6 Month Bloodwork

Been lurking for a long time and finally decided to sign up. I have been on TRT for about 6 months now but never went back to the doctor for the follow-up because they screwed me over claiming insurance covered it but they never actually checked my coverage so I’m looking for other options

My beginning blood work followed by my 6 month follow up. I was prescribed 200mg test-c but decided to do every 4 days to avoid a weird AM/PM twice a week thing. this came out to .57ml every 4 days to keep the 1ml(200mg) weekly script. I took 1500iu of hcg weekly in a single injection. The 6 month results were taken the day of (but before) my test and HCG shots. Not taking any kind of AI

LABS1

The single high HCG injection may be increasing your e2. It is usually not recommended to do more that 500 IU in 1 shot. I’ve seen guys do 250 EOD or even 500 2x a week.

You shouldn’t be injecting more HCG than 500iu at once, it will drive estrogen production. Nobody injects HCG once weekly do to the short half life, it’s cleared out of your system long before the end of the week. You should inject HCG at a lower dosage more frequently, a popular choice is 250iu EOD, some hard core people inject 100-150 everyday.

I’m not seeing that SHBG has been measured, troubling as this is used to determine dosage and injection frequency, if low you may find you feel better injecting more frequently. Estrogen levels are high, you may be able to lower it by reducing test dosage and by injecting HCG in smaller doses more frequently, inject a large dosage of HCG is likely driving estrogen production.

No AI may be needed.

How are you feeling?

Good to know about the HCG, im not sure why the doc perscribed it that way. tag on the bottle says:

“HCG (LYO) 12,000 IU injectable”

“Reconstitute with 6ml of bacteriostatic water. Inject 0.75ml or 75 units (1500IU of HCG) subcutaneously every week”

if I’m supposed to be breaking that down into multiple injections its not clear at all on the script and the doc/pharm made no mention of it. The pharm also only gives me a pack of 10 needles so that solidified it in my mind.

Although they do only want me injecting the test once a week but I broke that out to 2x as stated above. I’ll break it out to 3x500 or perhaps just 2x500 taken with the test and see how I feel. It sounds like y’all are saying I could do the same or better with cutting back. I feel sometimes doctors balance convenience and comfort with the top tier treatment plan. A lot of people on TRT might not be comfortable with once a week injections let alone 2-3x so they compromise.

@NH_Watts Feeling great compared to before I started from increased libido, athletic stamina, workout recovery, better sleep patterns, less mood swings and days in the doldrums, also not watching what I’m eating and maintaining weight (pisses my friends off.) Only negative side effect I’ve noticed is emotional, think tearing up when old yeller dies, but it’s laughable nothing like fits of crying into my pillow for no reason.

I realize I’m not utilizing the treatment to the best I can, but this year hasn’t been the best in a lot of areas and I’m super limited on time and traveling way to much. I am getting better at managing the travel plus it’s slowing down so nice exponential curve getting life under control.

Maybe I missed it but are you overweight? Are you training hard? The higher estradiol could explain the ease at crying. If you are 20%+ bodyfat getting that down could help the aromatase conversion of T to E.

:laughing: I wouldn’t call it crying, choked up maybe, maybe.

Right now I’m 5’10 200ish and “average” maybe 20-24% Pics are on the phone so I’ll figure it out later is someone is interested.

Not training more than light once a week, working back up towards 4x. The best I was before my lung surgery a few years ago was 167ish about 14%, long term is 185+ at 10% or less. Turning 29 soon if I didn’t mention that already.

I got calls back form Defy and Prime Body about them taking over the TRT and what not, both of the reps I talked to were confused when I said my script was for 1500iu weekly. I need to write down both of their pricing structures and figure out the better one

Plenty of criers on here so its not much of a big deal. These changes in hormones are a wild ride.

So lung surgery? Are you on additional meds for that? Has your doc talked to you about your high RDW or might that be part of the lung issue?

I am glad that you are feeling better as that is definitely a big part of the picture.

Its way funnier to me than anything else once I catch myself like wait, did I just catch feels?!?!

The lung surgery isn’t a concern any more, some residual issues with scar tissue but nothing that keeps me in pain daily or requires medication or doctors care. They did shove 2 tubes into my pec and another tube up from the bottom underneath the ribcage. They made an incision in side of my pec to get underneath it, rib cage, and trap; all of this on the same side so it obviously took some time to heal left some scars.

I had to look up RDW and I’m still a little confused, is that the average or mean of the red blood cell size between the smallest and largest? Every urine test I’ve ever had in the last 11 years has showed blood in my urine. The most in depth a doctor ever got was to tell me it happens to some people and the cells are incomplete so it’s not a sign of internal bleeding, told me not to worry. Not sure if this would transfer over to blood drawn from a vein or not.

As someone who was probably low T his whole life it is weird now when I dont get emotional. It is taking some getting used to.

As far as I can tell the RDW uses a standard deviation measurement and high indicates a greater amount of large RBCs in your blood stream. Says it may indicate anemia. Have you had your iron tested or have you given blood recently?

Haven’t given blood since Jan/Feb maybe, I gave a double unit or whatever they call it.

Did they test your iron prior to donation? I mean regardless you should probably talk to your doc about it but maybe its not far enough out of range to be of concern.