Opinions On My New Protocol?

I’ve already begun the 150mg a week so I’m gonna stick with it, what should I watch out for if it is too much? 22mg a day roughly is what I’m taking and what defy prescribed me

How long so far? Defy prescribed me 20mg a day, but I felt extreme symptoms for a whole week, so I brought my dose down a notch, which has been more manageable.

Exactly what I’m doing to. I’m changing from 42mg EOD, which I was steady on for 6+ months. I’d feel great the day after my shot and just eh/ok the day of my shot.

I wanted to feel great every day, so… I’m trying ED. Wednesday will be 2 weeks. Seems to be going just fine so far.

I’ve read HTC could become elevated on an ED protocol since there really isn’t a trough. Do you know what your HTC is?

This is my first week, but I’ve been on 100mg for years on and off and never been at an “optimal” level, I’ve been trying to get my dosage up for awhile but none of the doctors I went to would help me. I’ve done weekly, biweekly e3d and none of those ever relieved my symptoms.

It’s 48.1 right now, but that is on e3d, and I think you can keep it lower with ED injections, I’m pretty sure I read that somewhere. If I start to feel bad I’ll drop my dose a little.

Did you try 100mg on dailies? I would increase by 20mg increments, not a whole 50%, too big a jump.

I’ll stay where I’m at and if I get sides I will decrease it, that way I know my upper limit and I can slowly decrease to the point where I don’t have sides, then I’ll know what dose works for me, and what my maximum is. I want to have as much as I can, I’ve felt like shit for too long, I’d rather test my upper limit, rather than increase slowly to where I feel “ok”, I’d rather decrease it til feel great with no sides. If I get seemingly dangerous sides then I’ll drop all the way back to 100mg a week and go up from there.

Testing your upper limit first while having low SHBG seems like a shit-show waiting to happen based on other’s experiences, but maybe you’ll be the exception. At the very worst you’ll know what protocols to cross off.

Only thing I can say about this is to try to weather the storm if you are within that 8 week window. If you decrease, you reset the time window and you’d never know if your body just needed 1 more day to figure it out. Patience (and some tolerance) really is the key here.

When I change protocols I get acne and my prostate flares up - I have a very difficult time peeing for about 2 weeks… But after time the acne goes away and I start peeing better.

I don’t think you’ll know the upper limit until you’ve been consistent with the same protocol for 8 weeks. Sub q has a longer half life too, so if you are going that route, 8 weeks is a must.

Point being in all of this - give the dose time to work.

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What is your SHBG and the reference range @kgoggs?

To follow up on my comment about sub q and a longer half life. From -

https://www.auanet.org/guidelines/testosterone-deficiency-guideline

“The half-life for IM testosterone was also shorter at 173 hours versus 240 hours for SQ testosterone.”

240 hours is 10 days. We need 5 half lives for steady state. 10*5 = 50. 50 days is 7.14 weeks.

All sorts of stuff is happening to you body in these 7.14 weeks.

How is diet and exercise?

13.8 SHBG, the range is 16-60? Don’t remember exactly.

Diet isn’t great, I need alot of caffeine and sugar to function, and crave it. Doc says it’s because my low T, it makes me extremley tired and my body wants more fuel. I would like to excercise but I don’t have the energy, drive or motivation, I have trouble staying awake at times, it’s tough. I’m not sleeping as much as I should either, I have trouble falling asleep, even though on constantly fatigued. When it’s time to sleep it takes me a long time just laying there to fall asleep. Idk if that’s a side effect of low T or high E2 but it sucks. I eat alot of fast food, mostly chicken.

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Pretty sure there is a relationship to sugar, insulin and low SHBG. If possible, try to wean yourself off the sugar until you aren’t consuming added sugar… I bet if you cut out the sugar, ate lower glycemic carbs and cut out the fast food, your SHBG would increase. That stuff is so bad for our bodies. Fast food isn’t great either.

Start small… Like very small. Do some push ups, do some jumping jacks, do some squats just standing there, run in place, do a planks.

Google some beginner type workouts you can do at home without weights.

Drop the sugar, cut back on fast food, get the body moving… Do this consistently and you will start feeling better. Testosterone isn’t going to be a magic injection until you start getting things with your diet right.

Sleep will improve too after dropping the sugar and getting exercise. Important thing to keep in mind is you didn’t get this way over night… So you aren’t going to fix it over night either. Take it slow, one day at a time and make incremental progress.

There are other places on this site to research too for diet and exercise tips too.

Keep us updated @kgoggs… You can do this!

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I feel really good only a week after switching to ED injections, and it can’t be placebo. I’ve felt like shit consistently for 4 or 5 months, the past 2 days, I’ve had hardly any brain fog, and my body has more energy. I can focus on things way better and I’m a bit more motivated. Could I feel effects quickly? I was doing 100mg a week e3d, now I’m on 150mg with ED protocol. My theory is because my Shgb is really low, going to ED is making me feel the benefits of 100mg a week that I wasn’t really feeling before. I haven’t yet gotten to the levels 150mg would take me to, but I should around 6-8 weeks when my levels increase and stabilize. Is that reasonable? Also E2 was 40 compared to 650 TT, which is not great, so could my e2 have come down that quickly?

Yes it can because you are aromatising less. I would wait 8 weeks before messing around with the dosage again, you can test at 6 weeks though.

I’m gonna stick with this for 8 weeks to make sure it’s not too much like you and @marcus007 were saying, then I’ll start HCG just to see if it benefits me, and if not I at least know what TRT protocol works for me.

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