Galgenstrick’s TRT Log

I totally thought about asking after the fact. I am not that great at when it comes to conflict, especially when I’m at the mercy of the other person. I know… it’s something I’ve been working on my whole life. I know I have resources here and a lot of you guys would recommend a new doctor, so I’m going to keep that in my back pocket.

1 Like

@dextermorgan I sent you another email today, let me know if you got it. Thanks for taking the time to help!

Responded

Thank you, sir! Keep in touch!

Quick update:

I’ve officially switched doctors and am now on 200mg test-c + 20mg test-e blend per week, injecting EOD. I’ve been on that dose for 1.5 weeks now.

I’ve been pretty tired after 3pm most days and libido has decreased slightly. I’m going to ride that out and hope that those issues go away.

I’ve also been working out for one month now. Adding weight to every lift since I started. A lot of that is regaining strength I had before. It does seem that the weight that I can add to the bar is starting to slow down already, which is pretty unfortunate because I’m only a month in and not near the strength I had previously. A month is much too soon to tell anything conclusively.

Furthermore, I significantly cleaned up my diet and I only started tracking my weight this week, so it could be that I’m not eating enough calories. Currently I’m at exactly 200lbs, so I’ll continue what I’m doing and see what happens with my weight.

1 Like

Thanks for the update. Hope the new dosing works well for you.

Fatigue after 3pm has not gone away, and I think I know why now. On the bright side, libido is back! I got a new set of labs to see if anything was going on:

Total T: 1258 (250-1100)
Free T: 356.3 (35-155)
DHEAS: 264 (106-464)
TSH: 7.69 (0.4-4.5)
FT3: 2.9 (2.3-4.2)
FT4: 1.1 (0.8-1.8)

Obviously my thyroid went to shit. I believe this is one or more of a few things:

I started eating breakfast again
I started taking magnesium supplements
I started drinking green tea

My thyroid has been rock solid for the past several years on my current dose of levothyroxine (I have diagnosed Hashimoto’s, if I didn’t mention that previously). But I didn’t take supplements, I was intermittent fasting, and didn’t drink caffeine.

I’ll have to think or get advice on what to do about it. I will also email my PCP.

I took an extra 50mcg levo last night to see if that helps over the next few days.

—————

Training has been going great. I’ve been adding weight to the bar every workout. I’ve also been eating at maintenance, I’ve sat at 200lbs for the last 2 months, eating somewhere in the 3000-3500 calorie range. I will probably make a training log on the forums pretty soon.

Wanted to update my log.

I stopped the magnesium, caffeine and eating early to see if that would fix my thyroid. It did not. So I am just about certain it is due to the higher T levels.

I emailed my doc yesterday for an increase in levothyroxine dose, and I will also slowly taper down on my TRT dose. Starting 200mg/week today and will stick with that for 6-8 weeks and get everything checked again at that point.

Well, I’ve went to the dark side. Maybe temporarily. I’ve had pretty uncontrollable irritability the last several weeks (before I knew I had thyroid issues). My work stress has been pretty high and there is no sign of the boss easing up on packing my schedule with an impossible amount of work.

My thyroid was increased 2 weeks ago from 125mcg to 137mcg and it’s been 6 weeks since increasing my T dose.

I am fairly certain the irritability is a combination of thyroid and too much T (although I haven’t heard of many guys having that issue).

So getting back to me going to the dark side. I decided that before I attempt to lower my T dose I would do a trial of Adex. Yes, I know, “it’s poison”, and “you don’t need it”. Maybe I’m being naive, maybe not. All I know is I’m pissed off all the time, libido is not as good as it had been on 150mg Test-c, and I am retaining a decent amount of water. As well as the fact that many TRT patients are successfully taking the drug.

I am going to take 0.25mg / week in one dose and see how I feel. If that fails me. I will take a stepwise approach to lowering my T dose, and removing the Adex.

Work stress got me drinking last night. A bit more than I realized. Hangover today. Time to get my shit together and get back to my goals. I need to find a better way to manage work stress, or it’s going to start killing my gains.

1 Like

I wanted to pop in and say that the Arimidex trial is going very well. Libido is probably up 2-3x. Pretty close to where it was when I was on 150mg/week test C which was borderline too high. I’m pretty happy with the results. I know it still early on, so I’ll keep at it for a little while and keep the log updated.

For my own future reference, I’m currently on 200mg/week Test-C with 0.25mg/week arimidex.

1 Like

Another week and libido is pure insanity again. Definitely sticking with the 0.25mg/week Adex for now. Will get blood done sometime in the next few months and evaluate.

Also down about 5lbs since I Added it. Some of that is fat; I’ve been strict on my calories. And some of that is definitely water. I’d say about half and half.

1 Like

I got a few new blood tests. Results should be in soon.

I did get my TSH checked again after 4 months on my new thyroid dose of 137mcg. TSH came back very high again. 8.2 (0.4-4.5).

I am wondering if the increased testosterone is affecting the absorption of the thyroid hormones.

@highpull @unreal24278 any insight on this?

I just read this article

(Role of Estrogen in Thyroid Function and Growth Regulation )

which stated the following

“ Estrogen increases thyroxine binding globulin, a protein that binds to T3, making it partially inactive. This results in high TSH, low T3, and falsely increased total T4 levels.”

I’m wondering if that’s my issue. It seems the higher my TRT dose, the worse my TSH becomes and the more replacement hormone I need. Makes sense that this is mostly just an issue for Hashimoto’s patients since their thyroids can’t pick up the slack.

However, I did start an AI recently which should mitigate that problem. But perhaps I need more and/or more thyroid hormone.

I have an ultra sensitive E2 test pending with the lab, so I should have that very soon.

I can’t say I’ve seen that. Maybe the opposite, especially in women, often seeing thyroid improve with HRT. It’s not unusual for me to hold off on thyroid with new patients, only to see it a non issue once testosterone, and estrogen increase and that is both men and women.

I’m wondering if it’s specific to Hashimoto’s. If estrogen increases thyroxine binding globulin, then more T3 needs to get pumped out by the thyroid. In a normal person, that’s no big deal, but someone with a diseased thyroid, it’s not able to meet the extra demand.

Does that hypothesis make sense?

I could test it by increasing arimidex only and checking my thyroid again in 4 weeks. However, I would only want to do that if my E2 is pretty high.

Alternatively, I can just add more thyroid hormone until my levels are stable again, but I wouldn’t learn anything from that.

I does, but I don’t think E2 is high enough in men to make much difference. But, I don’t know for certain. Poor thyroid function seems to be much more prevalent with menopausal women. However, menopausal women is what I see a lot of in the office.

I would favor the last option mentioned. Yes, it is interesting, but who cares why as long as it’s fixed and you’re doing well?

1 Like

Yesterday I upped my AI dose to 0.25mg twice a week to see how I tolerate it. Monday I will be starting a 12 week blast of 500mg/week Test.

Got pre-cycle blood tests and everything looks good. LDL was slightly elevated, so I will check that again mid cycle to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.

After cycle I will be going back to 140ish mg Test C with no AI, only because I felt about the same as 200mg + AI. I would rather bank up the testosterone for the future if it makes no difference to how I feel.

Last few days back acne has been bad. Weird the Adex would do this, but won’t rule it out.

I’ve been using a benzylperoxide face wash on my back with a fat people scrubber on a stick thing. Seems to be helping, mine has gotten a lot better the last few weeks.