Ever Heard This?

I’ve been on TRT for a while, I started off with Testim, then Androgel as I became resistant and allergic to them I eventually ended up on 200/2week which I split up to 100mg/week. There was no AI or HCQ prescribed to go with it. Eventually I was bmped up to 300/2weeks which I split up to 150/week. However, that ended up putting me at TT 1092 and another time TT 1137. So I was backed down to 100mg/week. However this didnt seem like enough and my TT was in the 450 range the day before my before my next shot. Today I went to a new doc who also doesnt believe in AI or HCG and claims that it isnt necessary.

He believes I should blast 200mg/week for 8 weeks then do bloodwork to see how my body responded. He believes blasting it will get my body better able to handle the testosterone at the receptor level. I also have thyroid and vitamin D issues, but both of those are in the normal range now. He claims he has done this with all of his patients and seen excellent results. He says most have to come down to a lower dosage per week, but that the blasting sets up the body for a lower dosage with less conversion. He believe HCG can be avoided by monitoring LH and that LH will determine whether or not my dosage comes down to prevent atrophy if I so desire. It sounds completely out there compared to what I’ve read here, but his theories do sound quite interesting. What do you guys think?

[quote]go2failure wrote:
I’ve been on TRT for a while, I started off with Testim, then Androgel as I became resistant and allergic to them I eventually ended up on 200/2week which I split up to 100mg/week. There was no AI or HCQ prescribed to go with it. Eventually I was bmped up to 300/2weeks which I split up to 150/week. However, that ended up putting me at TT 1092 and another time TT 1137. So I was backed down to 100mg/week. However this didnt seem like enough and my TT was in the 450 range the day before my before my next shot. Today I went to a new doc who also doesnt believe in AI or HCG and claims that it isnt necessary.

He believes I should blast 200mg/week for 8 weeks then do bloodwork to see how my body responded. He believes blasting it will get my body better able to handle the testosterone at the receptor level. I also have thyroid and vitamin D issues, but both of those are in the normal range now. He claims he has done this with all of his patients and seen excellent results. He says most have to come down to a lower dosage per week, but that the blasting sets up the body for a lower dosage with less conversion. He believe HCG can be avoided by monitoring LH and that LH will determine whether or not my dosage comes down to prevent atrophy if I so desire. It sounds completely out there compared to what I’ve read here, but his theories do sound quite interesting. What do you guys think?[/quote]

When you did the 150mg a week did you just do 1 injection of 150mg? Or did you split the 150mg into multiple injections throughout the week?

If just 1 injection you might have benefited from splitting it up further. Say 75mg on a Tuesday and another 75mg on Friday. Or you could inject 50mg 3x weekly.

My understanding of LH is that it should shut down once you start injecting exogenous testosterone. So I am not sure what he wants to monitor in regards to LH when it should go down to 0. If you would want HCG you would probably best judge that by symptoms and what is happening with the boys in terms of size.

He does not believe in AI’s is a little closed minded. So if your E2 would happen to go through the roof how would he control it if he does not believe in AI’s? Maybe you should ask him that question to see what he says.

If you don’t need an AI that is fair enough, but if someone needs and AI why not use it.

What are you thyroid numbers? TSH Ft3 Ft4?

Don’t take his word for it, get the results in hand and check yourself.

ditto above

[quote]PureChance wrote:
ditto above[/quote]

Basically I started at 200/2week which I split into 100mg/week and eventually 50mg 2 times a week. That was not enough to put me into the upper normal. So the endo increased me to 300mg/2 weeks which I took as 150mg/week for a while then tried at 75mg 2 times per week. That barely put me out of the normal range 2 days after injection. But, during that time I was feeling great and making great progress in the gym. However, I was having probs with erections.

One thing I have personally learned is that the 100mg and 150mg shots definitely make the erection probs go away for me. I dont know why, its the same total dose of medicine!? 50mgX2/week doesnt work as well. The only prob with 100mg/week is that I break out and feel lethargic by the end of the week. With the 150mg/week or 75mgX2/week, I felt much better as far as energy.

So with 200mg, I have a feeling I’m going to have some serious wood and potential gains in the gym, but probably more acne towards the end of the week like with the 150mg.

I’m on synthroid 100mcg for thyroid and have a 2.0 TSH, 3.3 T3, and a 1.1 T4

As far as the LH his reasoning was to monitor LH to determine whether atrophy is occuring and to adjust the dosage accordingly. He believes the T levels should be normal from shot to shot but with T levels going high norm to mid norm. As far as estrogen, he explain to me that the body is going to metabolize/aromatize what it feels it should to keep the testosterone where it thinks it should be. After 8 weeks he’s going to do a complete blood panel. What shocked me is he said that was nothing I could do about the estrogen lol. I’m thinking he feels that his method does not require it, same for HCG. In my case though, as long as I dont grow bitch tits, I’m happy. I’m done having kids and for some reason even when I was on 150mg I was still shooting massive loads and 1.5 years after starting TRT I still have normal testicular volume per my PCM. They do seem the same size.

This new doctor also thinks I may have been deficient most of my life based on how I described my past. He says he has had people get taller in their thities after doing 200mg/week for 8 weeks. I was like WTF? As a regional urologist he said he sees 50 new patients a month on top of his returners. And has had 100’s on TRT now. I don’t know why but something inside me says just try the 8 weeks, at the very least it’ll be a small 8 week cycle LOL, and if the levels are high I will get it lowered some.

alrighty then… interesting doc you have there… kind of scary…

PLEASE go read The Controversy of T4-only meds like Synthroid, Levothyroxine, etc. - Stop The Thyroid Madness and 18 Summaries of Things We Have Learned - Stop The Thyroid Madness

external T will shut down your LH/FSH… he is trying to balance your T dose based on those numbers???

at least he is not testing your muscle supplement resistance where a doc holds vitamins to your belly button while pushing down on your arm to see if it is harmful or not (like one of my docs tried)… but he does sounds like he is a bit out there with his ideas… be careful… he can be useful because he thinks out of the box, but some of his ideas are… odd…

[quote]go2failure wrote:

One thing I have personally learned is that the 100mg and 150mg shots definitely make the erection probs go away for me. I dont know why, its the same total dose of medicine!? 50mgX2/week doesnt work as well. The only prob with 100mg/week is that I break out and feel lethargic by the end of the week. With the 150mg/week or 75mgX2/week, I felt much better as far as energy.

[/quote]

One of our other members here (clastrophe, which I misspelled but you can figure it out) has noted the exact same thing. He had great results when he DIDNT break it up into multiple does per week, but also experienced more sides. He just didn’t feel right when he divided the doses up, even though weekly total was the same.

In theory, I like what your doctor is doing. Technically, your LH should track you T levels and decrease when you are just over your body’s T threshold. Meaning as you reach a certain point with exogenous T, this should kick in with negative feedback and suppress your LH. Exogenous T alone does not shut down LH, it is reaching past your body’s set point that does.

The problem with this in practice is that guys that have been living with Low T for a while have a highly sensitive HPTA and will shut down LH before optimal T levels are reached. I suspect this can be mitigated by first addressing adrenal and thyroid production lines, as chilln on Crisler’s forum advocates, but I have not seen a single solitary person ever successfully implement this approach. It seems to be too much of a moving target.

In short, your doctor is a good beginning chess player. Probably can make a great move to start with good justifcation for it, but is only able to scratch the surface and doesn’t peel back the onion far enough to figure out why his genius move was actually terrible and he just got played.

Find a new doc.

[quote]VTBalla34 wrote:

One of our other members here (clastrophe, which I misspelled but you can figure it out) has noted the exact same thing. He had great results when he DIDNT break it up into multiple does per week, but also experienced more sides. He just didn’t feel right when he divided the doses up, even though weekly total was the same.

In theory, I like what your doctor is doing. Technically, your LH should track you T levels and decrease when you are just over your body’s T threshold. Meaning as you reach a certain point with exogenous T, this should kick in with negative feedback and suppress your LH. Exogenous T alone does not shut down LH, it is reaching past your body’s set point that does.

The problem with this in practice is that guys that have been living with Low T for a while have a highly sensitive HPTA and will shut down LH before optimal T levels are reached. I suspect this can be mitigated by first addressing adrenal and thyroid production lines, as chilln on Crisler’s forum advocates, but I have not seen a single solitary person ever successfully implement this approach. It seems to be too much of a moving target.

In short, your doctor is a good beginning chess player. Probably can make a great move to start with good justifcation for it, but is only able to scratch the surface and doesn’t peel back the onion far enough to figure out why his genius move was actually terrible and he just got played.

Find a new doc.
[/quote]

Thanks for the headsup on the other member VT. Yeah my mind = incinerated over why that would be. Doing X2 weekly is the same dosage and usually less estrogen conversion, but the erections arent as full or hard with any shot below 100mg. 150mg shots are stronger in that regard, so I’m thinking 200mg will be better, but closer to that diminishing return point. Although I’d prefer not to get the shoulder, upper back, and upper arm acne the last 2 days before a shot.

In addition to obviously carrying more muscle mass, I noticed when I was on 150mg/week I was leaner, I felt like I had plenty of energy, and the sleep I get on higher doses of T was great!

so you are erection quality is consistent over the entire week from the day after the shot till the day before the next shot? or is it just good the 3 days after the weekly shot when you levels are peaking possibly above ideal levels?

I was about the disagree with VT when I read the first half of his post, but then liked how he tied in the adrenal issues/sensitivity issues that I completely agree with and balanced it out nicely.

[quote]PureChance wrote:
so you are erection quality is consistent over the entire week from the day after the shot till the day before the next shot? or is it just good the 3 days after the weekly shot when you levels are peaking possibly above ideal levels?

I was about the disagree with VT when I read the first half of his post, but then liked how he tied in the adrenal issues/sensitivity issues that I completely agree with and balanced it out nicely.[/quote]

It gets better by the end of second day, then 3rd and 4th day is good. After 4th day it goes down hill. The most notable improvements are with the bigger shots.

ok, so erection quality is only good when your levels peak, which means you need to inject more T more frequently, but with your thyroid (and possible cortisol issues), too much T will result in too much E2 (which can easily kill your libido and erections).

you really need to get your thyroid and andrenals fixed first in order to support more T, then maybe increase your dosage to 100mg E3D.

did you read any of the information on the stopthethyroidmadness website?

[quote]PureChance wrote:
ok, so erection quality is only good when your levels peak, which means you need to inject more T more frequently, but with your thyroid (and possible cortisol issues), too much T will result in too much E2 (which can easily kill your libido and erections).

you really need to get your thyroid and andrenals fixed first in order to support more T, then maybe increase your dosage to 100mg E3D.

did you read any of the information on the stopthethyroidmadness website?[/quote]

The link I saw recommended armour thyroid medication. My endo has mentioned this armour as a medication before, but shunned getting tested for cortisol. Are you on this yourself? Did you have cortisol probs?

The urologist doc offered test prop which he said would be injected every 3 days. Would that be a better T ester or should I stick with enanthate. Cypionate gives me a bad headache when I inject it and I dont know why, so thats why I’m on enanthate.

I have been on almost everything, and yes I am currently taking cortisol (trying 10mg Sustained Release before bed to try and boost my morning values).

i was on armour then T3 only.

I think
armour > T4 only
T3 only possibly > Armour

Ethan vs Cyp should not make that much of a difference, but everyone is different and it should not hurt to try.

[quote]PureChance wrote:
I have been on almost everything, and yes I am currently taking cortisol (trying 10mg Sustained Release before bed to try and boost my morning values).

i was on armour then T3 only.

I think
armour > T4 only
T3 only possibly > Armour

Ethan vs Cyp should not make that much of a difference, but everyone is different and it should not hurt to try.[/quote]

What about test prop every 3 days per my new doc’s suggestion? is prop better than those two?

BTW, what made you swap from armour to t3 only? how did you know to do so?

My T3 levels are generall 1-2 tenths away from the edge of the high end with T4 supplementation although that could be reverse T3?

Do you feel better on the cortisol and how long does it take to start seeing a difference on it?

[quote]go2failure wrote:

[quote]PureChance wrote:
I have been on almost everything, and yes I am currently taking cortisol (trying 10mg Sustained Release before bed to try and boost my morning values).

i was on armour then T3 only.

I think
armour > T4 only
T3 only possibly > Armour

Ethan vs Cyp should not make that much of a difference, but everyone is different and it should not hurt to try.[/quote]

What about test prop every 3 days per my new doc’s suggestion? is prop better than those two?

BTW, what made you swap from armour to t3 only? how did you know to do so?

My T3 levels are generall 1-2 tenths away from the edge of the high end with T4 supplementation although that could be reverse T3?

Do you feel better on the cortisol and how long does it take to start seeing a difference on it?[/quote]

Using Propionate for TRT is not usually the test of choice. It has a very short half life I think 2 days.

So if you did want to use propionate you would have to inject every 2nd day at least or better yet daily to be quite frank. Your doctors suggestion of every 3rd day would not cut it I don’t think.

[quote]go2failure wrote:

[quote]PureChance wrote:
I have been on almost everything, and yes I am currently taking cortisol (trying 10mg Sustained Release before bed to try and boost my morning values).

i was on armour then T3 only.

I think
armour > T4 only
T3 only possibly > Armour

Ethan vs Cyp should not make that much of a difference, but everyone is different and it should not hurt to try.[/quote]

What about test prop every 3 days per my new doc’s suggestion? is prop better than those two?

BTW, what made you swap from armour to t3 only? how did you know to do so?

My T3 levels are generall 1-2 tenths away from the edge of the high end with T4 supplementation although that could be reverse T3?

Do you feel better on the cortisol and how long does it take to start seeing a difference on it?[/quote]

Using Propionate for TRT is not usually the test of choice. It has a very short half life I think 2 days.

So if you did want to use propionate you would have to inject every 2nd day at least or better yet daily to be quite frank. Your doctors suggestion of every 3rd day would not cut it I don’t think.

[quote]PureChance wrote:

at least he is not testing your muscle supplement resistance where a doc holds vitamins to your belly button while pushing down on your arm to see if it is harmful or not (like one of my docs tried).[/quote]
Sorry, what? Can you expand that? I know it has shit to do with the topic but I just have to get wtf he was doing.

[quote]Redknee wrote:

[quote]PureChance wrote:

at least he is not testing your muscle supplement resistance where a doc holds vitamins to your belly button while pushing down on your arm to see if it is harmful or not (like one of my docs tried).[/quote]
Sorry, what? Can you expand that? I know it has shit to do with the topic but I just have to get wtf he was doing.
[/quote]

LOL

Bump–would like to see Purechance’s answers to my questions above. Thanks!

I have a huge thread “My HRT Journey (so far)” that documents most of it.

i was on armour, forgot to refill my prescription, stopped armour - didn’t feel any different.
got tests results back from 5 days before I stopped, and found that my RT3 was sky high because my body could not convert or use all of the extra T4.

RT3 is its own thing. It interferes with and blocks your T3 from working. So your test can show plenty of FT3, but it is meaningless because if you have too much RT3 your system can’t use the FT3.

I went on T3 (up to 30mcg I think maybe more) + HydroCortisone (up to 25mg I think) to clear my system, it worked, and I felt better, had more energy, less stress, less cold, but once cleared the Rt3 I couldn’t find the right balance and had to cut back on everything.

the muscle resistance thing was weird. here is the first site that pulled up when I googled muscle resistance vitamin testing. I am sure there are plenty of others. Page Redirection

you should also read thyroid-rt3.com
that site has some great information on adrenals and thyroid issues.

[quote]PureChance wrote:
I have a huge thread “My HRT Journey (so far)” that documents most of it.

i was on armour, forgot to refill my prescription, stopped armour - didn’t feel any different.
got tests results back from 5 days before I stopped, and found that my RT3 was sky high because my body could not convert or use all of the extra T4.

RT3 is its own thing. It interferes with and blocks your T3 from working. So your test can show plenty of FT3, but it is meaningless because if you have too much RT3 your system can’t use the FT3.

I went on T3 (up to 30mcg I think maybe more) + HydroCortisone (up to 25mg I think) to clear my system, it worked, and I felt better, had more energy, less stress, less cold, but once cleared the Rt3 I couldn’t find the right balance and had to cut back on everything.

the muscle resistance thing was weird. here is the first site that pulled up when I googled muscle resistance vitamin testing. I am sure there are plenty of others. Page Redirection

you should also read thyroid-rt3.com
that site has some great information on adrenals and thyroid issues.[/quote]

RT3 has a test, interesting. So, based on what you’ve told me it seems to me your adrenals became fatigued and messed up the inner workings of your metabolism and once you healed your adrenals, it threw off what you needed for thyroid meds. Is it possible you dont need thyroid meds now and just need to monitor adrenal fatigue?