Really who knows? But I wanted to echo something you said here. I am 28 and my physique is solid, so most people wouldn’t look at me and think “Low T” but there are things about me they wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking. Serious drug and alcohol abuse throughout puberty and up until the age of 19. Extremely bad sleep habits until the age of 25, exacerbated by a military lifestyle from 19-25. Diet and exercise have always been dialed in, but I can’t help but think the other things I mentioned play a gigantic role in where I am now hormone wise.
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Consult at Men’s Health Boston tomorrow. I’ll circle back with a summary/evaluation afterward.
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Think I may have found my new doc. Evan Applebaum was great. Harvard-educated cardiologist, and seems to have the proper mindset with regard to balancing quality/quantity of life. He clearly lifts and offered advice on my training.
He recommended staying away from any adjuncts and lowering my T dose. We’re taking it from 260 to 160 for starters. He thinks 1X/week injections are just fine and will allow us to find a true nadir on labs.
He thinks the issues with my mood (depression/anger) are related to estrogen potentially getting too high. He isn’t gung-ho for AIs, though, and respected my desire to stay away from them.
I’ll get new labs in 8 weeks, have another consult, and we’ll go from there. MHB is also (it seems) able to bill to insurance, which is a huge plus, and now that I’ve gone once we can do telehealth.
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Glad to see you have found a doctor who is smart and will actually help you. It’s best to go to a doctor that’s conservative and is also on trt since they have the best experience.
Thanks, brother. The doc also mentioned he isn’t convinced DHEA is necessary. I’ve been taking 100 mg/day and my most recent level was 250. What do you think - is it valuable?
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I would listen to your doctor on this one. I’m not a fan of ancillaries either. I’ve never heard of someone feeling better by adding dhea if they fall within the middle of normal range. Not sure where you lie on the spectrum, but in your case less is more. This dr has you on the right path imho. Glad you switched to him.
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Thanks, brother. I am too. I might place one more order with Defy just so I’m loaded up with T. It was pretty incredible going to the pharmacy yesterday and paying $11 (!) for 4 mg of T-cyp. God bless insurance-billed TRT.
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Some argue once-a-week injections are inferior to more frequent dosing (e.g., every day or EOD) due to resulting spikes/dips in blood pressure. Derek often says this on his channel – that it’s bad for your physiology to inject that infrequently.
My doc, however, says once-a-week works well for 95% of guys and thinks I should do that.
Can someone set the record straight? 
From what I’ve seen most guys do best injecting twice a week or more frequently. It’s extremely rare that guys will feel better with less injections over more frequent injections
In ur doc’s experience with his patients has he seen them feel worse on more frequent injections when they would try, compared to once per week, or he starts all his guys on once per week and most of them end up feeling good and staying on once per week and never trying more frequent injections? There’s a big difference between the two. I assume he starts his patients on once per week, most of them feel good, and none of them ever try more frequent injections and don’t know if they would feel even better injecting more frequently
I’m guessing same as you – he starts people on that, they feel good, so they don’t try anything different.
Ya it’s just the literal opposite of what I’ve seen researching over the last 9 years while I’ve been on HRT. And I frequent the EXCELMALE forum every day along with a bunch of fb groups daily. I’ve only seen guys feel better the more frequent they inject, and then there will be the rare guy here and there that feels better ok once per week injections vs EOD or twice per week. Really just have to stay on the same dose and try switching up ur injection frequencies and see what works best for u
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Might be jumping the gun, but so far I feel better on my lower dose (down to 160, was at 263 and had been as high as 310). I feel less anxious/hurried/emotional/angry…more like the calm, chill guy I used to be.
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New labs!
TT 1185
FT 2.69 (Ref 0.87-5.47) (MHB uses Quest, so FT number looks different)
SHBG 68
E2 42
Numbers were higher across the board on my last labs (I was at 260 mg/week and on Danazol 25 mg EOD, now just T-cyp @ 160/week) – for example, FT was twice the ref range, and now I’m around mid-ref range. Again, hard to translate given the lab change, but FT is definitely much lower.
I feel…pretty good! I feel calmer. Decent (though not great) progress in the gym.
That said, my libido is a bit lower. I like that my body seems to be getting healthier (HCT dropped from 51-46 – also helps that I’m eating more), but I think something between 160-260 will probably be my sweet spot. We’ll see what Dr. Applebaum thinks at my check-in.
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@swoops39 What have you observed, correlationally, when it comes to PRL and libido? For me, lower PRL has historically correlated with higher libido.
Libido goes up as PRL goes down, to a point. I had it measured last at 7 and I felt amazing, sex twice a day sometimes, also more energized. That was on 100-200mg of P5P daily for 6 weeks leading up to the blood draw last year on TRT
I have used Caber a handful of times, all the way back to pre-TRT days. I don’t have the records (this was before I started keeping all that stuff) but PRL was elevated according to my doc, did .25mg Caber 2x per week and after the first two doses I started getting panic attacks, couldn’t sleep, zero libido, didn’t even have a good in-between stage where I felt better, it was just 0-100 in a week. So, I stopped that and didn’t go back to the doc. I started AAS shortly there after.
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Great to know. Thanks so much man. You just used OTC P5P? I’ve never looked into it.
Interestingly, I felt best around a similar PRL (5.6). Lower and higher didn’t feel as good.
Yeah just what I could find on Amazon. I have played around with doses and I’m currently on 50-100mg daily to see if I get the same outcome, or if the higher dose really mattered. I have 3 weeks until labwork, so we’ll see. But your results track pretty well with mine
Really fascinating man. Do you take B6 as well or have you replaced it? Currently taking 200 mg/day.
Another Q: how do you feel, subjectively, on your current dose vs the higher dose?