I’m making a thread for my own sake of journaling along with my story to help other people dealing with this shit, feel free to ask any questions about me or my experience.
22 years old.
178 cm, 85 kg ~17-18% bf
Normal body hair, think facial hair, can’t grow beard at all.
I carry fat on my chest (+ gyno) and around my midsection (ass).
I got diagnosed with hypogonadotropic hypogonadism in fall of 2015 due to repeted low T tests and obvious symptoms of low T. Gynocomastia confirmed by doctor wich showed up at around the age of 8-9, a year or two after I got fat, really fast. I can see from childhood pictures that I got gynocomastia before I got fat which is interesting to me.
Never taken any medical drugs connected to hormones but have a history of weekly cannabis use, taken MDMA, cocaine, DMMA, diazepam occasionally but from the internet research I have done, the doses and more importantly the frequency of my usage haven’t affected my hormones in any significant way.
I starved myself at the age of 16-18 forth and back at as low as 1200 kcal a day to lose weight while going to the gym 5-7 times a week. Not my smartest move but I didn’t have any clue about hormones or that they were affected by diet or training. My TDEE seemed to be at around 2000 kcal a day which is very low considering my height, weight and that I was quite muscular at this point. After 1 year on HRT my TDEE has increased by somewhere around 500-1000 kcal which is crazy much in one year since I at this point have the same body composition as back then. I’m well aware of how to proporly count calories, these are not numbers I’m pulling out of my ass or eye-scaling.
Lab results are tricky because I don’t have access to all of them. It is not standard practice in my country Sweden to give them to patients from my experience. I have done quite some research on TRT, hypogonadism etc so I’m not clueless when it comes to my labs but I can’t post all of them with ranges.
My first labs that was taken by a GP showed T levels around 400 (350-850) and e2 levels at 190 (ref < 150 pmol/L) converted to pg/ml = 52. GP said my symptoms were not related to hormones. Sent a mail to a hospital about my situation and got refered to a endo who is now my doctor. After two more tests that showed 350 along with 300. Got a shot of 5000IU of hCG and my T responded “very well”, doctor diagnosed me with hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. What convinced him was a sperm test which showed I was close to infertile, he did mention I shouldn’t use that instead of a condom though.
Got on hCG monotheraphy, doctor put me on 1500 IU x2 a week but got bad e2 issues (no test from doctor) so after some research I dropped it to 500 x2, still e2 sides (gyno started flaring, ED, feeling like shit). Dropped it to 300 x3 week, still e2 sides and then I got down to 150/200 IU E2D. Still had significant e2 sides and tests to show it but my doctor have to this day showed zero interest in prescribing AI medication. “AI is for cancer patients and high estrogen is something you have to live with”.
Decided to go the dark route and got some Arimidex, taking it with my hCG still gave me e2 symptoms (note that I had high e2 even before I started HRT). Still had high e2 symptoms with Arimidex so I concluded I had gotten to high T—E2 conversion within my testicles from the hCG. Switched to Aromasin which took away the sides but I had to take high amounts, like 25mg E2D or even ED to combat e2 levels from hCG.
All in all I was on hCG monotheraphy for a year which got my T levels to a normal level which elevated a lot of my symptoms but the ones related to e2 was still there and worse like gyno, ED and feeling emotional.
Told my doctor I had enough of this and he put me on Nebido in November of 2016. When I stopped the hCG my e2 sides were gone but after my first shot of Nebido 1000mg the sides came back, not as significant as even 200 IU of hCG but still enough to make gyno flare. Started taking Aromasin 12,5mg E2D or ED depending on how I felt. First Nebido shot was 8 weeks ago and I got my second booster shot 2 weeks ago. Next shot is sqheduled for April (12 weeks after second shot).
Now with Nebido and Aromasin I feel a lot better, but I’m already looking into switching back to Arimidex due to Aromasins short half life, I’m going to try with a lower amount of Arimidex E3D instead of daily Aromasin.
Also looking into getting another T esther to supplement the Nebido because I’m pretty sure my doctor will only put me at every 8 weeks of shots as lowest rate of injection. Time will tell.
My goal is to feel healthy and have as optimal testosterone levels. Bodybuilding is a big part of my life even though I have no interest in running any cycles. Proper diet, training and TRT dosage of testosterone is good enough for me since I have no interest in competing nor care about being the biggest guy in the world.