My First Attempt to Obtain TRT

Today I had my blood drawn to have my testosterone levels tested. I have fasted for the last 3 days and only slept 3 hours a night for the last week. I’ve also been doing a lot of cardio and drinking a lot of beer. I haven’t had sex in about 5 days either. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, the results of the blood work should be back by Tuesday or Thursday next week. Hopefully I’ll be getting TRT soon! I will keep you all updated. :smiley:

It would be VERY interesting if you have pre-fast (etc) test results to compare the pending results to… do you?

Or do you at least have an idea on your general test’rone level? High, avg. low…?

Brook

Im very interested to see what they come back at. It would be much more interesting if you went back to your normal daily rituals and then got them privately tested to see how much difference beating the crap out of yourself did.

I have not ever had my levels tested before but if I had to guess my normal levels are probably somewhere in the mid-average range. I responded fairly well to Tribulus for a while and haven’t ever really had any trouble gaining strength and weight until I hit almost 210 lbs with 15% BF (5 feet 9 inches tall).

My weight and strength drops very easily from there if I don’t religiously consume 300+ grams of protein a day and train 5 days a week. Maybe I have just maxed out my genetic potential, my parents and grandparents aren’t very big people. If I had a digital camera I would post pictures, sorry for the lack of them I know how hard that makes it for yall to give advice.

Without an initial reference point it may be difficult to assess, but I have some experience of this and may be able to help. I am on TRT. And, due to very low lab reference values - and unfamiliarity with hypogonadism on the part of many of the Drs I came in contact with - had to manipulate my T levels to drop significantly below the reference ranges in order to secure a prescription.

Now, rest assured that I am hypogonadal, however, I was able to reduce my T levels sufficiently so that any uncertainty was eliminated. I did it like this:

  1. Very, very low Kcals. Over the course of several weeks I existed on a modified PSMF consisting of very lean protein and BCAA only. It was important for the energetic nutrients to be as low as possible, so I minimized all fats and carbs.

  2. Very high energy expenditure. I trained as much as possible at the highest intensity that I could. This included weight training and hard cardio, with the goal to intentionally induce a state of overreaching.

  3. Stimulants. During this time I existed on stimulants with the goal to elevate cortisol as much as I could, this included ECA, etc.

The very low Kcals, coupled with the stimulants, 0 carbs, and high expenditure, effectively eliminated any serotonin I had reducing sleep and elevating cortisol significantly. Additionally TSH, fT3, fT4 dropped significantly too.

The result, a reduction from a fasted 9.00am 8nmol /l (230 ng/dl roughly) to 6.1 nmol / l (175 ng dl roughly). I am in my 20s BTW.

Not a pleasant experience and I hope to never have to do that again lol!

Plantshaman & Dave,

Wow, talk about determination. I hate feeling like crap. Much less purposely feeling like crap even if it is for long term benefit. Hat’s off to you.

Plantshaman, it is important to have a baseline for your hormonal levels. Even if you couldn’t find a doc to request the test, you could have done it through lef.org.

That said, if you are successful at obtaining TRT, you can make adjustments to dosages of test, AI, and hCH until you feel you have struck a good balance for TRT purposes.

Then again, I guess your intention is to stockpile the test and run cycles with it. In that case at least you’ll have some pharmaceautical grade test and not have to worry about its integrity or potency.

Thanks for the feedback you guys. I’m not all that concerned with what my natural test levels are because as I said before I am fairly sure that they are in the normal range. I’m basicly just trying to get legal steroids. The laws here are enforced strictly and I know several local lifters in the Southern Powerlifting Federation who have been convicted of felonies for possession of small amounts of dbol and test. Seriously small amounts like less than 100 pills and less than 10ml…

Hey Dynamo.
Man, it was unpleasant to say the least, but I had to do it. I had every symptom imaginable. Zero libido, depression, chronic fatigue, poor skin quality, hairloss - and pretty scarily - I noticed a significant cognitive decline too, along with the usual loss of muscle and increase in fat mass.

Live was very, very miserable. I was convinced I had low test and the labs I was able to get confirmed my suspicians. Since being on TRT all my symptoms have gone and life is good again. I actually feel as though I am living and not surviving anymore.

For the hell that I had to go through, my test levels didnt drop massively, so I imagine that for someone with mid ‘normal’ values, without manipulating your natural test with other hormones, reducing your test to a level significantly lower than the lab references may be pretty hard.

quote]Dynamo Hum wrote:
Plantshaman & Dave,

Wow, talk about determination. I hate feeling like crap. Much less purposely feeling like crap even if it is for long term benefit. Hat’s off to you.

Plantshaman, it is important to have a baseline for your hormonal levels. Even if you couldn’t find a doc to request the test, you could have done it through lef.org.

That said, if you are successful at obtaining TRT, you can make adjustments to dosages of test, AI, and hCH until you feel you have struck a good balance for TRT purposes.

Then again, I guess your intention is to stockpile the test and run cycles with it. In that case at least you’ll have some pharmaceautical grade test and not have to worry about its integrity or potency.
[/quote]

I hear you Dave. I too have been plagued by many of the symptoms you mentioned. They do strip much of the pleasure out of life indeed. I am glad you have found a good balance that addresses many of those symptoms and significantly enhances your quality of life.

I am curious what meds were prescribed and in what dosages. Maybe you can shoot off a PM to me so as not to hijack plantshaman’s thread.

Got the results of my blood work back today. They did not favor me getting prescribed TRT.

Total test - 1150
Free test - 18
Estradiol - 63

I have plenty of testosterone at this point so I suppose I need to up my daily BCAA intake and try to up my calorie intake a bit more before worrying about my hormone levels. Currently I am at around 4000 calories and anywhere from 300-350 grams of protein daily. I train 5 days a week for about 1 hour at a time. I have my own gym at home so I could work more but I don’t want to over train. Any suggestions?

Would use of an aromatase inhibitor like arimidex benefit me? That estradiol level is a bit high.

i would say that it (e2) is WAY HIGH, that alone has got to be making you feel like crap. personally (i’m no doctor) i would add arimidex at .25 EOD and then retest it in 6-8 weeks. I believe the reference range is like 19-42 or similar.

That’s pretty impressive total test after drinking regularly and fasting for 3 days.

Maybe you should write an article for T-Nation on how to raise test using this method.

:slight_smile:

[quote]plantshaman wrote:
Got the results of my blood work back today. They did not favor me getting prescribed TRT.

Total test - 1150
Free test - 18
Estradiol - 63

I have plenty of testosterone at this point so I suppose I need to up my daily BCAA intake and try to up my calorie intake a bit more before worrying about my hormone levels. Currently I am at around 4000 calories and anywhere from 300-350 grams of protein daily. I train 5 days a week for about 1 hour at a time. I have my own gym at home so I could work more but I don’t want to over train. Any suggestions?

Would use of an aromatase inhibitor like arimidex benefit me? That estradiol level is a bit high.[/quote]

Are you going to get your levels tested under normal conditions, sort of as a control? Or have you done it in the past? I

In addition to curiosity, another reason you could test your levels is to know what E2 is like during normal circumstances. I have no idea if it will be different or not, I’m just thinking out loud.

I’m gonna pick up some arimidex tomarrow… my doctor has lots of samples he said. Hopefully getting that down with make me feel better and raise my test a bit in the process…

I’ve never had my levels tested before. I take a lot of supplements like tribulus and chrysin. However, I had stopped taking those for the 3 days prior to the test. I’m going to get tested again in 8 weeks. So we will see what happens.

I can’t help but wonder how high my T will go with the aromatase inhibitor.

Do you think 3 days was long enough to be off of T boosters for them to not affect the test results?

I don’t think an AI raises T levels. Correct me if I’m wrong.

No, in retrospect, 3 days wasnt long enough off the T boosters to drop my levels. The results of this blood test appear to show that quite clearly.

If I am not mistaken when you use an AI you stop T from turning into E thus raising T and reducing E. I could be wrong, though it would make sense for T levels to increase if aromatization wasn’t taking place. I think I read that here on these forums at some point.

I have had an hrt script for years now and when need a new one I take the old lab results scan them and alter them as I please then fax them to the doc! Always works!

Origonaly I just pounded test for twelve or so weeks then went cold turkey, a month and a half later went for my blood work and what do you know, I had low t levels. You guys are crazy! And way more dedicated! Good job!

Free T is much more important than total T. I don’t know what the ref ranges are but your go to guy is KSman from the over 35 lifter forum. He is expert at dissecting lab results.

You could have all the total T in the world, but if your free T is low, then you will feel like crap.

There are two bandits that steal from a decent total T score and undermine the free T score. They are E2 (estrogen) and SHBG (sexual hormone binding globulin). It would have been good to know your SHBG level too.

As you know, your results are skewed since you put yourself through the meat grinder for several days prior to testing.

I don’t know if your aim is TRT or if you want to run a cycle. If your aim is TRT maybe you should follow forcedrep24’s advice and run a cycle, then get tested for TRT again without running PCT.

Yea, that sounds like a good plan to me. I really don’t like the idea of using anything that I don’t have a script for but I’ll do whatever I have to do. I know where to get some legit Testosterone Enanthate without much hassle. How long of a cycle would you recommend? How high of a dose of Test E. would you recommend? The only steroids I have ever used before are pro-hormones at the dose recommended on the bottles.

[quote]plantshaman wrote:
Got the results of my blood work back today. They did not favor me getting prescribed TRT.

Total test - 1150
Free test - 18
Estradiol - 63

I have plenty of testosterone at this point so I suppose I need to up my daily BCAA intake and try to up my calorie intake a bit more before worrying about my hormone levels. Currently I am at around 4000 calories and anywhere from 300-350 grams of protein daily. I train 5 days a week for about 1 hour at a time. I have my own gym at home so I could work more but I don’t want to over train. Any suggestions?

Would use of an aromatase inhibitor like arimidex benefit me? That estradiol level is a bit high.[/quote]

Your E2 is pushing up your SHBG, which reduces FT. Together, that is a double hit.

When one has more SHBG, there is more SHBG bound T. Lower E2 to the lower 20s with adex, then see where you are. You will definitely feel where you are going after 10-14 days of adex.

Look at what is impeding clearance of E by your liver. Liver problems, alcohol, drugs [Rx, OTC, recreational], grapefruit. If you are feeling depressed or little joy or initiative, then dopamine can be low. If prolactin is up, dopamine will be low. Dopamine is very HPTA repressive.

Body fat, more so on your gut, will increase T–>E aromatization.

When you lower E, your LH and FST will increase, TT and FT will increase, SHBG should decrease.

An imbalance of flora in your gut can free up metabolized E in your liver bile and allow the E to be absorbed back into the body. If you have any indications that your guts are not working right, use some good probiotics.