Systematic Protocol Testing Log

No, the OCD was diagnosed by a shrink who immediately wanted to put me on meds. I declined then and always will. I know people on SSRI’s; their libido is completely gone (and their dick doesn’t even get hard anymore) and they look and act like zombies, completely numb with a stupid smile on their face. I’d rather suffer the way I did until now.
My OCD isn’t light-switch like, it’s more along the lines of staring at a book for 6 hours straight without being able to open the first page because I’m trying to optimize how to read the book (should I look every single word in the dictionary to make sure I really understand the book? And then go sentence by sentence? And then paragraph by paragraph? Then read the translation of the book in 2 other languages to make sure I get the most out of it? Etc…)

(for some reason my previous post didn’t register as a reply to you)

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They dont if its next inline in the thread.

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Analysis paralysis. I get it. I think it’s linked with confidence which would make sense if its tied to your low FT. Afraid to start something improperly, ie failing.

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Exactly, that’s exactly what it is. And it’s 100% rooted in fear and lack of self-confidence, I can feel it clearly.
And that’s probably why it started melting away initially on TRT. I definitely felt more confident and started caring so much less about a host of small things that had been hogging my mental resources for years. After a couple weeks though, I just started feeing horribly tired and depressed all the time, sleeping 12 hours/day kind of thing.

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Thats the honeymoon phase (TRT + Endogenous T) ending as your body shuts down its own production. Some go through it worse than others. I guess that means there is hope for you somewhere down the track of TRT protocols.

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Nice methodical layout of the plan. I appreciate your attention to detail here. Regarding your 8 week intervals, effect of T (and any AAS) on neurotransmitters/brain takes time. Maybe you read this paper:

image

Genuine question: if low free T is your issue, how will address this using exogenous testosterone? Is the hypothesis that exogenous T will somewhat lower your SHBG or you’ll just titrate dose up until desired functional improvement?

Since you provided bloodwork and excellent assays (MS and dialysis), your case is good example to compare against calculators available.

Vermeulen:

Tru-T:

I am surprised at your dialysis result as typically dialysis free T will be bracketed by these two methods. If I use your experimental values I get 6.5/900 = 0.72%.

An experimental finding of 0.72% percentage free T is very low. How many times have you tested your free T using equilbrium dialysis?

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Thanks for taking the time to reply; what you wrote about “fear of starting something improperly” resonated with me a lot more than all the times I thought of it in terms of “fear of failure”, for some reason. I think it just captures the nature of that fear more accurately.

It’s my hope also that if I can be disciplined enough to eventually converge onto something close to an optimal protocol, TRT will enhance my life to the point of changing it completely. Hence why I’m doing this systematic protocol testing.

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Happy to help. Looking forward to following your log.

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Some additional context:

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I tested FT by dialysis twice also (TT 896ng/dL first time and 980ng/dL second time), and it was just a tiny bit higher the second time but still the very bottom of the range, around 8ng/dL. First time was Quest and second Labcorp.

My hope with TRT is that my SHBG will lower over time through the use of exogenous Test, or as you said that I can reach good FT levels by pushing my TT above the normal range.

I did read the paper you linked and I can see how it would take longer than 8 weeks to see the deepest changes on TRT. I’m just hoping that 8 weeks will be enough to see whether I’m at least going in that direction.

Very informative. Thank you. Always great to see someone who has done their homework. Kudos!

Thank you for linking the articles, I didn’t know about the second one. It’s interesting to see the different degrees of correlation between calculated FT methods and dialysis FT. Less than 1% FT seems very rare indeed.

I was surprised by your data points. Your free T is not below the 2.5%tile, but as a % of TT, it’s really down there.

Thanks. In the spirit of the analysis paralysis that has plagued me for years, I researched TRT on and off for almost 5 years before taking the plunge. When I started, I immediately went to daily subQ injections using 30G 5/16’’ insulin syringes, 20mg/day.

I thought I had it all figured out, and the sad thing is that maybe I actually did if only I’d been patient enough to tough out the rough patch when my natural production died, instead of overreacting. Even as I write this I’m thinking maybe I should go back to my initial protocol instead of the 70mg 2x/week I just started. But I have to fight that tendency and just see this through.

Yeah it’s really low. My doc told me he’d never seen a ratio of TT:FT that high, and he’s been prescribing TRT for almost 20 years.

What’s your Hct/CBC look like?

14.6 Hemoglobin and 44% Hematocrit. No problems with BP or anything; heart should be strong genetically, both my parents are almost 80yo and as healthy as can be.

(sorry, I reached the max posts/day for a new user yesterday and couldn’t reply)

Fantastic! So great you don’t appear to be predisposed to erythrocytosis (may give you some runway on your dosing). Will be interesting and informative to watch your experiments.

Thanks. Everything was good on lipids and CBC. One thing I forgot to mention though, is that my cortisol was very low, actually slighty lower than the minimum of the lab range (both times I tested).

I have a Cortisol stimulation test planned for next week to test for adrenal insufficiency, so it’ll be interesting to see how that comes out.

Quick update:

I did 2 weeks at 70mg 2x/week and then switched to 80mg 2x/week. I’m happy with 160mg/week and will stay there for another 6 weeks.

Libido is slightly up and strength and pumps are slightly up also. Mentally I feel better but still don’t feel as confident and “alpha” as I want to. Brain fog is still there but getting slightly better. Still tired in the morning despite 7-8 hours of sleep though. Zero negative side effects so far, BP still 115/75, no acne or anything.

Got the results back from the Adrenal Insufficiency test and I’m fine, no problem there.

My plan going forward is to finish 8 weeks at 80mg 2x/week and then run 22mg/day (154mg/week) to compare (essentially) the same dose between 2x/week and daily injections.

After the 8 weeks at 22mg/day, I will test 2 more protocols: 18mg/day (126mg/week) and 26mg/day (182mg/week). Not sure in which order yet, but I think I’d rather go up than down based on how I feel now and the fact that my TT was close to 1000ng/dL when I started TRT.

I’m still trying to decide when to start playing with Pregnenolone and DHEA. I’ve heard very good things about Preg, especially when it comes to lifting brain fog, so I might start at the end of these 8 weeks once I’m relatively stabilized on the current protocol.

I’m also going to see a cardiologist to get a baseline for my heart shape, size, etc…and keep track of that once a year to see if there’s any evolution in a bad direction over time.

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