New to T Replacement, Questions

Went to new doc. Good and bad visit. He was worried about over training and tried to talk me into doing z cortisol 24 hr saliva test. 250$. But he wants to put me on hcg, adex, and t of my choice. He gave me 50 adex pills for free and sold me 10000 units of hcg for 200$. I know the hcg is expensive, but for now it’s a step. He wanted me to keep on axiron until I see what me levels show in a month. So now I have to figure out if I take the same dose of hcg and adex as I would on the 100mg per week shots.

The hCG should be dosed the same irrespective of testosterone dose and product. 250iu EOD is enough to keep the boys running, and taking more than that long-term can burn out your receptors. Those labs are a waste since you didn’t taper off the testosterone correctly and you weren’t off long enough to accurately show your baseline levels. Getting the Cortisol lab won’t hurt; It will be good for you to see if there is any issue there. It probably should have been done before starting TRT, but it is what it is.

How did he tell you to dose the Adex? Make sure that you don’t over-do it: most guys get away with taking 1mg/wk split into as many doses as possible (I take .25mg 4 times a week because I can’t cut the pills smaller than 1/4). Since your E2 is kind of high you can take more the first week or two, but don’t take too much or you’ll be on the opposite end of bad results! Getting the perfect dose is going to take time and labs to find the sweet spot. I don’t know about dosing Adex while on Axiron, and I don’t even know anyone on Axiron who I can ask. If you’re staying on Axiron and you can’t find someone to tell you about dosing AI, then I’d just play around with the dosing and labs until you hit the right levels. And again, since this lab was taken at a weird point in your “cycle”, it will be hard to tell what your real numbers are. Is your E2 higher than this when you’re on the Axiron, or did your levels rise after you quit? We can’t know for sure.

I’ve never used Axiron and know so little about it that I can’t comment, except to say that if you aren’t going to be using axiron as your testosterone source after this month, then there is no reason to still be on it and you should make the switch to whatever you are going to be taking as soon as possible. There’s no point in getting more labs done while on something if you aren’t going to be continuing that something after a month.

HCG has a shelf life of 4-6 weeks depending on who you ask. I never keep mine for more than 5 weeks, but I also get mine at a compounding pharmacy, so I get slightly more than a one-month supply at a time (4k IU Vial). At 250IU EOD, you will need about 3750IU for a 30-day month. Buying 10kIU at a time will ensure that you have a bunch left over that will go to waste. Even if you kept it for 2 months (which some swear is fine, but I’ve never tried it and pharmacies say 4-6 weeks at most) you’d only need 7.5kIU and would lose 2.5k. $200 for that seems a little crazy given how much waste you will have. Also, call around and check prices. I live in a pretty high cost-of-living area and my hCG is $80 for a month’s supply.

At least you got 50 Adex for free. Mine is covered by insurance, but if I didn’t have it covered it would be a little less than a dollar a pill!

He wanted me to dose the adex .25 twice a week Until i rest labs. He will give me the unconstituted Vial of hcg and I could figure out a way to only constitute a portion of the vial, maybe take to a compound pharmacy?? He also is checking on ordering smaller vials for me. The doc seems cool so far.

I will be tracking this for sure! I too have fatigue/lethargy for my main symptom, without a sexual issue (minus no morning wood). If you search for my thread “Advice on lab results” you can see what I have been going through.

Do the last lab results give any guess to what is going on or is it impossible to tell. I would assume my LH and FSH values were higher as I have shut down the axis proved by a TT of 68. Is this correct. Also, do the thyroid studies show anything

Im in NC also. Faced with the hope that a doctor budy of mine picks up the ball this week on the same issues that you are having. I had a GP put me on T and wants me to test every 6 months with out checking anything else… Kinda like shooting goldfish in a bucket… Please keep up the post and let us know how you make out with your doctor. Im just short of giving up and letting my nads rott away.

Update:
Got urologist to refer me to an Endocrinologist. Back on the shots. I am going to do EOD T cyp. If I am doing a 100mg week, would I do M/W/F/S one week, and tue/thurs/sat. If the vial is 200mg per ml. I would do .125 cc on the 4 shot week, and .166 the 3 shot week. I am just doing a quater pill of adex each time no matter what. I have a splitter and cant do thirds of a pill. Does this sound good. Getting labs in a month.

Injecting Test-C EOD is completely unnecessary as the whole point of esterfied testosterone is that it “time releases” into your system. The shortest ester, Testosterone Propionate, is one that is usually injected EOD since it has a relatively short half-life. Cypionate has a relatively long half-life, about 8 days give or take, so injecting it twice a week is more than adequate to avoid peaks and valleys and keep your testosterone levels relatively stable.

Some guys I know inject Test-C on M-W-F, but they take 200mg/wk. I don’t really know of anyone, personally, who is on 100mg/wk and injects 3 days a week, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. I don’t know a single person who isn’t on Test-P that injects EOD.

So, if you’re set on doing it EOD then you should take the same amount every shot as it will average out over a two-week period. From a 200mg/ml solution, that would be ~30mg per shot, or .15ml taken every other day. (It’s 28.57mg if you want to be exact, but it’s nearly impossible to dose exact amounts like that so I rounded off). Tiny amount and a ton of syringes! Make sure you’re rotating your injection site, and get comfortable moving around your different muscle groups. (Unless of course you are doing SQ, in which case you can ignore me.)

Alternatively, you could join the herd and just inject on Mondays and Thursdays!

I too take Adex four times a week as I can’t cut them smaller than 1/4. I take them on the same days every week. As I said above, I inject Monday and Thursday (on 200mg/wk), so I take my Adex on M-W-TH-S. I’m not sure how you should dose it, but I’d guess you may be okay with just taking 1/4 tab every time you inject. This would be slightly less than 1mg a week though, so I don’t know if you’d throw the extra dose in there somewhere, or just end up with an extra 1/4 tab every other week.

It will be interesting to see how your labs turn out. Keep us posted!

Thanks. I am thinking I would start doing the Adex like you 4 days a week. The t cyp I am doing SQ so I would like to either do mon wed fri, or the crazy schedule of EOD which changes the days from week to week. Much harder to keep track of. Mon thurs would work as well.

Also. To update. My lab from fri after 3 weeks of axiron.

TT 450
Ft. ? Unknown. (dr. Texted me “normal”)
E2. 23

I felt no difference at these levels. I’m on day 4 of EOD sq shots

You can inject T twice a week with good results. However, if you are injecting hCG 250 SC EOD, it makes sense to simplify things and inject T and the same time as hCG. And anastrozole half life suggests EOD as well and you can do all three at once.

hCG shelf life when dry is not an issue. hCG with BAC water is long, regardless of what the package states. Many have been using 10,000iu vials, lasting 80 days without any sign of diminished effect. There probably is some loss of potency, but the 250 is arbitrary and some loss of potency is not a problem.

EOD is not so bad to live with and your email program probably has a calendar that supports EOD reminders. Otherwise, if I did not inject yesterday, I need to inject today. That is not difficult.

One very important benefit of frequent injections is that the lab results are much more useful for E2 modulation. If T levels drop 25% from peak, then lab results will vary with lab timing. So you need steady levels from EOD injections, or always do labs at the same time relative to prior injection.

You also need to be matching anastrozole levels to FT or bio-T levels. These will be more variable than TT levels.

Anastrozole needs to be dosed from a liquid to be able to support small dose incremental changes. Some use vodka, 1mg per 1ml.

Half life: No one is testing serum levels of T cyp, the half life is when the serum TT level drops to one half of its peak. This data comes from single dose studies, not quite what we are interested in. We do know that many guys who inject T cyp once a week start to feel like crap on day 7. What is often going on is that their T levels have dropped by a large amount, into a see of estradiol. Single dose studies are typically a large dose of T and the absorption profile of a large dose is different than for a small dose. Do not confuse with clearance time; when is when a single dose study level drops to base line. In that case, with normal men, the testes have also been shutdown to some extent. LH is shutdown within a day. Body builders also talk about detection time for those that are dodging doping tests.

Thanks. Great stuff. When you say EOD. Do you actually mean EOD or m/w/f vs tues/thurs/sat etc

Thanks. Great stuff. When you say EOD. Do you actually mean EOD or m/w/f vs tues/thurs/sat etc

Forgot to ask: I had a SQ injection leak at the site a little on mon. Does anyone have any techniques to prevent this. I pinch the skin on my thigh and inject then pull out needle while still pinching. I have very little fat or SQ tissue on this site. Is belly ok, like the HCG? I heard if you let go of the pinch after injecting but before taking the needle out, that this will help. Thoughts?

Pull the needle and press on the puncture site for 10-20 seconds to allow the wound to seal. This also prevents most bleed bruises. You will hit veins. And veins do have nerves and you feel a sharp pain, but it is spread around and not localized.

You can inject SC in a lot of places, find which is more comfortable. If I inject in my belly I get lumps and pain, not with my legs. We are all different.

Pinch up skin on your leg and inject into the fold of skin from the end of the fold. The line of the needle can be almost parallel to the tissues under your skin. Not much fat required.

If you do not want needle marks to show, that drives location.

Just to update my status. After 3 weeks on sq shots my levels were drawn. I tested at 730 am wed and my last dose of 33 mg was given mon AM.

TT: 675
FT: 250
E2: 53

I still feel basically no change as far as fatigue, brain fog, workouts, fat loss etc.
Should I be increasing my dose, or thinking switch to IM?

Increased my dose to 120 week and Adex to 1.25 mg week on the same m/w/f sched. How does this sound?

What is the range for your E2? 53 is most likely high and causing some (or most) of your symptoms. What is the range for your T and FT? Raising your T may help, but correcting your E2 while keeping your T level where it is at may relieve your symptoms. Either way correcting the E2 level will be required.

My labs said
E2 20-75
FT 250-500

I am taking 120/week t cyp m/w/f. And 1.5 Adex per week. I’m still really tired each day. No changes in brain fog. Slight improvement in workouts all of a sudden. I planed on trying this a few weeks then testing levels. Is there a formula to calculate how much adex should be added for a given E2 level, or is it just trial and error. I have NP going back to 100/week T if it is a better idea. Thoughts?

Update:
Taking 110 week t cyp. Adex 1.5 mg week and same hcg dose. I feel better with less fog more energy. 2 issues

  1. I am getting itchy welts after each sq shot. Lasts 3-4 days. Maybe I’m allergic?

  2. I’ve gained close to 8-10 lbs. it’s mostly fat. My jeans barely fit. I look like shit.

-no new levels drawn recently. My diet is slightly worse. I eat like a 17 year old now. Always hungry!

Thoughts