Results From Daily Protocol

[GreenMachineX]

For about 8 weeks, I've been using 9-10mg daily test cyp with 15mg Sublingual dhea. Results as follows:

Total Testosterone, MS 558 ng/dL (250-1100)
Free Testosterone 147.2 pg/mL (35-155)
Estradiol, Ultrasensitive, LCMS 18 pg/mL (<29)
DHEA-Sulfate 174 mcg/dL (106-464)

The most interesting thing is my blood pressure is down quite a bit, consistent readings of 115/70. I'm on telmisartan, but have been on that for a few years. 50mg twice per week, 100mg one per week and even 22mg eod kept my blood pressure above 130/80, or much higher in the afternoon. My shbg was very low when last tested and in guessing that's the reason for the success with daily vs anything else. All other protocols cause huge swings from injection to injection.

Still dealing with some unpleasant symptoms, but I'm finally sleeping well and the night sweats from (I think) Covid are gone. Next I'll be messing with the dhea dose, up and down, to see the difference it makes, and eventually, like I've been putting off for months, I'll add in a low dose of pregnenolone and slowly ramp up.

 

[Uncle_E]

That’s some good BP numbers. How do you take such a low dose of test? Seems al Kat too small to measure.

 

[GreenMachineX]

That’s some good BP numbers. How do you take such a low dose of test? Seems al Kat too small to measure.

I use a 1mL insulin syringe, so I just fill to the 5th notch, meaning 10mg.

 

[bad rad]

From my own results I'd add the pregnenolone and dial that in since it's upstream from DHEA and converts to some neurotransmitters. I feel best on 200mg pregnenolone daily and it made a huge difference for me. I also do best on daily injections generally.

 

[GreenMachineX]

Update:
I had been having fatigue, dizzy spells and mild dull headaches for about a week. After thinking it through, I stopped taking telmisartan (today is day 2 without a dose) and feel so much better. I'm guessing as my testosterone level came down and blood pressure as a result, I was getting low BP side effects or just side effects in general from the telmisartan. At the recommendation from someone on another forum, I dropped my daily test dose to 8mg as I have plenty of room of free test which could've brought my blood pressure down even more. I'll be home tonight to double check the blood pressure and if it's gone up too much, I'll add telmisartan back in, but I'm praying this was the final kicker to being healthy and not needing it.

Also dropped dhea to 5mg sublingual during that time because I wasn't sure what was going on, but I'll be ramping that back up starting tomorrow.

 

[GreenMachineX]

Update here: unsure if what was happening, but after a month of severe insomnia (0-3 hours per night), then a night at the ER, dropped testosterone cyp dose to 7mg roughly per day. A few days later saw some labs showing mild b12 deficiency. 1 month later, after addressing mild b12 deficiency at the reduced dose of 7mg, hemoglobin up to 18.8 and hct up to 53.2. Donated blood and now at 5mg daily. HH 16.8 and 48.8 3 days after blood donation. Also stopped dhea.

I know it takes 60 days to show a reduced effect of rbc on blood work, but at this point, I don't know what would've happened at the 7mg if I had stayed there any longer. But, if 9mg had me at very top of range free T, then I'm hoping 5mg will have me somewhere midrange. It's only been 4 days so far. Still have anxiety most of day. Other symptoms are muscle weakness/cramps, palpitations, irritability, sleep disturbance. I'm at least sleeping though, just wake up every 1-3 hours for 5-15 minutes.

I'll likely repeat cbc, e2 and free test in 2 weeks to get a ballpark idea of what's happening.

 

[GreenMachineX]

Update: on 5mg test cyp daily still. 2 weeks after that post-donation cbc, my HH were 17.2 and 49.8, climbing back up slowly. Had test and e2 drawn as well, but waiting on those results. I stopped all methylated b vitamins about a week ago, and replaced b12 with hydroxycobalamin at 250mcg and eating 100% rda folate from food. Sleeping fantastic, but feel like garbage throughout the day. Lethargy, muscles still cramping or tightening up too easily, and then light headaches starting at 3pm everyday. On the flip side, anxiety is gone and far less irritable.

So, lethargy and headaches vs anxiety/overstimulation/insomnia are my current choices. Guess I'll go with the lethargy for a while and dropping fish oil to see if that's the cause. Found a study on pubmed that fish oil lowers NE and cortisol pretty significantly, so perhaps that's the problem.

 

[GreenMachineX]

Update: 2 weeks after blood donation and dose drop to 5mg...
Testosterone, Free 105 (35-155) pg/mL
Total Testosterone MS 414 (250-1100) ng/dL
Estradiol Ultrasensitive 15 (<29) pg/mL

Looks I'm on track with 5mg daily so far. It's been a little more than 2 weeks since I've used dhea, might add that back in at 5mg sublingual for a little more e2. Could that e2 level give me low e2 symptoms? I'm also battling a b12 deficiency which isn't helping determining what symptoms are what, and apparently after increasing b12, folate and potassium deficiencies can arise from the b12 using what's available.

Current symptoms: Anxiety is doing pretty well though, as well as sleep. Tinnitus still terrible. Muscles tighten up when using them (hard to describe, but even a jump shot in basketball had my glutes like cramp up for hours). Another example, I raced my son to some stairs yesterday at a park, and today glutes are way too sore. Ridiculous. Random muscle twitches a few times per day. Very mild night sweats (just waking up a little sweaty in middle of night, not drenched like menopause women talk about). Mood seems to be ok for the most part, but the fact I'm dealing with this and can't workout due to the muscle cramps gets to me.

 

[kisaj]

So this all started when you lowered your test dose and moved to daily? In a recent thread here I posted up that I moved to subq and lowered to 80mg weekly. I just put up my current labs in the update and everything is dialed in nicely- any reason you chose to move to daily? I know in theory it is supposed to work but anecdotal feedback in other forums is that a lot of people see issues with lipids getting thrown off.

 

[GreenMachineX]

So this all started when you lowered your test dose and moved to daily? In a recent thread here I posted up that I moved to subq and lowered to 80mg daily. I just put up my current labs in the update and everything is dialed in nicely- any reason you chose to move to daily? I know in theory it is supposed to work but anecdotal feedback in other forums is that a lot of people see issues with lipids getting thrown off.

Well, turns out it's more complicated than I thought. Apparently I'm b12 deficient also which is causing lots of bizarre symptoms. The upside to the daily protocol is my blood pressure is finally healthy and 3 months into daily protocol, crp, lipo-A, and other stiff like that are perfect. Granted, I didn't know what they were before this. Honestly, since starting TRT, I haven't felt right consistently. Something has always been off and sleep had been an issue the whole time (6 years).

7 days ago, I was up most of the night with difficulty breathing and tight chest and anxiety, so I haven't taken testosterone since. I got bloodwork the next morning and the results were so ridiculously high they had to be a mistake. These results are 2 weeks after the last set of labs which were just about good enough.

Testosterone, Total MS 3459 (250-1100)
Testosterone, Free Dialysis 1232 (35-155)

But now I'm in a bizarre place. I was using 5mg per day roughly, and the last few days before that tight chest feeling and such I bumped up to just under 6mg line. Recall, I was on 10mg per 3 months (resulted in worse anxiety, stimulation and insomnia) before, then 7mg for 1 month. At one point while on 10mg, I bumped to 12mg for 2 or 3 days, then to 13mg for 2 days then to the ER with chest pain/tightness, shortness of breath, etc. So it seems like every time I adapt to a lower dose, just a few days of going back up results in awful symptoms. I did have the lab redraw about 5 days after not using any testosterone to verify those results are wrong. If or when I start again, it'll be at 5mg again. There is a chance that tight chest feeling was actually from vitamin k2 mk7 because I had started that back up again the day prior. But, that doesn't make sense either because I used it for months without issue. None of this makes sense. I'm at a loss. I hope that rambling even makes sense.

Did you really mean 80mg daily? Or 80mg, spread throughout the week, totaling 80mg per week? I also don't understand subq. Where are you injecting that?

 

[kisaj]

Lol, good catch I need to edit it. 80mg weekly- 2x 40mg. Subq using 27g in the belly.

 

[GreenMachineX]

Here's all labs from daily protocol:

Total Testosterone
10mg daily trough, total T, MS 550 (250-1100) 6 weeks
10mg daily 5 hours post, total T, MS 664 (250-1100) 9w
10mg daily...3 weeks (upped to 13mg, in ER)
7mg daily...no test 4w (HCT/HGB jumped)
5mg daily trough, total T, MS 414 (250-1100) 2w
5mg daily trough, total T, MS 3459 (250-1100) 2w

For reference, below are the free testosterone results corresponding with the above dose.

Quest Diagnostics
10mg daily trough, 147 (35-155)
10mg daily trough, 174 (35-155)
5mg daily trough, 105 (35-155)
5mg daily trough, 1232 (35-155)

On the above total testosterone, at the end you can see how long I was on each dose before the test (if I did test) and notes regarding why dose change.

 

[GreenMachineX]

Lol, good catch I need to edit it. 80mg weekly- 2x 40mg. Subq using 27g in the belly.

I'd like to try subq, but I have lots of stretch marks and unsure if that's an issue. You basically just inject into the fat, right? Love handles should work the same, correct?

 

[GreenMachineX]

Another thing I'm concerned with. It's been 4 months since I had covid, so pretty sure I'm still protected to some degree, but low testosterone seems like a risk factor according to at least one study. I'm almost forced to start back up (after I get the labs back confirming the last ones we're an error).

 

[kisaj]

Yeah, not sure about the Covid piece. I had it so bad for about a month in Feb '21 that I couldn't inject because of the pain. Could there have been any residual effect because I crashed my test(?)- probably.

 

[Slots1]

why u keep taking it with all this diffrent wild symptomes u have had?? just wondering.

 

[GreenMachineX]

why u keep taking it with all this diffrent wild symptomes u have had??

Because most aren't from testosterone replacement. Most of this weirdness is b12 deficiency and b12 induced deficiencies, not all, but I believe most. Even still, I'm not sure I will restart. It's been 8 days since I injected any and I actually feel pretty good today, and slept fantastic last night.

 

[GreenMachineX]

Yeah, not sure about the Covid piece. I had it so bad for about a month in Feb '21 that I couldn't inject because of the pain. Could there have been any residual effect because I crashed my test(?)- probably.

Oh wow. How did you feel at the end of that, before restarting testosterone? Hypogonadal symptoms pretty bad?

 

[Slots1]

ohh thats nice, hope it stays like that, also im not telling you to stop, youll figer that out yourself - i was more wondering what your idea was.

 

[GreenMachineX]

ohh thats nice, hope it stays like that, also im not telling you to stop, youll figer that out yourself - i was more wondering what your idea was.

Gotcha. Most of the reason that kept me on was that I just believed I needed it, then more recently believing I needed it because of that study where only the participants with low testosterone died with covid. I still have the hesitation, but at the same time, I even had morning wood last night and libido is up. I just got the labs back from Friday too.

Total Testosterone 337 (250-1100)
Free Testosterone 64 (35-155)

So, now it's 3 days later and feel even better...? This is crazy.

 

[kisaj]

Yeah, not sure about the Covid piece. I had it so bad for about a month in Feb '21 that I couldn't inject because of the pain. Could there have been any residual effect because I crashed my test(?)- probably.

Oh wow. How did you feel at the end of that, before restarting testosterone? Hypogonadal symptoms pretty bad?

Hard to say, it basically destroyed me for about 2-3 months total, took about 6 weeks to be able to walk up the stairs without losing breath, I had terrible anxiety from lack of sleep, and bad brain fog. I would have no idea how much was related to post symptoms or crashed test, though I do recall once I started injecting again that my energy levels came back fairly fast. That was the most noticeable.

 

[GreenMachineX]

Yeah, not sure about the Covid piece. I had it so bad for about a month in Feb '21 that I couldn't inject because of the pain. Could there have been any residual effect because I crashed my test(?)- probably.


Hard to say, it basically destroyed me for about 2-3 months total, took about 6 weeks to be able to walk up the stairs without losing breath, I had terrible anxiety from lack of sleep, and bad brain fog. I would have no idea how much was related to post symptoms or crashed test, though I do recall once I started injecting again that my energy levels came back fairly fast. That was the most noticeable.

So you had insomnia and anxiety with covid too? Thought I was the only one (regarding the insomnia part).

 

[kisaj]

I had insomnia because I spent 4 days feeling like I was drowning so I would panic and wake myself after a couple of minutes and then this manifested into insomnia because I was terrified to sleep. I ended up taking high dose CBG/CBD which helped.

 

[GreenMachineX]

I had insomnia because I spent 4 days feeling like I was drowning so I would panic and wake myself after a couple of minutes and then this manifested into insomnia because I was terrified to sleep. I ended up taking high dose CBG/CBD which helped.

Oh ok. Sounds like you had it quite rough...

 

[GreenMachineX]

Yeah, not sure about the Covid piece. I had it so bad for about a month in Feb '21 that I couldn't inject because of the pain. Could there have been any residual effect because I crashed my test(?)- probably.


Hard to say, it basically destroyed me for about 2-3 months total, took about 6 weeks to be able to walk up the stairs without losing breath, I had terrible anxiety from lack of sleep, and bad brain fog. I would have no idea how much was related to post symptoms or crashed test, though I do recall once I started injecting again that my energy levels came back fairly fast. That was the most noticeable.

Can you clarify how long it took for energy to come back with injections? Like a week or 2, or longer?