you can probably easily mitigate that fluctuation by offsetting a HCG shot 12 hours after the testosterone. Comes down to the reward vs 2 daily injections.
Testosterone propionate for TRT
- Thread starter madhacker
- Start date
you can probably easily mitigate that fluctuation by offsetting a HCG shot 12 hours after the testosterone. Comes down to the reward vs 2 daily injections.
eyeheartny
Active Member
Anyone have recommendations for switching from Cyp to Prop? I just got my Rx through Defy today for Prop, but Ben (the NP there) didn't have much in the way of advice about making the transition to manage my levels adequately.
I'm on 140mg per week divided into EOD shots and will be going to either 40mg EOD or 20mg ED on Prop. I've been given the okay to try both ED and EOD to see what works best for me.
My concern is that while the Cyp is clearing out of my system, if I start the prop right away I may have a period of time where I'm higher than I'd like to be. I don't tend to do well on higher doses in terms of bloat/water retention. So should I take a week off the Cyp and then start into the Prop? Or just go straight into the Prop? Any advice would be appreciated.
I'm on 140mg per week divided into EOD shots and will be going to either 40mg EOD or 20mg ED on Prop. I've been given the okay to try both ED and EOD to see what works best for me.
My concern is that while the Cyp is clearing out of my system, if I start the prop right away I may have a period of time where I'm higher than I'd like to be. I don't tend to do well on higher doses in terms of bloat/water retention. So should I take a week off the Cyp and then start into the Prop? Or just go straight into the Prop? Any advice would be appreciated.
Ben Walker is a great provider, one of my favorites at Defy.
My recommendation is going daily with Test C and then after a week or two switch to test P. If you don’t have the Test C for the bridge I would personally wait 1 week from last injection to start the test P.
I’m considering going this route myself. I don’t mind injecting. if I do ever get injection fatigue I’ll reframe my thinking to, “if I don’t live a healthy lifestyle this could be insulin”
eyeheartny
Active Member
I've got plenty of Cyp around so no problem there. My concern overall is about lowering my dose a bit to have less of a spike when I make the switch. I'm waiting for Empower to make my Prop anyway so it isn't urgent. I may start ticking my dose down a touch over the next week so my levels are a bit lower when I start the Prop.
This isn't really feasible. At 250 IU hCG EOD I'm getting very little endogenous testosterone, from trace to less than a 100 ng/dL contribution. I don't want to increase the dose and encourage additional aromatization. Then there's the problem of timing. The peak in testosterone from hCG administration occurs at about 36-48 hours post-injection. It would be tricky to put those peaks where you want them.
I would just keep it simple and take a week off from injecting anything, and then start injecting the prop. When I switched I was injecting cyp EOD, and just started the prop 2 day’s after my cyp injection, and continued doing EOD injections with the prop. I tried ED and EOD with the prop, and didn’t notice any differences.
I did notice a few things that were a little unexpected. The prop peaked and stayed in my system for longer than I originally thought it would. One time I got labs done a little over 1.5 days after an injection, and my levels were about identical to when I had labs done 24 hours after an injection. So for me, prop had a slower peak and trough than I expected. The other thing was that I needed a higher dose than I thought to achieve the free T levels I was looking for. The last thing that was interesting was my E2 was much higher than while on cyp. Usually when my total is around 1000, my E2 is around 40-50. While on prop, it was in the 70’s. I’ve heard someone say here that E2 has a slower peak and trough than testosterone, so maybe what was happening was the testosterone was going quite a bit higher than 1000, and I was testing at trough when it was around it’s lowest point. So maybe my E2 was around the 70’s because my peak T level was say 1600 or something, and my E2 was just taking longer to come down and was staying closer to my peak level of T and E.
Interesting results. It looks like you still get a significant peak even though your serum levels are overall likely to be much flatter than mine. I don't recall how often you injected cypionate, but if it was relatively frequent then you can use serum hormone levels from that period to determine dose-response characteristics. This in turn allows some quantification of variations seen with propionate.
Ive only ever injected EOD regardless of what it was. Cyp, prop, HCG. The only thing I’ve ever injected daily was prop for a short time, and my growth hormone peptides. I’ve never injected less frequent than EOD though.
Ok, EOD cypionate should mean nearly constant hormone levels. Do you observe a linear dose response? In particular, I'd expect a linear increase in Tru-T calculated free testosterone with dose. If you'd care to supply some dose/SHBG/total T triplets then I can crunch the numbers. Here are what mine look like:
These data were collected over some years, so they suggest that the component of metabolic clearance unrelated to SHBG stayed pretty constant.
Started Prop on 2-20-19
4-30-19
Labs were while on this protocol:
TEST- 122.5 mg/ week (17.5mg ED of Prop) Labs done 36 hours after last injection
2 months after stopping cyp
No HCG
No AI
WP Thyroid 1.5 grains in AM, 1 grain mid day
Total - 1423 (250-1100 ng/dL)
Free - 134.8 (46.0-224.0)
Bio - 265.5 (110.0-575.0 ng/dL)
SHBG 63 (10-50)
E2 Sensitive - 72
E2 NOT Sensitive - 49
E2 Free - 1.02 (0.2-1.5)
7–23-19
Labs were while on this protocol:
TEST- 147mg/ week (42mg EOD of PROPIONATE) Labs done 48 hours after last injection
No HCG
No AI
No Thyroid meds
Total - 1002 (250-1100 ng/dL)
Free - 134.2 (46.0-224.0)
Bio - 287.7 (110.0-575.0 ng/dL)
SHBG 39 (10-50)
E2 Sensitive - 45
E2 NOT Sensitive - 41
E2 Free - 0.94 (0.2-1.5)
8-28-19
Labs were while on this protocol:
TEST- 154mg/ week (22mg ED of PROPIONATE) Labs drawn 24 hours after last injection
No HCG
No AI
No Thyroid meds
Total - 1085 (250-1100 ng/dL)
Free - 148.8 (46.0-224.0)
Bio - 299.6 (110.0-575.0 ng/dL)
SHBG 40 (10-50)
E2 Sensitive - 78
E2 NOT Sensitive - 71
E2 Free - 1.81 (0.2-1.5)
Do you have the cypionate numbers? We need their relative steadiness to evaluate the variability of the propionate.
Oh boy, that's a lot of labs. I get labs done at least like 5 times per year, and was on cyp for quite a while
Just a sampling with a range of doses would be enough.
Blackhawk
Member
It actually wasn’t a drop. Around low 40’s is my baseline while on HRT. It was only elevated in those first labs because I was on 2.5 grains of NDT. I always heard that thyroid meds can raise SHBG. Turns out that’s very true! Lol. At least for me NDT did. Not sure if the same applies to T3 only meds. I was on no thyroid meds during the last two labs
FWIW - T3 only did not change my SHBG.
Thanks for that info. I was wondering if T3 without the T4 would still effect SHBG. Obviously you’re just one person, but still interesting that T3 only didn’t budge your SHBG.
I can contribute my data: 10 mcg T3 daily has not seemed to change my SHBG. In addition, I'd previously mentioned that 24 hours post-dose my free T3 basically matched my pre-treatment baseline. However, in the most recent labs I measured 2 hours post-dose, getting a healthy 4.0 pg/mL (2.0-4.4), versus trough of 2.6.
Thanks for the input. Is that regular T3 or sustained release?
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