Intramuscular vs SubQutaneous Injections for Testosterone

Breakaway Topic

(Original Thread)


So I want to start off by saying that this topic is welcomed to go down the rabbit hole and wander off-track. I’ve a few questions of my own about SubQ vs IM but by no means do I want the conversation to end there.

  1. Do SubQ injections actually increase the effectiveness of the dose, where say 100mg IM = 80mg SubQ?
  2. Do SubQ injections take a while to build up? People have reported changing from IM to SubQ and feeling like they’ve stopped TRT altogether.
  3. Why does SubQ seem to work for some but not for others?
  4. Best/least painful places to inject SubQ? (I pin daily, what are my best options)
  5. Best/least painful places to inject IM? (I pin daily, what are my best options)

Probably about all for now, happy to add to the list.
Tagging some well read folks:
@highpull @systemlord @dextermorgan @blshaw @unreal24278 @lordgains @osu122975 @TC_Luoma @tareload @swoops39 (probably missed some, feel free to chime in if not tagged)

Oh, and no Jerry Springer shit (meaning please refrain from Ad Hominem attacks).

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Just a quick personal experience here: after a couple of years of IM TRT, I switched to sub-Q and my testosterone tests consistently came back higher. I stuck with (pun alert!) my usual 100mg weekly injection and did not reduce to 80mg.

I hated the belly-area injections and have a permanent little knot there now. No idea what that is, but it can’t been seen, just felt. Now I inject in the butt/hip area – upper right quadrant – with no issues and less pain than the belly.

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Thanks for chiming in. Did you feel any different or was it mostly the same for you? I imagine both fT and TT were elevated on SubQ?

I believe both FT and TT got a boost from sub-Q injections, but I’d have to check. Can’t say I feel any different though I do consistently get better looking every year.

:smiley:

BTW, as an experiment I bumped to 150mg for a few weeks but honestly didn’t notice or feel anything, so I went back to 100mg to avoid any potential side effects of overdoing it. I’m a big believer in minimum effective dose.

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  1. Some have said this and I don’t think so. At least not for me. I’ve been on TRT since 2002, first with gels, and then injectable T cypionate since 2013. I never noticed a difference in lab values between IM and subcutaneous with 100 mg per week.

  2. I did not experience that.

  3. No comment on that.

  4. Fatty areas of the body though you’ll feel little in lean areas anyway.

  5. Quads, glutes. Not usually done anywhere else.

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Yes, thanks. Edited it. So many abbreviations with this topic!

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I tried SQ once and what I would describe as some sort of inflammatory response as I had a high body fat percentage. I felt like I was in drunken stupor that lasted for hours and could barely remain conscious.

The late Dr. Crisler who was a big proponent of SQ said overly obese men should probably stick to IM and lower BF men are ideal candidates for SQ.

I did feel as though I missed an injection or two days after trying out SQ.

The love handles or glutes.

I found IM, even shallow IM using insulin pins in the quads was hit or miss as far as hitting a nerve and can be quite painful. I found a very small sweat spot at the middle point between the knees and hips but couldn’t hit the mark all the time.

I found deltoids to be the best most painless place to inject.

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This would make sense I think. If it takes a bit for SubQ shots to build up or ‘saturate’, the more fat = the longer it takes to get there… I may need to lean out some more lol.

Same. Hit a nerve on my first quad injection with L-Car and thought I would be better off just losing the leg (sarcasm, but L-Carnitine is known for being unpleasant). I’ve been gun-shy about injecting in the quads since.

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My experience with this is that I needed way more test SQ to reach the same numbers as I hit IM. For example:

240mg test a week, injected SQ EOD, got me to 1300ng TT
120mg test a week, injected IM 2x weekly, got me to 1297ng TT

So I can take less test IM than I need SQ. This is different frequency, but same brand test. In my case at least, SQ just isn’t efficient. But, I’ve seen lots of reports showing it works just fine.

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This is very suprising TBH. How long were you doing the SubQ shots before getting this reading? Were you fluffy at the time, by chance? Sorry, I have a theory that the higher the BF%, the less effective SQ shots are.

May be something there. Yes, at the time I was higher BF % than I am now, not sure by how much, maybe 3-5%?

Someone explained to me (maybe it was Steve on YouTube) that, in very simple terms, oils repel from water-based environments and attract to fat-based environments. So an oil depot in fat tissue would want to stick around and diffuse more slowly into your system, which injecting into a muscle would spread the oil out more, with more surface area for blood to run over and pick up into serum. I don’t know if that is accurate or not, but it make sense to me.

I would really like to see apples to apples testing done. IM daily vs SQ daily, 2x per week, EOD, etc. of the same dose and oil type.

I am very tired of using longer needles (1in) for my injections, but I have always felt my best that way. I assumed that deeper into the muscle meant more blood flow and that meant faster uptake of medicine, and in the end that’s what you want; when you want the medicine in you, it needs to be taken up quickly and let the ester do the work at regulating absorption.

I am open to other suggestions tho

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I’m asking seriously here. Does anyone here actually see a difference with multiple injections per week? Here is my result from Wednesday this week after injecting 100 mg on Sunday.

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I second this opinion.

I believe you could still hit IM with 1/2" needles if injecting into lean areas. I say this because i inject L-Carnitine IM and have only used 1/2" slin needles (you know if you hit SubQ because it stings like a mfer when you do). I think common recommendations are for 1" IM needles due to the American populaces resemblance to walruses, meaning they need longer needles to push through their (literal) fat asses.

Too soon to tell for me, but I’m really low SHBG and common recommendations in my case are for more frequent shots. I would imagine that higher SHBG folks would feel little to no difference between 1x and 2x per week though.

I can, in my delts, and I believe after I drop a few lbs and finish this Var cycle I will try it again. But oddly enough the 1/2 27g pins hurt more during and after (some redness, soreness) than the 1in.

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I don’t see a difference injecting twice per week, meaning no benefits at all, as in no response whatsoever to TRT. Daily, EOD and twice daily dosing absolutely.

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Any abscesses?

I will be honest dude I can never get on with too much frequency, I feel sort of flat or what ever. I like one huge bolus at a time, like E5D-E7D. Going by feels, not blood work as it remains good.

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I can’t add much to this. A few guys have tried subq, on their own because they read about it on the internet. No one stayed with it and they only told me about it after deciding they did not like it. Of course, some could be doing it without my knowledge. No one has reported doing subq and liking it.

I believe many overthink this. Take your testosterone, enjoy your life.

I’m waiting for someone to want to do twice daily injections though.

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Yeah, I’m going to be honest, I inject daily in the ventroglute. Maybe. I have no idea whether I’m hitting the VG or not. So it may be SQ and it may be IM. I don’t notice any difference. Though to be fair (to be fair (to be fair)) I’m not really the best at paying attention to details. I injected in the delts for a while (which was most certainly IM, as I’m pretty lean) and noticed no difference. Shrug.

This “information” is probably of no use, but there you go.

This has come up on reddit a couple of times. Guys asking if injecting every 12 hours is “worth it”

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