I went on TRT for a medical condition, hypogonadism.
I use TRT to maintain normal physical and mental functioning. I’d have to take it whether I would be a gym rat or couch potato.
And what is the root cause of the hypogonadism?
When I went to my doctor at 22 years old in 2002 there was no known cause. I never did steroids nor did I have any head or testicular injury, radiation exposure, or anything to damage my pituitary gland. An MRI showed nothing wrong. My LH and FSH were abnormally low and my sperm count was abnormally low too. So my doctor just treated the condition. He’s been great all this time. I have two kids thanks to him.
Weird that nobody found an underlying cause. No genetic conditions?
Nothing. The symptoms creeped up on me and gradually got worse. I’ve told my story on here a few times, but i see you’ve been here since 2017 and likely missed my older posts in the TRT section.
I posed this question to the TRT forum some time ago (Oct 2018).
It’s a feelings game to me, not a numbers game.
Don’t tell me that 100mg is the clinical dose so I should be fine, cause 125mg still gave me low T feelings when getting into the 400s from 80s (hypogonadism).
Same with 250mg.
It wasn’t until I was on 250mg x2 that I felt “normal” again.
I know the risks, accept them, and mitigate them to the best of my ability (eating clean, supplementing with more vitamins just in case, donating blood…).
I’ve been on 500mg for years now. Gains? I think even at my diet they suck. It’s not until I add 250mg (750mg total) or orals to my 500mg base that I see the 5-20 pound gains (dry/wet).
My body composition has drastically changed on 500mg, but my life has changed much more to a higher degree that’s indescribable.
So to you mimicking 100mg is clinical (it’s not per US as they can go to 200mg; and here in Japan it’s 125mg x1 per week or 250mg x1 every 2 weeks), I say it’s bunk.
I’ll pop in around every once in a while to update my TRT (i.e. show you 500mg won’t kill you) protocol and the different orals (and hopefully veterinary grade injectables I can get my hands on) I take to show you it’s bunk—you can have T of 2500~ and be within normal lab ranges (which are considered much lower in Japan compared to other areas) and be perfectly healthy.
Maybe I’m an outlier. Who knows?
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With the 300 a week I’m taking everything has improved. Energy has come back motivation my wife is happy sex is happening again . I just want to be happy ,healthy and to be able to play basketball with my sons but most of all I missed the motivation to work out know I’m hitting hard .im knew to trt and I have a lot of questions but so far I’m loving life again
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Sounds like its working for you mate so keep at it but monitor everything. I’ve been on 250mg test-e weekly for 3 years just because I wanted to maintain my gains, have better recovery, muscle growth etc etc. Been working out for more then 13 years. Eat clean, don’t drink for more then 10yrs and quit smoking pretty much half a year ago. So basically been a heavy smoker since early days. My bad. Have cycled in the past. Now on 250mg weekly I can make impressive gains add muscle mass easy just manipulating my diet as I know my body and training from all those years from learning. Decided to shred bf and been sub 10% bf pretty much since April. Pretty easy to get lean for me as well, so 250mg here works great both ways IMO. Now the problem is i’ve got thick blood and my blood readings are high thus the BP as well. So I’ve decided to cut my dosage 50% and see what happens and in 6-8 weeks will do bloods and share on my thread. Thats the only negative issue I’ve came across so far all else has been great. Gym gains, libido, mood, recovery, you name it. Maybe a bit feeling wired sometimes but that also comes from working night shifts and being hot tempered:) But also as I’m approaching 40 yo BP is an issue I need to sort. So just a few thoughts from my journey and hope I didn’t derailed your thread:)
Regards,
Bel.
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Not at all man thanks for sharing that with me .every time someone has something to bring up it gives me more insight.
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Where is a T value of 2500 normal? Eugonadal men don’t produce this much. None.
Yes its a debatable question. But bear in mind 150mg is a standard TRT dose and 600mg is a standard dose as a part of a cycle
I do once a week but I think everyone is different
I thought that I made it clear that all other lab work is within normal (here, in Japan, where typical “normal” ranges at labs are on the low end of the spectrum in the US, but I do run on the higher end of RBC, mitigated by donations every 56 days) ranges such as, but not limited to, kidney (sometimes, depends on whether I worked out strenuously the previous day or not), liver (unless on an oral cycle), cholesterol, PSA, E2, etc.
The ONLY value, unless again, on liver toxic orals, that is abnormally high is T (Primo is an exception—it will mess with cholesterol, but keep liver functions good).
Whether high T alone, with normal bodily functions elsewhere on paper, has a negative impact on health is unknown.
I plan on ultrasounding my neck to see if there’s any plaque buildup sooner than later, which I’d mainly attribute to orals, and if so consider discontinuation.
That said, I accept the risks involved of injecting.
I take 25mg Aromasin EOD. Adex was harder at dosing in the beginning getting 0.25mg, 0.5mg, and 1mg in various dosing to work for me. Sometimes my E2 would be fine and at others, it’d “crash”, even if the dosing of both adex and T remained consistent, to make my joints hurt or just not feel like getting out of bed.
25mg EOD works for me as well as 12.5mg ED, but, I don’t like the wait at the pharmacy for them to score it (and I don’t want the hassle of scoring and storing myself when I can just pop it out the foil and swallow it down)—just gotta remember to take it on routine.
There are some odd times where I just don’t feel right and can psychologically sense E2 creeping up (indicated by physically puffy nipples, not extremely) where I take an additional 25mg inbetween regular dosing. Lab work can indicate this as well as E2 sometimes jumps above 25, but for the main part stays in the double digits of low teens, my sweet spot).
Likely when a dose provides a supraphysiological T value.
For most the cutoff is likely 100 mg per week. I believe this despite what many online say.
I started out on 200mg and this put me right at ~1,000 peak. I’ve since lowered because of HCT issues. But if I was to drop down to 100mg I would not be much above the level at which I started. (By that I mean a jump from low 300’s to high 500’s would not be worth the time and expense of trt) Everyone responds a little differently.
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So what is the breakpoint for a super physiological level of T? If 100mg’s a week keeps you in a hypogonadal state, your theory is completely false. You’re opinion is not based on any medical data/experience or factual research whatsoever, and is just that, you’re opinion.
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High 500s is mid normal. I don’t know how this wouldn’t treat hypogonadism.
I said most men, not all.
And of course it’s just my belief, just as I believe many on “TRT” don’t seek simply treating hypogonadism and normal function and well being, but rather chase a “feeling” or “optimization.”