I’ve been taking it for over 3 weeks. Hmm. I’ve tried my second test with .5ml from a vial and it didn’t work out - turns out you need rather a lot of liquid to get to test area.
Will buy a more sensitive test ( I bought the cheapest one) and retest.
It has been a month since I started, just got new blood work (everything except free T - would take a couple more days). I got tested Tuesday morning, and my last T shot was Friday morning (I’m on tues/fri sub-q schedule).
hematocrit 47.5
psa 0.749 0-3.9
Estradiol 25.5 23.8-52.2
T 640 193-950
Looks like the T dose is about right? Now E2 test bothers me. Dr uses healthlabtesting.com, and their test is listed as Roche ECLIA, but for some reason range 23.8-52.2 is very different from say labcorp at 7.6-42.6. So is that 25.5 a good result or not? I’m on .25mg anastrozole twice a week.
Another strange thing is TSH increased slightly to 4.29 (.3-5). I’ve added kelp tablet daily in the last 3 weeks, was expecting it to go down.
Also my nipples are puffier and spend a lot of times in “excited” state. I’ve read that sometimes it can be a temporary side effect from changing hormone levels. No one seems to define what that “temporary” means - a month, a few months?
Starting TRT is a big change for a lot of things and some nipple activity can be transient. Your E2=25 should not be a problem.
Lab ranges can be different. The problem is when you hot a reporting floor. I tried to look up that detail for that lab but did not find anything.
IR increases TSH while doing IR and that does not mean that there is a problem.
Still feeling good?
Ah, so I shouldn’t worry about TSH much while doing iodine - good.
Feeling excellent. Except one problem: Couple of small painful lumps developed around one nipple seemingly in a day. What would be a suggested course of action considering my E2 seems normal? Then again E2 was normal 4 days after a shot, so perhaps it spikes higher in a first couple of days while the T levels are high? What should I do? Increase anastrasole dose slightly (I’m on .25mg twice/week, taking it together with a T shot)? Decrease HCG dose (currently 300IU 3 times/week)? Stop HCG completely for a couple of weeks to see if it subsides? All of it?
You could reduce hCG a little bit. But I don’t see that it would be a factor in that gyno.
You have working hCG now?
You can try 0.5mg anastrozole at time of injection and that may dry up the gyno. But watch for symptoms of E2 getting too low. This higher dose may need to be temporary - especially if you burn through your Rx.
Yes, I’ve tried sensitive pregnancy test and it came up ok. Also balls are not sore anymore - perhaps I just need to have sex more often. Might’ve been just a case of blue balls - I forgot how it feels when you need to have sex almost every day 
Good news on gyno - went to a plastic surgeon, he said it’s not likely to be gyno. There’s a lump, but it doesn’t feel right for gyno - most likely a lymph node.
Another month had passed, and I decided to do blood work. Went with a different lab, just to see. And results frankly don’t make much sense to me.
I’m on twice weekly sub-q injection (50mg each). Tuesday/Friday. So I injected on Tuesday, and decided to draw blood on Thursday, just to see how my levels look on a second day. Here they are:
T 1247 (348-1197)
Free T(29.8) 6.8-21.5
Prolactin 11.9 (4-15.2)
Estradiol, sensitive 30.4 (8-35)
What doesn’t make sense to me, is that last time I did blood work with the same exact protocol a month ago, with the only difference blood draw was on Tuesday morning(so on day 4 instead of day 2) my T levels were at
640(192-950)
free T (11.6-21.5)
Ranges are different since it’s a different lab.
Why do you guys think it’s that high now? Should I try to lower my dose down a bit?
Are you going to try to lower E2 a bit?
Labs move in expected direction for change in lab timing and ranges.
Your levels may be changing more than expected between injections.
Nice to see that you are doing well.
Can the Wife/GF keep up?
Well in general I don’t like to see T levels outside of ranges. I’ve read it causes all kinds of sides potentially, not just higher E2 levels. So was thinking of may be reducing a doze a bit, just to be on a right side of everything?
Libido was extremely active, and no, she wasn’t really able to keep up On the other hand in the last couple of weeks or so it wasn’t nearly as active, that’s why I decided to ran labs again, just to see if everything is where it’s supposed to be.
I have reduced my T dose to 38mg/twice a week(T/F) and kept HCG on M/W/F 250 schedule. Anastrozole was kept at .25mg/twice week. After about a month(hard to say since I was reducing dose slowly for a while) tested on Tuesday morning, T was 832(192-950), free T 17.5(5-21). Which is about where I wanted it to be - high normal values. But E2 dropped way too low - 10.3 (23.8-52.2). With all corresponding sides apparent. I decided to let it recover, and stopped anastrozole completely. After 20 days I retested (since I started to get too hight E2 sides - increased nipples for example) and it was - 30.6 (8-35). I used different tests first time and second, second was E2 sensitive.
The question that I have is how to get to the right amount of blockers now? I obviously can’t just get rid of them completely, is there a good way to calculate the required amount based on those numbers? Or is it just a trial and error until I get it right?
Cutting anastrozole by 1/2 would probably have yielded something near E2=20.6