Hi Dylan (and anyone else that wishes to reply of course),
I came across your youtube channel while researching TRT and ended up subscribing. Now I watch all your videos even though I have no plans to try any of the stuff you discuss any time soon, if ever, but your videos are so informative, rational, well presented and interesting that it makes me want to watch them anyway just for education. I very much appreciate your knowledge. I do not appreciate that I never see you wearing any Eagles-related gear.
I recently went to a clinic (they had good reviews. I'm in NJ in the US) to have my T situation checked out. I figured it would be prudent since I'm 42, my mood has been lousy for the last couple years and all I want to do is lay on the couch. I've been working out for probably 27 years, former athlete etc and would like to continue training as well as I can for as long as I can. It's been hard because every day all I do is try to come up with reasons to not go to the gym.
The clinic was not stellar. It came across as a place that would have sold me test even if my lab results showed I had a total t level of 9 million. That aside, my total test was 600 with a free test of 8.7. The total test seems low based on research I've done and they said they want to see me with free test of at least 20. My Estradiol was 31.8 which also seemed high to me. They prescribed 100mg of Test Cypionate a week (two 50mg subq injections)(after telling me 80mg a week during my appointment then saying "oops sorry! it's 100mg" later in an email), .5 arimidex and .1cc of HcG (my wife and I are trying to have a kid). I planned to break the arimidex in half at first to see how it felt but they sent a generic capsule from their compounding lab. I'm scared of arimidex because I've heard a ton of horror stories about crashing your estrogen and if I were to take it I'd want to first try .25. I can't do that with a capsule so I'm not sure what do to.
I'm very nervous about this whole thing because:
A) The clinic seemed shady so they are hard to trust. The owner is this jacked Bro Science guy that is not a doctor and was the one actually running the whole thing. The doctor was just kind of there to make it legal (in my opinion), talked to me for two minutes and didn't even do simple things like take my blood pressure. She actually kind of seemed like an idiot. She couldn't even pronounce Cypionate. But, my numbers kind of told me that trying it to see if it makes me feel better could be worth it even if the people selling it to me are only interested in sales and don't really care about the patients.
B) The plethora of potential side effects, coupled with the idea that this is a FOREVER thing seems awful. Do I want to spend my life having to donate blood and constantly worrying that I'm going to have a heart attack or stroke and cholesterol issues and bacne and boner issues and mood swings every week if all my medication isn't perfect so on and so on.
I've had my shipment of supplies sitting on my counter for a few days now and I don't know what to do. I haven't mixed the HCG or anything. The purpose of this post is partially to vent but also to ask what you think about the viability of trying TRT and weaning myself off of it if it sucks (like a TRT version of PCT if that's a thing). Also, I'm wondering you have the time to let me know what you think of those numbers and if TRT is even needed. They say to treat symptoms, not numbers but I'm just not sure if 8.7 free test constitutes TRT. I can provide my full labs and any other info needed, but I figured this post is long enough as it is for now!
I appreciate any and all replies, thanks alot!
I came across your youtube channel while researching TRT and ended up subscribing. Now I watch all your videos even though I have no plans to try any of the stuff you discuss any time soon, if ever, but your videos are so informative, rational, well presented and interesting that it makes me want to watch them anyway just for education. I very much appreciate your knowledge. I do not appreciate that I never see you wearing any Eagles-related gear.
I recently went to a clinic (they had good reviews. I'm in NJ in the US) to have my T situation checked out. I figured it would be prudent since I'm 42, my mood has been lousy for the last couple years and all I want to do is lay on the couch. I've been working out for probably 27 years, former athlete etc and would like to continue training as well as I can for as long as I can. It's been hard because every day all I do is try to come up with reasons to not go to the gym.
The clinic was not stellar. It came across as a place that would have sold me test even if my lab results showed I had a total t level of 9 million. That aside, my total test was 600 with a free test of 8.7. The total test seems low based on research I've done and they said they want to see me with free test of at least 20. My Estradiol was 31.8 which also seemed high to me. They prescribed 100mg of Test Cypionate a week (two 50mg subq injections)(after telling me 80mg a week during my appointment then saying "oops sorry! it's 100mg" later in an email), .5 arimidex and .1cc of HcG (my wife and I are trying to have a kid). I planned to break the arimidex in half at first to see how it felt but they sent a generic capsule from their compounding lab. I'm scared of arimidex because I've heard a ton of horror stories about crashing your estrogen and if I were to take it I'd want to first try .25. I can't do that with a capsule so I'm not sure what do to.
I'm very nervous about this whole thing because:
A) The clinic seemed shady so they are hard to trust. The owner is this jacked Bro Science guy that is not a doctor and was the one actually running the whole thing. The doctor was just kind of there to make it legal (in my opinion), talked to me for two minutes and didn't even do simple things like take my blood pressure. She actually kind of seemed like an idiot. She couldn't even pronounce Cypionate. But, my numbers kind of told me that trying it to see if it makes me feel better could be worth it even if the people selling it to me are only interested in sales and don't really care about the patients.
B) The plethora of potential side effects, coupled with the idea that this is a FOREVER thing seems awful. Do I want to spend my life having to donate blood and constantly worrying that I'm going to have a heart attack or stroke and cholesterol issues and bacne and boner issues and mood swings every week if all my medication isn't perfect so on and so on.
I've had my shipment of supplies sitting on my counter for a few days now and I don't know what to do. I haven't mixed the HCG or anything. The purpose of this post is partially to vent but also to ask what you think about the viability of trying TRT and weaning myself off of it if it sucks (like a TRT version of PCT if that's a thing). Also, I'm wondering you have the time to let me know what you think of those numbers and if TRT is even needed. They say to treat symptoms, not numbers but I'm just not sure if 8.7 free test constitutes TRT. I can provide my full labs and any other info needed, but I figured this post is long enough as it is for now!
I appreciate any and all replies, thanks alot!
