Hombre's TRT Log: 34, Low E2, Normal SHBG, Normal LH

Pharma / TRT Testosterone Replacement
1

Sep 11, Tue:

Height: 6ft (Lifetime underweight, never on any psych meds)

Motivation (libido mainly): tried cialis Nov 2017 after a year long break and it wasn’t working the same, sudden weak erections during porn use Feb 2018 (after 6 years of minimal porn use, nofap with relapses for 6 years), 10% erection during sex for the first time last day of June 2018.

Short history:
Been tracking my TT since 2015 (360, 260) when my libido started dropping, dropped libido allowed me for the first time since 2012 to go more than 60+ days without porn use (115 days, no sex, “hardmode”). Same year finally started having sex.
Since 2012 I believed my low libido and any light ED issues were due to years of daily porn use since 2003 or so. Only this June 2018 I discovered the importance of E2 levels (even though I started tracking E2 in 2016).

Lab Work (Labcorp)

labresults2
labresults2630×909 85.5 KB

Other testing:

  • Salivary cortisol: low noon and low 4pm levels
  • Low waking and 3pm body temps
  • Both bilateral varicocele (ultrasound)
  • Good performance on glucose load test (two hour)
  • Mild obstructive apnea [borderline moderate] (AHI = 14) [due to enlarged tonsils likely]

Prescribed protocol (Dr. Saya, Defy):
Cloming was not recommended due to low success rate in the presence of current (normal) LH levels.

  • Pregnenolone/DHEA cream to raise noon cortisol (energy) and improve thyroid performance as a result (high reverse T3)
  • Test Cyp 44 mg 3 times a week (higher frequency due to normal SHBG that is expected to go down)
  • HCG 300 IU 3 times a week
  • L-Tyrosine 500mg twice daily for dopamine increase (motivation)
  • No AI

Results so far:
Been taking L-Tyrosine for almost 14 days and applying Pregnenolone/DHEA cream for the last 6 days (delaying starting HCG / Test Cyp injection to asses reaction to Pregnenolone first):
no noticeable increase in motivation or libido, no noticeable side-effects either. Although the weekend of starting L-Tyrosine started again approaching women in public (moderate anxiety), might be due to being away from porn finally for 30+ days at that time.

Plans:
To start Test Cyp / HCG any other day.

2

Tue 9/11, I took a shot of HCG 300 IU (0.3 ml) (29g / 1/2" / 0.3cc syringe) into the left delt: first time shooting anything into the delt (I had experience doing melanotan 2 subq injections before, and some painful antibiotics into upper glutes IM).

Darted it straight in, it went without any pain, like into a butter (stomach fat subq with 31g were much more noticeable, although it was while doing them slow). 1/2" needle for the delt probably does shallow IM rather then subQ, the needle tries to pop out and is painful somewhere deep at the tip when holding it all the way in.

Results: weird feeling in the injection side of the neck after the injection. no morning wood yet, deadlifts felt easier in the morning, maybe a bit more energy, probably placebo. HCG pregnancy strips didn’t show me as pregnant (but just discovered that HCG pregnancy strips only detect HCG levels at concentrations of 10,000 IU per ml, and probably that’s for HCG in a vial, not in urine hehe). No any adverse reactions.

TODO : should research reconstituting HCG at a higher concentration in the future, 0.3 ml is a lot of liquid (got used to shooting melanotan 2 at only 5-6 units per shot…)

4

Wed 9/12 8pm. First testosterone cypionate shot. 25g 5/18" needle from Defy. 0.22ml.
Upper thigh area, quads. Darted the needle straight in, not enough force, only half in. Probably it didn’t penetrate the muscle, so I was left to experience slow puncturing of muscle tissues with a seemingly loud pop. No really any pain after the injection (easier than delts hcg), no blood.

Results: waking up with some chub, and somewhat horny, no soreness (deadlifted 24 hours earlier and only ate 2100 Cals). Probably all placebo, since only 1mg of Test Cyp is expected to have been released since the injection.

TODO: either try subq or try ventrogluteal IM (some reading indicated that dorsogluteal IM is a stone age and that quads is a high risk area). Try Air-Lock or Z-tag injection techniques. Probably should switch to Tue / Thu / Sat evenings injection schedule, so I can do blood tests on Tue or Thu morning, enough time afar from injections.

Found some excel spreadsheet to do some calculations based on half-lifes. Struggling to find a correct half-life of Test Cyp: 6, 7 or 8 days???

Based on 8-day half-life, Calculations:
testcyp2

5

Apparently a terminal half life of a test cypionate is only 5 days, so the spreadsheet has to be recalculated.

Thu 13/09 Test Cyp. 31g 5/18" 0.5cc . Stomach subq
Impatient me started googling about pre-loading, loading phase, frontloading. There was barely anything, except in steroid users communities. Since switching to Tue / Thu / Sat schedule I decided to do a pin today. Later I abandoned any ideas of frontloading, probably makes more sense after having an initial experience. 31g takes a while to load, never again. Stomach subq: no pain at all, darting it in fast though, no pussying around anymore like with melanotan injections.

Results
Friday: No wood next morning. Waking up before alarm, and getting slightly horny, not able to fall asleep again until the alarm. Nothing special about Friday. Walked around for about an hour in public, very humid, didn’t bring myself to talk to any woman.
Saturday: walked around for 90 minutes, stopped a young woman, 1 hour instant date on an isolated bench, touching each other, not much libido, not horny, barely got a chub. Didn’t invite her home due to bad timing, and not feeling like taking that risk without some cialis. Feeling very good after the date, my first ever instant date.

Sun 16/09 Test Cyp. 29g 1/2" 0.3cc . Love handles subq
(50+ days without porn, 20 days without sex)
29g is still pretty slow to load, 0.3cc syringe is too narrow for big bubbles to travel anywhere.
Did a middate Sunday pin instead of a Saturday night to spread out a bit and be closer to Tuesday’s evening pin. Not taking any more HCG for now to feel out Cypionate first.

Results
Walking around for 4 hours listening to audiobooks, 5 introductions, 1 conversation. No horniness yet. More interested in being social, rather than sexual, unless seeing those rare women with extreme hips to waist ratio, and/or with big bras and tiny waist. I haven’t been 50+ days without porn since mid April, when I still was relying on cialis and not being happy with it, in either way I would be biased to attribute improvements perceived to porn abstinence.

TODO
I will do a blood collection on Tuesday morning before the evening’s pin, it’s going to be just past one half life, and almost a week after first injection. Hopefully 27g is going to be fast enough to load. 25g was fast, but I don’t want to go down to 25g for subq.

7

Tue 9/18
Love handle subq pin area got pretty sore today (no bruise or anything visible), belly fat subq pin area from Thursday feels sore too but less.

8

Pin #4. Tue 9/18 evening. Test Cyp 0.22ml / 44mg. Shallow IM Delt. 27g 1/2" 0.5cc
27g is a nice “fast” gauge. Painless shoulder injection. Some weird sensations in some parts of a left arm during 1-2 hour after the pin.

Result: some horniness Wed morning. One spontaneous street approach after a lunch break without much of a delay.

Thoughts: been thinking here and there if I should have given Clomid a try, I keep convincing myself that my E2 was low and LH is normal for that. I knew of dr. Saya preferring to try Clomid first, so when he was against trying Clomid I was not insisting. Going to do first blood work tomorrow after starting injections, the inexpensive female hormonal panel + SHBG.

9

Having easy boners from random sexual thoughts this morning, and just got blood collected at the same time, would be interesting to see at what levels that happens. It also might be due to 60 days without porn and 23 days without any kind of release.

10

damn! I only injected 176 mg TOTAL (4 pins, 44mg each) over the last 9 days (132mg per 7 days, prescribed), and while in a “valley” at 10 hours before the next injection my blood markers are sky high:

blood_after_4pins

I probably should contact Defy, maybe I’m fast metabolizer, and I need to inject much less. Still waiting SHBG results. The amount of test cyp released the day earlier = 13mg and the planned steady state release: 17-20 mg per day, so I expect my levels to keep rising much higher, unless my testicles still produce decent amount of Testosterone, but LH is only 1.1… (and no HCG)

Pin #5. Thu 9/20 evening. Test Cyp 0.22ml / 44mg. Ventrogluteal Shallow IM. 27g 1/2" 0.5cc
Took some time to decide on a pin spot, it all felt like tendons to the touch, no pain, no soreness so far the next day.

Results: no wood Friday morning, maybe shouldn’t have been “edging” so much Thursday evening.

I should have mentioned earlier that after second pin or even after the first pin to this day every time I wake up I have weird feeling around my heart and around left upper body, some sensation of tightness or thickness, and I think my breathing feels different starting second pin. My breathing pattern during deadlifts changed, I breath in/out more now during the exercise instead of holding air. I hope test cyp doesn’t mess with my heart…

11

You description of sensations are spot on of what I experience when estrogen is high, do you feel jittery?

I also experience soft or no erections at all when estrogen is high.

12

@systemlord just a few minutes ago I googled “site:excelmale.com heart tightness” and found your comments…

it started pretty early, after the first pin and my E2 was always pretty low, I’d guess my E2 was still low after the first pin though, now it’s probably high for me, since my SHBG is 20-36 only.

After 5th pin (means E2 is even higher now) erections are still there; from sexual thoughts, sensitivity to touch is still low same as before TRT

Regarding anxity like jitterness, today anxiety is a bit higher than it was yesterday, yesterday when I did the blood collection to get those numbers I felt amazing (both erections and anxiety wise).

13

Your levels will fluctuating for the next 5 weeks, so these sensations should cease at this time if levels are good for you.

When a new protocol is attempted levels will swing bigger in the beginning and about 4-5 weeks these swings should get smaller before eventually leveling out altogether.

14

We talk on these threads about e2 going up and things like anxiety, etc. We’re also only doing very small doses of test.

How the hell do guys that do cycles of 500mg a week of test manage? All AIs? Or does there body just go thru the same acclimation period we do?

I cant imagine my body allowing 500mg a week!

15

Pin #6. Sun 9/23 morning. Test Cyp 0.22ml / 44mg. Ventrogluteal Shallow IM. 27g 1/2" 0.5cc
Another ventrogluteal went good. Morning wood kinda gone, along with horniness. Maybe it’s because I was masturbating without orgasms and porn, occasionally, since Thursday. 4 weeks exactly without orgasm / sex.

Had to go to a doctor / urgent care. Confirmed that I had folliculitis on my left testicle for the last 2 weeks after scrotum hair trimming. Never happened to me before, I wonder if it was so persistent because of elevated E2.

Monday 9/24
Defy’s RN recommended to decrease dosage from 44mg TIW to 40mg TIW to decrease my E2, I talked them into potentially decreasing even to 36mg TIW, but going to stick to 40mg for now.

Going to start taking HCG since my LH is only 1, or maybe wait a little bit longer until I’ll do another set of blood tests.

PS. Just got my SHBG result, it’s only 23 (16.5 - 55.9). My number pre-TRT: 20, 29, 36, 25. I expected it to be higher than 23.

16

forgot to mention to Defy RN about chest tightness when waking up

Pin #7. Tue 9/24 morning. Test Cyp 0.20ml / 40mg. Dorsogluteal Shallow IM. 27g 1/2" 0.5cc
Switched to 40mg TIW. Holding off HCG for now until Thursday morning blood collection. Feels like testicles got smaller. Folliculitis slowly gets better. Lots of edging the last couple days, a lot of sexual fantasies, non-stop, involving an ex from a year ago. No sex so far, pussy out on talking to women in public; erections are kinda softish, maybe I kill them with too much edging.

Waking up really early the last few days, at 5am even, after going to be at 12am. Today only slept 5 hours, felt fine throughout the day, and waking up was easy. Not sure if that’s healthy or not, usually I needed 8 hours at least, cranky after 7 hours of sleep. Sleep Apnea diagnosed as 14 AHI. If I can sleep only 6 hours that would be amazing, if that’s not going to mess with my skin and anything else. Now I don’t to worry about good overnight testosterone production…

17

Been watching your posts.

Keep logging things in.

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Pin #8. Thu 9/26 evening. Test Cyp 0.20ml / 40mg. Stomach Subq. 27g 1/2" 0.5cc.
HCG 300 IU. Lovehandles Subq 29g 1/2" 0.3cc
Tinder date flaked on me for the second time (Thursday night scheduled date), ended up masturbating to orgasm without a porn. Soft erections. Sexual thoughts are still there but less obsessive. Edging for the last 7 days, a lot, everyday… 30 days without orgasm before; tomorrow / Saturday my established lover should stop by to see me, might try with her to get sexual without taking european Viagra that I had, and then openly tell her that if it’s not going to work I’m going to take Viagra. I probably haven’t risked to have sex without Viagra or Cialis in 2018 at all.

I noticed that I have painful soreness when touching injection sites 24-48 hours after an injection, that lasts sometimes up to 3 days maybe even longer. All shallow IM. Makes me think about trying cottonseed or sesami oil for the next testosterone cypionate vial. Or maybe my needles 1/2" are too short to actually do shallow IM…

From Thursday to Friday slept only 6 hours, not enough sleep, previous night: 5.30h. At 11pm I feel very sleepy, and past that point I have a lot of energy and ending up staying up until 1am. Have to get more sleep and stop abusing my ability to sleep less on TRT.

Yesterday’s night had a couple occurrences of vertigo after getting up from a couch. Haven’t happened in forever… Guessing if it’s TRT related or not.

UPDATE. forgot to mention that Thursday morning I got blood collected for E2 sensitive, Total T and Free T tests. If Total T / E2 is going to be still very high I’m going to ask Defy to decrease Test Cyp dosage, hopefully avoiding AI.

19

Why do you say this?

This may have happened to me. Sometimes I jerk for close to an hour to edge. Not because I can’t cum.

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It’s not clear if they are caused by high E2 due to TRT or edging, before TRT for the last 6 years I believed that any libido and/or erection issues I had were linked to porn use and edging. I started TRT to prove that libido/erection issues are caused by Low E2 and not by porn / edging, but it’s important to keep E2 from getting too high and find your own good range.

21

Pin #9. Sun 9/30 evening.
Test Cyp. 0.20ml / 40mg. Ventrogluteal. 27g 1/2" 0.5cc.
HCG 300 IU. Stomach Subq 29g 1/2" 0.3cc

My lover (S) stayed with me for Saturday and Sunday. Soft erections during sex on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday took 12.5mg Viagra. Sunday was without. By early Saturday it felt like I softened my erections by edging for 10 days before. On Monday right now no libido. Had two orgasms through watching porn late Sunday and morning Monday. Still didn’t receive my blood tests results from Thursday.

Haven’t been on any first dates since end of May. All my options now live 2 hours away. I have to figure something out quick, go out more in public while it’s still light in evenings, maybe start going to bars, and start going on normal dates from Tinder instead of asking girls to come over to theirs and eat their pussy out…

22

Does this mean you were edging for 10 days?

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