Hello KSman, hello T-Nation forum,
I recently began TRT through my general physician roughly a month ago. Here is my current body state:
age: 27
height: 5’ 9"
waist: size 32
weight: 178lb
I barely have any facial hair. I was never able to grow a full or even a half beard, only one that covers part of my chin area, have a very tiny mustache as well. I shave my face once every two to three days. I have close to zero chest hair and very light hair on my arms. I’ve always believed to be a fairly healthy person from childhood to my college days, until earlier this year, I noticed something was terribly off with my body when it comes to body physique (tipped off by hair recession sometime in 2012-2013). No, I don’t do any recreational or hardcore drugs, I drink occasionally (once a weekend, sometimes twice).
All I wanted to be was fit since I first began working out at the age of 20, and at that time, I was close to 10%-11% body fat and weighed about 155lbs. At that time, I committed to make positive a change to my body, and by that, I mean make myself a nice body like how magazine fitness models were. For my first workout routine ever, I dedicated myself to about 6 months of a specific 4-day body split regimen I discovered on BB dot com that hit all the compound exercises fairly and evenly. I saw very little positive results at the end of the 6-month plan. I continued working out and about a year later, I learned about nutrition its importance for bodybuilding. I learned about macronutrients and caloric intakes. I found my caloric maintenance numbers and thought I finally found the reason for why I can’t build muscle, a formula for properly manipulating my body physique. I went through a few more 6-8 month workout routines over another 3 year period and stuck to them religiously, while eating right 20 months in. Sadly, close to 2 years later, I wasn’t realizing any of the results I had desired. I was eating healthy at a nice 40C/30P/30F macro split, but my body felt completely out of whack because if I tried manipulation by bulking at 250-500kcal over my 2300kcal daily maintenance, my belly just grew really large, but if I tried cutting at even 200-250kcal under maintenance, I’d lose nearly ALL muscle progress in what appears to be merely a few days. It was crazy, and it didn’t make any sense to me. I was utterly confused as to why it was it was so difficult to get in shape, maintain muscle or lose fat. Add my thin bone structure, and the overall fat distribution of my body (majority of fat went into my belly/tits), this made me believe I was some doomed type of endomorph/skinny-fat individual that could only burn muscle and gain fat. For some time, I blamed genetics, but thought to myself, even with shitty genetics, I should be able to gain some type of noticeable muscle gains. Sadly, that wasn’t the case for me. Today, I’m closer to 180lbs and probably sitting around 20%-22% body fat. Still been gymming religiously by alternating between 3-day and 4-day splits and I’m nowhere near where I want to be. If anything, I’ve been becoming weaker over the years, not stronger, I lost a lot of sex drive, even brought girls over all the time not desiring any sexual activity at all. Before I began trt, I haven’t had proper morning wood (in over two years). I think about it and it’s absolutely embarrassing. I addressed these issues to a good friend of mine over dinner one night, and he said the reason for all this could be a situation of low T and recommended a blood test to get my current T levels checked. Nobody ever mentioned this to me, but I was 1000% willing to do it because what could I lose? And it could have been the day saved my future days. So I took three lab blood tests the following week.
First, I ordered an at-home total testosterone test kit from Amazon. I drew blood myself and mailed the kit in to LabCorp. The following week, my results came back and showed 145ng/mL with VERY LOW in bold red. This put me in WTF mode. The same day, I visited 2 doctors and requested blood work from both doctors (for all testosterone/estrogen/PSA, and everything else they could find out). While waiting for blood test results, I began to do daily research on low T cases and I learned ALOT. And my results came back.
1st doctor results showed the following results:
E2: 33pg/mL (range 40-115)
Free T: 33ng/dL (range 35-92, BELOW NORMAL)
Total T: 345ng/dL (range 250-850, LOW END, keep in mind I was on week 3 of TestFreak ZMA supplements, if that makes a difference)
SHBG: 37nmol/L
PSA: 1.7ng/mL
HGB: 18g/dL (12.6-16, ABOVE NORMAL)
HCT%: 56.1 (37.5%-51%, ABOVE NORMAL)
Other things like WBC/RBC/MCH/MCV/MCHC/RDW/PLT/MPV/NEU/NEUT/LYMPH/and like 30+ other things were all within normal range.
2nd doctor results showed the following:
Free T: 117ng/dL (range 35-155)
Total T: 403ng/dL (range 250-1100, LOW END, keep in mind I was on week 3 of TestFreak ZMA supplements, if that makes a difference)
Prolactin: 15ng/mL (range 2-18)
I never went back to the 2nd doctor, because the 1st doctor seemed more comprehensive with the blood test results. She immediately acknowledged low T and put me on 100mg per week, which seemed fairly normal to me, after reading over 40 cases on forums/articles of individuals getting TRT for low T, then as I got to know her, I learned she never had a patient come to her for low T before. I was her first low T patient. She agreed to begin research more about my issues, and was very open to listening to me and open to learning more through my own research (she’s so awesome). I took my first injection and…
Days 1-5: First thing I noticed was AMAZING sleep quality. Morning wood came back at nearly full force. And I had so much energy throughout the day. It was like I was a high school student again. I wanted to hump everything in sight.
Days 6-7: Began feeling a little sluggish. Sleep quality went down slightly on these days and soft morning wood. I learned the half-life of test cyp is about 1 week, now I understand why some people take 2 injections per week, which is to even the effects out to a more stable average.
4 weeks in now, and Days 1-5 and Days 6-7 have repeated weekly for me, pretty much.
MY CONCERNS:
My doctor never prescribed me any AI (aromatase inhibitor) when prescribed test cyp. One thing I noticed was my nipples have been tingling the day of every test cyp injection. 4 weeks in, my nipples are way more puffier this month than last month. BY ANY CHANCE, could this be development of gyno? What do you guys think? Should I just start taking an over-the-counter AI or even a SERM?
Thanks for reading my post. I’m looking forward to learning more and more each day, as this is now officially a big part of my life forever. Any feedback or input will be appreciated.