How long for energy

[T52]

When did you all start to see a noticeable change in energy levels?

I received my 5th injection today of 140mg of test cyp, and so far the main things I’ve noticed is an increase in sex drive, better sleep, and no more brain fog. I seem to get random bursts of energy but still feel quite tired, especially the 2 or 3 days leading to my shot

[Youthful55guy]

When did you all start to see a noticeable change in energy levels?

I received my 5th injection today of 140mg of test cyp, and so far the main things I’ve noticed is an increase in sex drive, better sleep, and no more brain fog. I seem to get random bursts of energy but still feel quite tired, especially the 2 or 3 days leading to my shot

As I've preached in so many posts, you need to break that big dose up into smaller and more frequent doses. This will keep your T levels more level and minimize side-effects.

We need to know the rest of your protocol and pre and post TRT labs (with ranges) to understand what's going on.

I STRONGLY suggest you read my post on Best Practices in TRT. Many of your questions will be answered there: https://forums.steroid.com/hormone-r...rting-trt.html

[T52]

As I've preached in so many posts, you need to break that big dose up into smaller and more frequent doses. This will keep your T levels more level and minimize side-effects.

We need to know the rest of your protocol and pre and post TRT labs (with ranges) to understand what's going on.

I STRONGLY suggest you read my post on Best Practices in TRT. Many of your questions will be answered there: https://forums.steroid.com/hormone-r...rting-trt.html

Thank you for the reply!! I’ve been reading around here and have read quite a few of your posts. I’ve also seen some posts relating to when people see relief and changes, but nothing specifically to energy levels. Fatigue has always been my biggest symptom, along with many others, but fatigue was the biggest push for me to get on trt.

Unfortunately I’m going to one of the clinics that require weekly visits for injections, so doing it on my own or twice a week is not an option right now. Or trust me brother, I would be doing it the way you’ve lined out. I’m 33 and have looked around and spoke to doctors, but they always say my levels are in the normal range and wouldn’t recommend it. For the last 4 years my levels have been around 320-360 total. Luckily I found this clinic that takes insurance, so with my copays it costs me around $140 a month for the weekly visits.

Before I started with them they ran my blood, and I was at 360 total, and 7 for the free...which normal is 9-25. They did a second test and free came back at 7.2, so they finally started me. Current plan right now is 140mg of test cyp, 500 hcg, and .5 arimidex. They also just ran another round of blood work to see where my levels are so far

I’m hoping now that I’m on trt I can continue to try out some other doctors and maybe find the one that would be able to prescribe so I don’t have to keep going this route.

[Youthful55guy]

Thank you for the reply!! I’ve been reading around here and have read quite a few of your posts. I’ve also seen some posts relating to when people see relief and changes, but nothing specifically to energy levels. Fatigue has always been my biggest symptom, along with many others, but fatigue was the biggest push for me to get on trt.

Unfortunately I’m going to one of the clinics that require weekly visits for injections, so doing it on my own or twice a week is not an option right now. Or trust me brother, I would be doing it the way you’ve lined out. I’m 33 and have looked around and spoke to doctors, but they always say my levels are in the normal range and wouldn’t recommend it. For the last 4 years my levels have been around 320-360 total. Luckily I found this clinic that takes insurance, so with my copays it costs me around $140 a month for the weekly visits.

Before I started with them they ran my blood, and I was at 360 total, and 7 for the free...which normal is 9-25. They did a second test and free came back at 7.2, so they finally started me. Current plan right now is 140mg of test cyp, 500 hcg, and .5 arimidex. They also just ran another round of blood work to see where my levels are so far

I’m hoping now that I’m on trt I can continue to try out some other doctors and maybe find the one that would be able to prescribe so I don’t have to keep going this route.

That's the exact route I went when I first started. I spent about 4 months on the clinic TRT plan and then got highly motivated to find a private TRT doc to take over the protocol. That was January-April of 2012. In June I had a 2 week European vacation planned and I could not imagine going through T withdrawal while on vacation. Like you, even at 140 mg weekly and a ton of HCG the last 3 days of the weekly cycle, I ALWAYS crashed beginning Day 5.

There are docs out there, you just have to be motivated to find them. I ended up going to a well known TRT expert in LA and he got me on a good protocol of E3D self-injections of 40 mg. I've since upped that to 45 mg, but am considering cutting it back to 40 mg now that I have SHBG well under control with low dose Winstrol. After 3 years of paying through the nose to see this expert, I finally convinced my PCP to take over the protocol when she saw how good it was for me. She was monitoring me the whole time and it took time to convince her that this was a good thing since she had no experience at all administering TRT. She's been administering my program now for about 3 years. I pay cash for everything, but T and HCG are not that expensive at the local pharmacy.

[T52]

That's the exact route I went when I first started. I spent about 4 months on the clinic TRT plan and then got highly motivated to find a private TRT doc to take over the protocol. That was January-April of 2012. In June I had a 2 week European vacation planned and I could not imagine going through T withdrawal while on vacation. Like you, even at 140 mg weekly and a ton of HCG the last 3 days of the weekly cycle, I ALWAYS crashed beginning Day 5.

There are docs out there, you just have to be motivated to find them. I ended up going to a well known TRT expert in LA and he got me on a good protocol of E3D self-injections of 40 mg. I've since upped that to 45 mg, but am considering cutting it back to 40 mg now that I have SHBG well under control with low dose Winstrol. After 3 years of paying through the nose to see this expert, I finally convinced my PCP to take over the protocol when she saw how good it was for me. She was monitoring me the whole time and it took time to convince her that this was a good thing since she had no experience at all administering TRT. She's been administering my program now for about 3 years. I pay cash for everything, but T and HCG are not that expensive at the local pharmacy.

Yeah my goal is to give this a few months and get stable on a good dose and to where I’m feeling good, then try to go to doctors and see if they will take over. I have to do a physical in a few months so figured I’d researched and see if I can find a doctor in my area, then speak with them about it at the physical. That way I don’t waste more time or money at a doctor.

I’ve been noticing that too, right about day 5 or 6 i start feeling run down. My doctors goal is to have me in the upper middle range by day 7 before my injection. We just did some blood work two days ago before my shot, so will be interesting to see what my levels are at on that day. When you were doing shots once a week did you ever test on day 7 to see where your levels were at? And if so where were they at? Also just curious, is there comparisons of what test levels look like with one shot a week vs two a week?

[T52]

That's the exact route I went when I first started. I spent about 4 months on the clinic TRT plan and then got highly motivated to find a private TRT doc to take over the protocol. That was January-April of 2012. In June I had a 2 week European vacation planned and I could not imagine going through T withdrawal while on vacation. Like you, even at 140 mg weekly and a ton of HCG the last 3 days of the weekly cycle, I ALWAYS crashed beginning Day 5.

There are docs out there, you just have to be motivated to find them. I ended up going to a well known TRT expert in LA and he got me on a good protocol of E3D self-injections of 40 mg. I've since upped that to 45 mg, but am considering cutting it back to 40 mg now that I have SHBG well under control with low dose Winstrol. After 3 years of paying through the nose to see this expert, I finally convinced my PCP to take over the protocol when she saw how good it was for me. She was monitoring me the whole time and it took time to convince her that this was a good thing since she had no experience at all administering TRT. She's been administering my program now for about 3 years. I pay cash for everything, but T and HCG are not that expensive at the local pharmacy.

I had labs pulled before my 5th injection to see where I was at on my levels. So on day 7 at my low my level was 738 and free was 20. Since I’m only doing one shot a week you think my levels are going above average after 2-3 days?

[Youthful55guy]

Yeah my goal is to give this a few months and get stable on a good dose and to where I’m feeling good, then try to go to doctors and see if they will take over. I have to do a physical in a few months so figured I’d researched and see if I can find a doctor in my area, then speak with them about it at the physical. That way I don’t waste more time or money at a doctor.

I’ve been noticing that too, right about day 5 or 6 i start feeling run down. My doctors goal is to have me in the upper middle range by day 7 before my injection. We just did some blood work two days ago before my shot, so will be interesting to see what my levels are at on that day. When you were doing shots once a week did you ever test on day 7 to see where your levels were at? And if so where were they at? Also just curious, is there comparisons of what test levels look like with one shot a week vs two a week?

I always test the day of the next scheduled injection. This is what I recommend. The difference between weekly and E3D injections are that the peak levels are lower and the nadir levels are higher, but the average levels are pretty much the same. You are just more stable with more frequent injections of smaller doses.

The kinetics of T-cyp are well studied. Here's a graph of what to expect with a 200 mg dose over 10 days. I did some image analysis using photoshop to measure the approximate blood levels for days 1-7 and then average them. The average blood level is about 1050 ng/dL and the peak to nadir is about 650 ng/dL (that's a lot).


I only had one follow up lab with the TRT clinic (I was only with them for 3 months before I changed to my TRT doc). They only ran Total T, which was 770 ng/dL (LabCorp) on day 7 with a 140 mg dose. My SHBG levels pre-TRT were about 70 nmol/L, so that level probably put my Free T around 9-10 pg/mL, which is just barley in range. So the labs confirmed that at 140 mg every 7 days, I should feel like $H!t. The next set of labs were from my TRT doc with 40 mg E3D and my Total T was around 1000 ng/dL on day 3 just prior to the next injection and my free T was 13 with SHBG at 54. There was much improvement in how I felt too! After many many labs, I have determined that my Free T needs to be above 15 pg/mL to feel "normal". At about 20 pg/mL I start to feel really good and get my muscle pump back when I exercise.