been injecting saline as far as mood and sexual function improvements. Total T was 956 and E2 was 32.7
60mg / every 3 days
I definitely felt this, and it was great - until I got really bad symptoms of high E2. Total T was 1059 and E2 was 42.6
40mg / every 3 days
Urologist wanted to try cutting the dosage back, and this is the worst I've ever felt in my life. Some of that was probably from crashing down from such a high level. Total T was 540 and E2 was still elevated at 27. I've read that the low 20's for E2 is optimal for most men.
I'm currently back on 50mg / every 3 days and started taking Anastrozole on my own because I really feel like I don't have another option for that at this point. Things have improved somewhat - I had every symptom in the book for high Estradiol, and they are slowly going away now since starting to take the AI. I had to demand to get the Estradiol blood test and after seeing the 42.6 result, the doc finally acknowledges that there is a problem. His response was to just try cutting back the injection dosage, but that just wasn't effective.
Something else - it seems like this is a problem of needing a waterfall to fill up a bucket so that I can feel any benefits at all. I don't have a lot of lab results since the urologist didn't seem to think they were necessary and I initially didn't know any better. But looking at what I do have, at 100mg of Testosterone Cypionate every week my peak 48 hours after injection was 832ng/dl. The low right before the next injection was 150. Is that right? I thought T Cypionate had a half life of about 7 days. That seems like a pretty fast drop in just 5 days.
Even with frequent injections every 3 days - if I miss an injection (had to go out of town at the last minute), it takes a week to get rid of the fatigue. It just seems like the testosterone leaves my body at a ridiculous rate.
So can anyone offer any advice and/or does anyone have any experience with these hormone therapy clinics? The message that I'm getting from the urologist is that he doesn't want to treat me since he doesn't know how. I live in nowhere western Ohio and there aren't many other options that are close by. The links I was sent were for Evergreen Life and Defy. I seriously think that he got them from a Google search. What sucks is that I have awesome health insurance. If I have to go to one of these clinics then that obviously falls outside of that.
I hope this post makes sense. I thought I had this all figured out up until a few months ago. I'm sort of not sure what to even ask for because I'm still trying to put all of this together and figure out what to do now.
