Started Androderm Patch Recently - Crash?

Pharma / TRT Testosterone Replacement
1

Hello, this is my first post as I am in a bit of desperation mode. The forum archive has already been very informative for me, thanks. I am trying to be detailed so please stick with me.

41 yo M with total T measured around 190 and MANY of the Low T symptoms for at least the past 18 months. May have been rather low my whole life. My PCP doc did not get measures of other levels like Free, E2, etc as this was done before I knew too much about anything. The T was so low and the symptoms so prominent it all seemed like a no-brainer.

I began the Androderm 4mg patches last week (I know topical is not forum recommended and understand why) and within an hour saw an incredible positive change in my memory and focus, and within a day, positive changes to my strength, physical endurance and a stink to my sweat that had been missing for I don’t know how long. Also the ability to wake early in the morning totally refreshed (after a lifetime of being a morning zombie), and substantial reductions to anxiety/restlessness which I am 99% certain was induced by the Low T. Because of the “brain fog”, I tested my IQ six months ago. I was sad but not shocked to see it had gone down significantly, but it has already come back to level.

Have also made some lifestyle and diet changes commensurately. Do not drink or do drugs. Libido still absent as I would expect.

So… I am on Day 6 now and have begun feeling a total scaling back since yesterday. Although my lethargy never really went away, it seems to be a lot stronger (weaker?), along with the anxiety now peeking through. I did have a nausea and subsequent panic attack on Day 3 but otherwise the anxiety had been almost gone up to yesterday.

Should I expect this kind of roller coaster as everything gets going and maybe my own production shuts down? Even on the patch? I have taken good care to make sure the patches are in a good place, done dry, stay in contact, etc. I can’t seem to find reports of people feeling so positive on the patch for the first few days and then “crashing” like this. But I also know a lot of these changes can take longer to manifest and the body is a complicated cocktail, so maybe I just got a sneak preview? Thank you for any information/anecdotes you can provide. It is a lonely journey.

2

Most call that the honeymoon in TRT land. Some spend years trying to get that feeling back.
You will experience lots of ups and down as your body adjust to new lvls of hormones you have introduced.

1 Like
3

Ah, right. Thank you. Good to know it is “normal” anyway.

4

Grab the wifey or significant other and have some fun.

1 Like
5

Quick update of my case and did not want to create a new thread. Sometimes these stories are helpful for someone searching, and I do have a couple questions (at the end). After the crash I started slowly feeling better week to week. End of the fourth week I was starting to feel “normal”, if not even better than that. Low depression, low anxiety. Good motivation. Libido… eh.

But… the patches started creating horrible itchy welts that would light up like a Christmas Tree when the next patch went on. Went through that for about five days which was five days too long. The internet was right.

Have now switched to injections of Cyp. First was today. 100 a week once a week although he told me I might want to do 50 twice a week. Longtime doc, who I respect, does not want to test for any other hormonal markers. I asked.

I feel pretty good after the shot today and I am just rolling with it.

Questions: Has anyone here made the switch after a month or two? Should I expect to feel different than I did on the patch? I’m hoping (like everyone else I guess) for a stronger response. I am doing IM injections in top of thigh. I have this insane fear of injecting in a vein by accident. What happens if I do? Is this irrational…?

6

No further testing for hormonal markers suggest he has no idea what you’re talking about, your talk is above his pay grade. A doctor well-versed in TRT would never suggest patches as a viable option.

As time goes on you will feel less relief with each new injection because your levels will be swinging and the fluctuations will get worse in time. It takes 6 weeks for blood levels to stabilize when on injections.

7

Thanks. A day after my first injection here and I don’t feel great but I don’t feel bad. Very much in between right now. Also had a headache and some niggling chest pain/tightness that has lasted but has eased off some. Almost cold/flu like. I don’t usually experience either of these pains. I’m hoping this isn’t going to be a weekly occurrence. Do the IM injection sites hurt for a while afterwards? Mine still aches a bit.

8

The chest tightness you speak of is what I’m experiencing in the middle of a protocol change, it should subside in a couple of weeks. If not it’s time for a small protocol change.

I doubt any of your doctors will know what to do since they don’t even know what tests to run, many guys quit TRT because they’re working with incompetent doctors.

1 Like
9

If patches work like compounded creams you will have less DHT other than that the T cyp will get your TT up more than the patch did. During the first 6 weeks all kinds of things will happen good and bad. You body is trying to figure out what to do and how to handle these new hormones. Some hormones will over shoot and make you feel weird for a few day. Some of the bad is heart flutter, high heart rates, oily skin. It all settles down in time.

A 100mg/wk is an excellent first protocol since there is a very good chance you will not need and AI to keep your E2 and HCT in check. If you have a normal SHGB 100mg/wk will be more than enough. You have to give TRT time to work. Nothing happens over night. This is not a party drug. Once your body stabilizes then all the good shit start happening. Give it 6 months a year and you will be amazed.
I hope that helped. Lots of alarmist on this forum.

1 Like
10

Never dismiss this! One of the criteria for my insurance company for trt is a question about cardio stuff. That is for a reason.
There are to many what ifs with chest tightness and pain. Talk to your dr and try to get a work up at a cardiologist office. You just don’t fuck with chest pain and tightness.

11

Thanks. It went away but I will mention it next week when I see him.

Also to hrdlvn, your words are sound, and made me feel better.

Appreciate all the responses, it all helps.

12

Hi. Keeping my questions to same thread for context and so as not to spam the board. Hope this is ok.

Question: Brand new using Cyp and am new to IM injections, period. Doc won’t allow me to do subQ. He has prescribed a 22 gauge and 1.5 inch needle for injecting into quad.

The recommendations everywhere on here seem to generally be for shorter, thinner needles. I am not incredibly meaty yet doc seems to want a very deep injection. Can I go for maybe 1 inch and perhaps a 25 without breaking protocol? Are there drawbacks to going shallower in muscle or using the smaller needles? Is doc maybe a bit old school? Can someone enlighten me…?

13

Your doctor is a dinosaur, 22 gauge 1.5 inch syringes is unnecessary. You’re causing damage to muscle tissue and the best way to minimize it is by using smaller syringes. I inject into shoulders and outer quads using 27 gauge 1/2 inch Easy Touch insulin syringes.

1 Like
14

Just updating my case in case anyone comes across this and it might help them to see a fuller story. I have been helped greatly by seeing people’s trt diaries and logs.

Continuing Story

I am nearly 9 weeks into my injections, after about 4 weeks on the patch.

100 cyp once a week IM with a 25g 1" into my quad, rotating four sites. I look forward to my injection every Wednesday morning. For the first three days of each inject (Wed, Thurs, Fri), I buzz and am almost “high”, like I’ve had a couple espressos, with a total calmness, though, and nothing jittery about it. It is a truly wonderful feeling that I just wish I could hold on to forever. I feel so alive, like I want to live forever. This is after probably a lifetime of being borderline low-T, with clinical depression (a long time ago), awful anxiety for as long as I can remember but which worsened as my T bottomed out this last few years, and a host of other issues thrown in for good measure. We are talking about a wholesale life change here.

Saturday (Day 4) of each week is also a very good day. Sundays have been up and down. A few past Sundays it’s like I have felt the T “wear off”. Nothing terrible, but not flying high or feeling “good” anymore. Then Monday and Tuesday I have felt myself slowly crash, occasionally feeling almost pre-TRT. Been wondering if I need two injections. Very frustrating. One week - I think it was week 5 of injections - I didn’t even feel like the injection did a damn thing on any day, which was quite frightening.

Depression, for whatever it was, is totally gone and has been for at least five weeks. Anxiety also gone except for the odd day here or there, mostly on Tuesdays (Day 7) before I inject and my trough is at its lowest. I also occasionally get irritable or “perturbed” as I like to call it for a couple of days. It’s definitely hormonal, not event-driven. I can tell.

This last two weeks (week 7 and 8) however, has seen a real leap forward, and a serious rise in my feeling of well being. I keep a daily chart of how I am doing on several metrics and on a few of them, I have now passed what I sincerely thought was a “10”! Like today, even though it’s Monday, has been an 11 of energy. A level of energy I didn’t know - or maybe forgot - even existed. Until today.

Libido is through the roof - also above what I recalled being “10” - after being very up and down (mostly down) for the first seven weeks on injections. This now includes raging morning wood nearly every day for the last week or two. I would say to people not to get down on their injections even if it has been 7 or 8 weeks. Although I did have lots of clues it was working early on, it has only now recently started to come together. I am a total of 3 months on TRT right now, so hang in there and best of luck.

15

You should see this study showing what happens 6 days after an injection, levels drop below optimal on day 6, your injecting every 7 days.

Go to the graph B on the 3rd page is easier to understand.

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/endocrj/53/3/53_3_305/_pdf

16

I’m a dinosaur

Screenshot_20180828-190305~2
Screenshot_20180828-190305~2921Ă—765 838 KB

RAWR!!! That’s me

1 Like
17

Continuing Story Again

Just another update of my case. About 7 months in now. Am on 100mg cyp / once a week. Shortly after my last post of quite a high in August I experienced another crash. Not a huge one but enough to make me think injections weren’t working or other hormones were out of whack. Depressed, extremely foggy for a time, a bit emotional, low libido… and I had altered nothing.

I started trying to do a deeper IM shot because I realized the way I was taught to inject was accidentally causing a pretty shallow shot in my quad each week. Once I started that, it took another six to eight weeks or so to start getting back to my “peak”. In early November, I found that I was really feeling good again every day, with only a tiny trough as the next shot approached. I have kept that up mainly until now. In fact, tomorrow morning is my shot, and it feels kind of like I did my shot today. I would say I generally feel 50% better than I thought was even possible. Like what I initially would rate as a “10” turned out to be more a 6 or 7 compared to how I feel now. So everything is working.

Got my first lab back from the doctor - again, very old school, he only tested T and PSA this time - PSA is normal and T, which was tested about 48 hours after injection (he knew this) was up over 1,000. He had originally said I should be fine at about 500 but that he doesn’t chase numbers and goes by how I feel. At 1,000 he is obviously not going to increase my dose, but I am going to make sure I monitor hematocrit and any possible out of whack estrogen symptoms (which I have had very few). Balls have stayed the same size - in fact they were quite sad and droopy when I was living at 170 ng/dl and now they are just normal. My resting **** is actually better now too. It was turtling for a couple years of low t which was just so fucking weird. Biggest downside so far is the acne all over my chest and back and occasionally my face.

Remaining Issue - Still Tired!

Only remaining issue is I am still tired a lot. I get sleepy every evening no matter how much sleep I get. And I actually sleep deeper and longer than I did before. I was tired for the last five years but whereas my body would wake after about 6 hours of sleep and be totally fine, now I can sleep a full 8 hours + like I did when I was a teenager. I’m a night person but when I was on the patches for a brief time, I was wide awake at 7am no matter what time I went to sleep. It was like ringing an alarm clock inside. That doesn’t happen on injections.

(Libido is good not amazing but the erections are crazy strong. Orgasms are sometimes kind of numb which is annoying. But everything works again, maybe better than ever, and wifey is quite happy.)

I think working out might help my energy levels. If anyone has thoughts on tiredness at 1,000 ng/dl, let me know. I supplement with B Complex and D3 - I have historically had low D due mostly to autoimmune thing - and thyroid function was fine last I checked. Patches absorbed like crazy, so that supports the idea of good thyroid function.

18

I feel sleepy when estrogen is high and sadly your doctors isn’t even interested in checking it. No Free T, no clue. If Free T is absurdly high than it stands to reason Free E2 may be high as well leading to sensitivity issues with your erections and feeling tired.

You need to be testing trough or your lowest point right before your injection because we have no idea where your levels are at their lowest point.

19

Thanks for the insight, sl. I haven’t had itchy or sensitive nipples, or the other symptoms of E2 I read about. I am seeing him again in a couple months so I will have to deal with it then. He sighed when I asked him about testing E last time.

I can’t switch doctors right now - he has been good and attentive with all the other health issues in the past - and sad as it is, I feel fortunate that he has at least done SOMETHING. The stories I have read about doctors totally ignoring low t are no joke. Not that mistreating is necessarily better but at least I have the injections.

20

Don’t settle for second or third best. If he isn’t willing to treat your symptoms or order blood tests to verify, then he isn’t worth the money. Do not settle when you are talking about your health. You deserve better, demand it, or find someone who will treat you.