Burly's TRT journey

[DJM]

Side note- reading about your RBC, I just remebered that people who were taking aspirin even if they had a stroke/heart attack it did not leave permanent damage to their heart/brain. Even if taken after stroke/attack it still had a huge benefits.

i take a baby aspirin each day on cycle for that reason, no issues yet

[burlyman30]

Of course, at the moment you are at "slow motion" your metabolic rate is low, and everything is slow- once you start adding T your adrenals needs to shift into higher gear and thyroid needs to pick up, and increase metabolic rate and to put you in "normal speed motion". If your thyroid fails to pick up, you'll crash. Hopefully that will not happen, actually I'm more worried about your adrenals, but will see, at the moment we dont have sufficient data.

A study done on rats using 2mg of test prop per day showed an increase in thyroid hormone secretion rate so you should see an improvement there.

I know tren can decrease t3 though so if you were for instance considering using tren with trt at some point as some people do you might find the improvement in your thyroid amelieorated by the tren. I do wonder though whether it matters because I wonder if the decrease in t3 is merely the body's way of balancing out your metabolism and so your overall energy expenditure and functionality is the same due to some other effect tren may have elsewhere on metabolism.

Great feedback from both of you guys. Thanks for sharing your encyclopedias of knowledge with me. I have been around the anabolic game for many years, but TRT is a specialized subset of that, and frankly I am becoming aware that even with my basic understanding, I do have some knowledge gaps I need to fill.

Love that about this forum... I never stop learning.

[burlyman30]

Great thread. Just got caught up. I went through similar routes as you. I did everything I could to stay "natural" mostly for competitions and such. My test was 183 though, same testing scenario as you. IE multiple early morning tests to verify. Currently on a 150 test c. every 2 weeks schedule. Started at 200 a month for two months just to look for any side effects.

In my case probably the biggest gain has been in clarity of thought! I knew my energy was getting lower and I wasn't healing as fast as I should. But, the real shock was after the second injection, I literally felt like I woke up from a long nap! Still working with my doc to make adjustments but the quality of life change has been worth the effort. I need to discuss HCG with him when we meet next.

Hope everything works out well for you, I'm sure it will.

Thanks for joining this thread! It's great to have your input in this, so thanks for sharing your situation and please feel free to continue to do so. We all learn from each other here.

Funny you should mention mental clarity. Clarity of thought has been one of the most driving reasons for TRT, actually. I find myself forgetting names, direction, or other important details that I SHOULD know and DO know, but just can't recall when prompted to do so. My mental clarity and memory has been something I really depend on with my business and it is troublesome to feel like you are losing part of your faculties.

Really glad to hear that things have been going well for you so far.

How long have you now been at 150mg every 2weeks? And have you had your test levels measured since being at that dosage?

[Sorrow]

I've been on the two week schedule for about a month and a half, 3 injections. Be my fourth on monday. The follow up blood work was scheduled for january but may be february now. My health insurance is way more complicated then it needs to be, but oh well. Injections are roughly 15$ a dose. But the blood work comes out of a health fund I pay into that doesn't get much pro-rated. So I was trying to make sure I had funds left "just in case" I didn't feel so good.

Feels like way less of a roller coaster at every two weeks. The once a month was for 3 months and I knew when the shots kicked in, and when they fell off.

[burlyman30]

You pay by the injection? My endo just prescribed me a vial and had me come in for injection training. Funny thing though, the medical assistant drew up about 3/4 of a ml and I had to correct him "Umm, are you planning to have me use a full dose or is there a reason you are shorting me on this dose?"

I can't believe they had you doing 200mg 1x/month. It's no wonder you could feel the high and low of that! I'm quite sure I'll be feeling it in between the 2 week gap.

Like you, I'll be getting levels re-tested in February.

[burlyman30]

Update, 3 days after 200mg injection.

I was particularly thirsty all day on day 1 of the injection and by the end of the day I felt "puffy", retaining water from what I would guess is in an increase in aldosterone from the hormonal shift in my body.

Yesterday, my appetite seemed a little higher than usual, and I enjoyed the Thanksgiving meal at lunch and at dinner.

I would guess that I have gained about 3 lbs in water retentive weight.

Mentally, I seem to be more relaxed/mellow. Yesterday I had a transmission blow out on my truck on the way to a family dinner and the start of a week long vacation and was pretty relaxed about it, even though it cost me money, time, and inconvenience.

Sleep. My sleep patterns have been a little irregular. I often do not sleep a lot (4-7 hours is normal for me), but I went to sleep by about 9-930 (very early for me) and did not get out of bed until 1030 (much later than usual). It will be interesting to track this change.

[Jelisej]

OK, I think from sypmtoms you described is that your adrenals are now engaged in "frontline battle", altough its early to say or conclude anything, I think its better to consider any potential danger.
From previous symptoms- bronchitis/constant cough which can be because of low adrenal output (without sufficient cortisol lungs cant fight of inflammation/allergy). Memory problems/ clarity of toughts/brain fog is typically connected to poor adrenals. "Brain fog" is textbook symptom of adrenal fatigue.

New symptoms- excessive thirst could be result of LOW aldosterone. As the body tries to hold on to electrolytes and fluid- it pushes fluid into tissues whic causes swelling. (altough swelling is often sign of high E2).
Sleep- if you continue to sleep too many hours, and especially if its hard to get up from bed- it another sign of adrenals exaustion.
Also very often person feels sleepy afternoon, especially between 2-5pm, sometimes get feeling of euphoria for no aparent reason or sometimes can be bit "detached" from reality or worries, almost as he is in other dimension.
Other symptoms: eyes getting bit sensitive to light, itchy eyes (your eyes feel like you did not sleep for days).
Dizzy when you get up suddenly, fatigue... Muscle weakness- muscles around legs are quite sensitive to it so sometimes person may even get back pain.

I think that from your ACTH was questionable wheter your body will be able to produce enough cortisol to sustain higher testosterone levels. Other thing that comes to my mind is what is happening to your pregnenolone?
Side note- aldosterone and pregnenolone tests are inaccurate.

[burlyman30]

J, as you mentioned, it's a bit early to know for sure, but my thought is that the adrenals are being asked to kick into gear and it's a wait-and-see game to see if they will answer to the call. I'm not sure in what time frame I should expect them to answer this call and normalize. Or if they decide not to, what the next step might be.

I'll keep an eye out for some of the other symptoms you mentioned and make a note of them here in the log as they present themselves.

Very interesting input on the bronchitis/adrenal connection. Would have been nice if my Endo or my GP would have connected the dots and at least looked at this as a possibility.

On the memory/brain fog, I knew it was an associated symptom of low testosterone, but it makes a lot more sense that it is a problem with low adrenals that also coincides with low testosterone.

[burlyman30]

Approx 60 hours past the 200mg injection:

Overall, I feel ok. Neither overly tired, nor overly energetic. I'm quite sure I have retained a bit more fluid, both intra and extracellular in nature. I am on a short vacation over at the Oregon coast, so I don't have a scale to weigh myself to indicate how many pounds I've gained. I'd guess somewhere around 5 or 6 total. Some of the gain could likely be dietary. Between family meals and vacation meals since Thursday, my carb intake is higher than my usual, and I would expect a certain amount of fluid gain. But not to this extent. Granted, I'm not overly puffy. Just a bit. Veins in my arms are clearly visible.

My blood sugar has remained stable and my appetite seems relatively normal, possibly elevated a bit.

Sleep... I continue to sleep more than usual, but being on vacation, this is more the norm. However, I think I slept 9.5 to 10 hours last night, which is still out of character for me. Mind you, it feels pretty good, but 7-8 is the most I would normally sleep even in these circumstances unless overly exhausted for another reason.

Attitude... pretty good considering I have 10 and 12 year old nephews (no wisecracks, DJ lol) with me and my wife for the last 2 days. I'm a little less patient than I was two days ago, but no temper flares. I think it's circumstantial, as I'd grow weary of them after a while, regardless of cycle or not.

[h2s]

I am curious how the body composition changes will manifest over the course of this. Even with in-range testosterone being the goal, it will still be quite an improvement from the prior sub-range period.