5 Weeks TRT Daily SubQ. Levels Very High, Don't Feel Good at All

I started out with daily subQ at 25mg/day. For about 10 days or so at the beginning I felt amazing. Clarity of mind for the first time in my life, super high energy, crazy libido. Hard to believe that placebo would have me going from zero libido to having aggressive sex 4 hours/day, but who knows…

After that initial short period it started going down quickly and I got to the point where I felt truly awful, depressed like never before in my life and borderline desperate. It has stabilized a bit now but I still feel worse than before starting TRT.

I assumed subQ wasn’t working, so I got tested a few days ago and my numbers came back very high:

TT (MS): 1700 ng/dL (range: 250-1100).
FT (Dialysis): 300 pg/mL (range: 35-155).
E2 (UltraSensitive): 42 (range: <29)

Is it possible I’m too high to feel good? I’m pretty sure I don’t want to stay this high long term for health reasons but shouldn’t I at least feel good this high?

I don’t have any apparent side effects. I sleep well, no acne, heart beat slow and steady. I just feel completely unmotivated and depressed all day long. No drive to do anything, I don’t even want to work out anymore for the first time in 5 years.

You are going to get different answers depending on who you talk to, but some guys just don’t do well with very high testosterone.

You have 1 week to go until hormone levels stabilize, change the dosage now and hormones will be in flux for another 6 weeks.

It was a mistake to do labs before 6 weeks had elapsed because your labs won’t reflect where your levels will be in another week since your hormone levels are in flux.

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Seems like you coasted through a good spot and went too high. If i were you, i’d just lower dose to something like.20mg/day and reassess with bloods after 6 weeks. Although you COULD try a higher dose as well, like 30mg/day.

It’s all a guessing game and you’re basically your own guinea pig right now.

It’s also important to look at the TT;E2 ratio, which is said to be best when at about 16-20. Yours is 40. You’d either need to get your E2 up (keeping TT same) or TT down (keeping E2 same). By increasing the time between injections may help you get more of an E2 spike. You’d need to increase dose a bit.

Welcome to TRT and the craziness it is.

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I think you should give it 3 more weeks before you change anything.

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I’d say give it 3 more weeks as well since you’re already 6 weeks in. See what happens. If no improvements then, then yeah I’d lower dose personally.

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“Welcome to TRT and the craziness it is”. Haha thanks, I’m starting to see that.

You’re right, it seems like I passed the sweet spot. What confused me I think was that I figured my natural production was dying during that time and that’s why I started feeling bad. Turns out I might’ve just overshot my optimal mental zone by a lot.

Yeah that’s the plan I think at this point. Seems like I probably overshot my sweet spot.

I see no point in waiting for me it is pretty clear you were fine on lower levels. And anyway very few guys need 1700 total t.
The question is to calculate how much to lower the dose.
Whether to go to 20mg or 22.5

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That’s what I think also but everyone keeps telling me I need to wait 6-8 weeks every time I change my protocol by 20mg/week.

I think I could get a good sense for how close I am to my optimal spot faster than that, especially with daily injections, but of course I can’t be sure.

How long do you think it would take to tell whether a new level is better than the previous? I’m thinking of slowly going down every 7-10 days, maybe 10-20mg/week at a time (but on daily injections), until I reach a level where I feel best.

So for ex I’m at 25mg/day right now. Maybe try 23mg/day for 7-10 days, then 21mg/day for 7-10 days, then 19mg/day for 7-10 days, etc…

There is ALSO the possibility that you were adding that amount over and above your natural production and felt great. When your natural production started to tank you felt worse because your levels dropped.

It’s ‘possible’. Just keep that as a possibility in your mind while troubleshooting.

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It’s actually the first thing I thought about, because my TT natural was around 1000ng/dL. The problem is that around the same time my natural production was tanking, the daily doses of exogenous Test reached their maximum according to steroidplotter.com, so it’s either what you said or I’m too high.

That’s why I got tested to have some numbers, but with TT at 1700 and FT at double the range, is it really possible I’m too low to feel even slightly good?

One thing I noticed and someone else pointed out is that my E2 seems low in relation to my TT, which is why I’m considering moving to IM instead of SubQ, maybe raise my E2 a bit.

To complicate things, my SHBG is at 80, so maybe less frequent injections would help me also.

With SHBG at 80, I would try twice weekly injections IM

If you’d be willing to entertain my hunch…stick with your same weekly dose and then see what impact it has. I’ve been known to be right a few times :wink:

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Thanks for the advice, Danny. I learned a lot from you and Steven on the TRT and hormone optimization channel and I know you know your stuff, so I’ll try 2x/week IM.

Does shallow IM work? I was going to use 29G 1/2’’ insulin syringes alternating delts.

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If you’re fairly lean it should be fine. Please let me know how it turns out. I always like to know if my hunch was right or wrong. It’s how I learn!

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I’m around 11-12% BF, everything else is in check (diet, sleep, exercise).

I’ll definitely let you know. I’m not going to stop tweaking this until I find that zone again where I felt amazing.

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Since you are changing this one variable (frequency) don’t change anything else. No supplement changes… Nothing. Ok? Test one thing at a time.

That’s what I’m doing. I’m a scientist by training so it’s an easy mindset to embrace :slight_smile:

One question actually. How long should I give it before deciding to move on to another change of variable? Everyone keeps saying 6-8 weeks but that seems really long.

If you’re not changing weekly dose and just frequency… Bare minimum 4 weeks

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I’ll go with that and let you know what happens. Thanks again.

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