On 150 honest to God it was a chore to have sex. Watching porn was like watching a gardening show. Zero interest. So I’m going to go with 0 for that
On 50mg it’s more like a 7. Not teenager horny but certainly early marriage horny.
2 Likes
By the way I distinguish libido from ED. Never had a problem with the plumbing on any dose. Strictly speaking of desire here.
LMAO
Cheers man
So you found what works for YOU. That’s all that matters.
2 Likes
Are you referring to the ester weight? I believe for Enth/Cyp it’s like i’m taking an actual 35mg of actual testosterone per week which works out to 5mg a day which is what an average guy normally produces. It also seems to line up with what I’m seeing in bloodwork. Except for that 81 which a) followed a weight loss contest at work with severe caloric deprivation and b) was responsible for my hypogonadal diagnosis my only previous Test bloodwork produced a 335 result. For me, I feel about the same as I did when I got that 335 result. Normal with pretty damn good libido.
You can’t compare endogenous production with exogenous administration. Two totally different things. There is no man out there who produces 250mg of T a week as we all know. Yet plenty of men with natty total of 1000 which is what my total is with 250 a week.
Apples and oranges.
mechanism for that?
I honestly don’t know. It’s a question I’ve had for some time. Absorption? I don’t know. It’s a question I’d like to have answered eventually but so far I have only heard theories. I can say, with certainty, that they can’t be compared.
Maybe it’s another area where we are all different. I only had that one pre-pre-trt test that came up at 335. Seems to track pretty closely with what I’m seeing now with 50mg estered Test. In other words I wouldn’t be at all surprise if my body producing 4mg a day gave me 335 and the 5 I’m getting now gets me around 400.
Here’s another “outlier”.
I think there are more “outliers” than we think.
Happy for you getting libido at a low level. I’m experimenting too right now at lower levels, around 75mg per week split.
How long have you been at 50mg? Just curious.
Google xyosted, a vastly overpriced testosterone enanthate (TE) sub-Q delivery system designed for mass in-network medical provider use to treat hypogonadism. Then look at the three dosages available for once weekly auto injection. Then think to yourself, why would Antares spend millions of dollars to develop an fda approved product that would undermedicate the vast majority of men being treated for hypogonadism? Here’s a hint, they did not.
Now look at the PK data I already shared for this product in the other thread. These dosages will bring the vast majority of men within physiologic range. Xyosted gives providers three dosages to choose from. Why? Then look at ALL the major medical society dosage guidelines for IM weekly injections which call for 75-100 mg per week equivalent of test ester.
Then try to compare these data to the claims I’ve wasted time trying to debate on another thread where it was claimed that the vast majority of men find relief (symptoms alleviated) at free T levels of at least 25-30 ng/dL and that weekly dosages of at least 150 mg/ week are routinely needed to accomplish this. Think about the where Total T levels will be if these parameters are satisfied (requires one to look at reference range for SHBG and conceptualize a distribution using statistics and math).
Then wonder about the survivorship bias involved in that claim given the limited subset of hypogonadal patients that internet coaches/“TOT” doctors work with for some type of “TOT” strategy.
From the article:
How can people avoid falling prey to these kinds of biases?
Look at your life and where you get feedback and ask, “Is that feedback selected, or am I getting unvarnished feedback?”
Whatever the claim—it could be “I’m good at blank” or “Wow, we have a high hit rate” or any sort of assessment—then you think about where the data comes from. Maybe it’s your past successes. And this is the key: Think about what the process that generated the data is. What are all the other things that could have happened that might have led me to not measure it? In other words, if I say, “I’m great at interviewing,” you say, “Okay. Well, what data are you basing that on?” “Well, my hires are great.” You can counter with, “Have you considered the people who you have not hired?”
It’s a very simple thing, where you just need to ask the question: What’s the data that’s not present?
The 75 mg per week patients are the “outliers”? Nope.
Again no judgment for TOT guys, but to suggest (give the impression) to guys on here that taking 75-100 mg per week of test ester to address hypogonadism symptoms is a statistical rarity is completely asinine. This practice will also give impressionable folks the idea that their protocol is underdosed; further reinforced with unhelpful comments they may get on forums that their dosage isn’t manly enough (“grow a pair” as I have heard on here a few times). Then these unfortunate gentlemen increase the dose and here comes the ED/Hct/E2 issues, blah blah.
Just some big picture thinking here.
In summary Dear reader: Take whatever works for you, but sweet Jesus, don’t believe this bastardization of all that is scientifically holy that 75-100 mg/week guys are outliers in the universe of hypogonadism treatment. Yes, I am confident they are not a statistical rarity in the world of @dbossa and TOT. The TOT population is just a subset of the hypogonadism universe. This I pray sweet Lord.
Survivorship bias and extrapolating one’s experience to the whole population is not ideal when encountering new men who are candidates for hypogonadism treatment. No, your PCP is not trying to chemically castrate you. In reality, the truth is out there and somewhere in between the extremes of (1) very conservative Endos and (2) T mill clinics for most men. The more T you take, the more risk you take on once you pass the upper limit of human physiology. It’s an optimization.
Good luck and best wishes.
1 Like
Yes you are correct. It involves the metabolism of esterified testosterone depot into free testosterone and absorption is the rate limiting step. Esterified testosterone exhibits what’s termed
when injected, where the absorption rate is much slower than the elimination rate of testosterone once it is freed from the fatty acid ester by the body.
While we all “eliminate” testosterone at about the same rate (on the order of minutes), some “hyperexcreters” as they are sometimes called are actually “hyperabsorbers” where their body will take up and “clear” the testosterone ester into eliminable form faster than most. See here for more info on the mechanism of absorption. This is why one can observe a variation in the elimination half life for test esters which experimentally can vary from 3-6 days typically for test cypionate or enanthate. The true elimination half life is much less than 1 day (on the order of an hour) but the slower absorption of testosterone into the body’ central compartment takes days and hides the true elimination rate. The engineering term for this is resistances in series and adsorption is the rate limiting step in the process.
Now that we are done bickering, I’ll try to put something together on it if guys find it useful. It will require math and charts though if a deeper level of appreciation is desired.
2 Likes
no drug is 100% bioavailable even if injected.
I’ve been a proponent of lower doses for awhile now.
At 300 TT levels pre TRT, i felt a tiny bit of libido, which went away after starting TRT.
My thoughts are if i had it on 300 TT levels, i should have a bit more at like 500TT. At high levels, nothing.
I actually feel much better in the gym on lower levels as compared to higher levels.
2 Likes
Gotcha and was just using your post to reply. Comments weren’t directed at you but as a big picture given the thread topic. I am really glad you found what works for you!
Great point. That’s why you just should not keep raising testosterone to resolve all symptoms. You may have a different issue
1 Like
How’s it going so far?
Coming up on 6 weeks. Also, I know a lot of people say you need to wait 6, 8, 12 weeks anytime you make a change but that wasn’t true in my case at all. I used steroid plotter to see when my T level would drop to a physiological amount of 3-8mg and sure as shit as soon as I got down there my libido came back.
So far, since reducing dose substantially, i have better energy. Sleep is also better. I do, on occasion feel a tiny bit of libido again.
Gym is better too. It’s still so early yet though. I’ll get bloods at some point and post. Hoping to get levels around 500-600TT.