So I’m watching these guys and GIL says that there is a majority of men who feel symptom resolution when Free T is somewhere between 25-35 nanograms per deciliter. He says it at this timestamp and also right before it stops:
So I do the conversion because I’m Canadian. Check this out:
So I’m in the HIGH or above ranges but these guys are telling me I’m actually only half the man I should be. LOL WILD! Am I interpreting something wrongly? Seems odd I’m HIGH but only at half point of where most men feel symptom resolution. Does not compute…
I was doing 120mg of Test Cyp 34mg EOD Sub Q when drawing those labs.
Now doing 150mg a week, 42mg EOD.
Ranges are flawed and absurd. Ignore that it is outside the range. In nmol/l I maintain my total t at around 43. This 26.4 is an absurd number for upper limit of the range.
Wow… so my new 150mg a week (OFFICIALLY 120MG BY URO) should be upped to at least 200mg a week to get close to those symptom resolution ranges… I should try that after next bloods and see what kind of difference it makes so I have time to come down before uro sees it on following bloodwork. LOL
Yes, they freak out and they do not understand how these ranges are formed and what do they mean. Do you know 15-20 years ago the upper limit of total t was more than 50nmol/l?
June 1st will be 8 weeks. Yes, I will wait until July 1st before upping. I feel great at 120mg and now 6 weeks at 150mg with no change in “feel”, really. I was just hoping my erections would get better. Maybe it will need the 200mg or TRT just won’t help that part of me. LOL
SO you felt great at 120mg per week but erections are not good even at 150? Maybe everyday dosing was better for you than EOD, your SHBG is quite low? It seems to me upping to 200mg will not be the answer for you, but who knows…
Also bear in mind in for erections there are other components than testosterone it is a bit tricky there…
Nonononononononon… my bad explanation. TRT has worked wonders for my mind and energy etc…but has done NOTHING to help in the bedroom. No worse, no better at any of the levels from 100mg-120mg-150mg. Maybe MY “sweet spot” is 200mg+ too…
YEah, I’m prepared for TRT just not being the answer for the bedroom stuff. Nothing to lose trying but it was an eye opener hearing this “sweet spot” being so much higher than upper range from medical standards. I’m barely haly way to it despite being flagged in high range!. Maybe that’s the key… maybe not, but I gotta try.
Free T ‘normal’ ranges are usually age-adjusted because Free T is dependent on both Total T and SHBG. Total T is usually not age-adjusted, but SHBG is. Personally, I think age-ajusted ranges for T and SHBG is a bunch of BS. That is, when docs interpret these ranges to say that you need to be within your age group.
Hell, I’ll be 63 years old in a few weeks. Look around you. Do you want to look and act like the ‘normal’ 63 year old man? My approach is that you need to approach TRT with the attitude of titrating your dose to where you feel your best and then I tack on to this not to exceed the upper bound of a ‘normal’ 20-30 year old guy. That part of my interpretation may be controversial in this group, but none of us have the corner on truth for TRT since there is little actual research behind modern day practices.
As it happens, I’ve done this experiment to find the optimal dose at which I feel my best and have plotted the results against Free T levels. It happens that I feel my best around the upper bound of the 20-29 year old group, so that is my target. based on participation in several forums over the last 8 years, I think a log of guys (and their docs) make two crucial mistakes with TRT:
They start at a low dose and never optimize for complete symptom abatement. I was in that camp for about the first 5 years of my TRT. Stuck around 100 mg/week in an E3D protocol. Symptoms were much improved from pre-TRT, but not optimized.
They jump to the high end of the TRT range (usually around 200 mg/week) often without their docs knowledge, because of voices in these forums. They never take the time to see if they could have the same symptom relief at a lower dose with fewer side-effects. Yes TRT does have side-effects.
Here’s a graph of a dose-response experiment I carried out on myself to optimize my TRT dose. I’ve settled on a dose somewhere between 125 and 140 mg/week in either an E3D or E2D protocol. I feel that all of my lo T symptoms are fully abated in this range and it puts me near the range of the upper bound for Free T for a 20-29 year old male. Do I feel better with higher doses? Yes, to a certain extent, but it is not symptom abatement. I feel better because I recover faster from exercise and am able to push weights and cardio to more intense levels. Is this TRT or is this anabolic steroid use? I would argue the latter (I know controversial in this forum).
Exactly. My free T came in at 18.5 ng/dL. It’s a little above the range (35.0 - 155.0 pg/mL) and my doctor has noted it but not otherwise made a big deal out of it. The only things that he is monitoring closely are my hemoglobin and hematocrit which are on the high end but still within range. But I also live at 6700-ft altitude and they were relatively high to begin with even before I started TRT. But if were to go in and tell him that I’d like my FT to be at 25-30 ng/dL because that’s what the people on the Internet said, I can’t imagine that he’d just say, “Sure, here you go, let me increase your dose.”
But I have achieved symptom resolution at that level. The only thing that I wonder about is that I’ve seen comments from a few people who have mentioned that they felt good at a level like that but felt GREAT at 25-30. Of course I’d like to feel GREAT too. Whatever that means. LOL And I really don’t know what that means to tell the truth. I’m about to turn 58 in a few days but feel and perform like I did in my late 20s - 30s. Nothing wrong with that. But then again, I don’t have the libido or erectile performance that I had in my teens - mid-20s. Is that achievable? I don’t know. One guy on here commented once that it’s testosterone, not a time machine. LOL But who knows what might be achievable with some experimentation? I’m saving up my extra T to try an increased dose for a couple of months just to see what it feels like.
Edit: And would it be a good thing to feel like a teenager again anyway? I remember watching an episode of Law and Order: SVU where this older guy with a rich wife ended up murdering her because he had discovered that the combination of Viagra, ecstasy, and hookers made him feel like a teenager again but his wife found out and cut off his finances. Wouldn’t want that to happen. LOL
