My Stupid TRT Questions

Hey everyone,

I had a question and figured I’ll have more as time goes on so I created this thread to ask away.

About me: 33 y/o, just recently started back on TRT. Was originally put on TRT at age of 28 but was inconsistent with injections and did not see much of a benefit, mostly due to my own laziness.

So my first question is about injections. I’m currently injecting .2ml test cyp Mon/Wed/Fri and .3ml HCG tues/thurs/sat. Injecting both IM because in the past I did not like the way the HCG felt when injected SC.

I inject into my shoulder with a 27g x 1/2 needle. Most of the time I have a nice clean injection with no issues. Sometimes, though, I bleed immediately after the injection. I also see some of the test cyp leak out with the blood.

Am I doing something wrong when this happens? It seems that only a very small amount of the test oil leaks out, is it enough to where I won’t be getting enough? How can I prevent this little bit of bleeding and test cyp leakage in the future?

Thanks in advance for any and all answers. Its nice having this forum to get good information from people who get it.

Hey there and welcome.

First problem I see is that you don’t have any lab results posted

2nd, test comes in different concentrations and HCG you reconstitute with however much bac water you want to use…so the .2ml and .3ml means nothing. My best guess is that you’re injecting 40mg test 3x per week and 300u hcg 3x per week? Btw you can inject these together but not in same syringe unless you like injecting daily (probably why you got lazy with injections).

3rd, I see no mention of an AI (Anastrozole). Did you really not run an AI with TRT? Did you ever get estradiol (E2) tested?

My guess is that trt didn’t work for you because you would skip injections and your E2 was elevated. So no matter how much test you injected, the high E2 wasn’t letting you feel the benefits…

I’m sure others will chime in aswell. Oh and try using 29g .5" insulin needles. They work great. No idea on blood coming out. Happened to me when using bigger needles in the past. My guess is you hit a vein.

After you inject, immediately press firmly on injection site with a finger for 10-15 seconds. This will allow cut vessels to seal-off. I advice guys to inject SC over upper leg with #29 1/2" 0.5ml insulin syringes. The smaller the needle, the less damage. #27 1/2" is very good as well and the longer injection times of #29 could easily be inappropriate for your current injection sites.

Are your shoulder muscle getting hard/firm? The muscle should be smooth and soft when relaxed. Why accumulate a lifetime of needle damage?

With some peptides, slower absorption from SC appears better. My IGF-1 response to hGH is way better with SC vs IM, implying that slower release with more time under the curve is better than fast release and area under the curve. With hCG IM, there may be more hCG than the testes can respond to at times, But in that’s favor, we do see that hCG has a longer half-life and have to note that once GH gets into the blood stream, it has a short half-life. So some things to contemplate.

Your labs need to track:
TT
FT
E2
CBC
hematocrit
AST/ALT

Your TRT benefits can very easily be swamped by the symptoms of low thyroid function, that are the same as low T. See last paragraph to self-eval your overall thyroid function.

For most guys E2 management is mission critical with a target of E2=22pg/ml - 80 pmol/L

Please read the stickies found here: About the T Replacement Category - #2 by KSman

  • advice for new guys
  • things that damage your hormones
  • protocol for injections
  • finding a TRT doc

Evaluate your overall thyroid function by checking oral body temperatures as per the thyroid basics sticky. Thyroid hormone fT3 is what gets the job done and it regulates mitochondrial activity, the source of ATP which is the universal currency of cellular energy. This is part of the body’s temperature control loop. This can get messed up if you are iodine deficient. In many countries, you need to be using iodized salt. Other countries add iodine to dairy or bread.

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Thanks so much for the great post. I really appreciate it!