Final Update:
20th May Afternoon
Total: 358.04 ng/dL (241 - 827)
Free: 13.65pg/mL (8.69 - 54.69)

21st May Afternoon
Total: 494.23 ng/dL (241 - 827)
Free: 16.24 (8.69 - 54.69)

22nd May Morning
Total: 539.33 (241 - 827)
Free: 22.06 (8.69 - 54.69)




I am pretty satisfied with my results considering all of them were random samples. I will still see the Endo sometime this week to ask him a bunch of questions but looks like i've got good numbers. The beard should have been the tell.

I once saw some graph indicating T levels plummeting after a wank and then slowly rising over a few days. Well, I jacked off pretty soon after the 20th May test and the tests done in the consecutive two days after it yielded higher results respectively.

Lol that's pretty big variance right there... who knows I've never actually had low T

Sick. Ima stop lifting and move on to doing nothing but core circuits.

Do you know whether the Free T is measured or calculated (derived from TT and SHBG)?
Not that it matters hugely.

Mine comes back as 10.2 ng/dL as calculated. From here -> http://www.issam.ch/freetesto.htm

Bio-available T = 239 ng/dL

ITT people take more T and can lift more and recover faster? Most shocking thread on the interwebs.

Might as well put a banner with all health related facts on the front page of H&F and lock all the threads. No point in engaging discussions and sharing experiences by creating shocking threads about known facts.

How Steroids Work 101

I agree that placebo effect is probably less important when discussing lifting/recovery. I was talking about whatever contribution the T has to your general sense of feeling "better and healthier" than you ever have. I think placebo effect may be contributing there.

Unfortunately, I doubt we're going to get a randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled study on this anytime soon (or possibly ever).

This massive spread has always bothered me. I think doctors often confuse what is normal with what is optimal. Free T between 46 and 224 may be normal, but there's no ****ing way 46 is optimal if 224 is also optimal.

Doctors will prescribe meds to get you to "normal", but they will rarely prescribe to get you to what is truly optimal if you're already anywhere in "normal" (even at the extreme low end).

You're half right and half wrong. Generally the reference values just give you the range where most of the tested population falls. It has nothing to do with optimal, so in that sense you're correct.

Where you're wrong, is that you can't deduce what optimal is just from knowing the range. For example the guy with 46 may have extremely sensitive testosterone receptors and therefore only needs 46 to get the same effect as 224 for another guy. Unfortunately there's just a lot of stuff we just don't know.

Here's another example off the top of my head (and I'm oversimplifying, so there are details that could be nitpicked) where if we apply your logic, we end up tremendously wrong.

If you look at the reference values for blood platelets you'll see something like a range of 150-450. If we apply the Big Poppa logic, well if 450 is optimal, there is no way 150 is also optimal. But that would be completely wrong. The number of platelets necessary to function properly is way under 150. People walking around with 100, for example, are absolutely fine. So the optimal range is actually much wider. It's starts somewhere less than 150 and goes somewhere higher than 450 (but too high is also a problem).

The basic point is we can't figure out optimal solely from knowing what normal is. Now most of the time the two are pretty similar but you couldn't confidently state that unless you had more information. So, the bottom line is that it is possible that, in your example, 46 and 224 are both optimal. And if you're going to say they're not (and they certainly may not both be optimal), then you'll have to have more reason than "those numbers are just too different".

Suppose Syndr0m and his D0ppelgänger embarked on high intensity decent volume regimen with macros adequate for a slow bulk for 6 months.
Both had 'within normal' range of free T say 15 pg/mL but..

Synbr0 took injectible T which bumped his free T to high end of the optimal scale on average for that 6 month duration

whereas D0ppelgänger stayed at 20pg/mL.

Is there a way to speculate how much difference in muscle gain each will see? Transcribe a visual of the difference?

Yeah I don't take a single thing. guess I'm dumb?

For real, should I go buy some stuff and start? Costco is apparently a great place and has a big supply. Maybe I should get some junk from there.

Good question Big Poppa, I asked about that as well in Syn's thread. Had no idea about the stuff Melkerson answered, very informative.

Both would be none

For anyone interested in all this stuff, I highly recommend reading "Testosterone Replacement Therapy, A recipe for succes" by Dr. John Crisler. I'm only 40 pages in but it's answering so so so many questions. Questions I didn't even know I had.

Obv not saying that that book is the holy grail and everything in it will be 100% accurate, but at least it's incredibly clarifying.

Syn, my Endocrinologist gave a big list of things one would have to screen before going on TRT and then a list of markers that must be regularly monitored. It was more than the 3-4 written in this thread. Including regular Brain scans for the function of some glands.

It seems like a pain in the ass and a lot of risks involved. How are you going to manage to keep track of everything and what all you need to monitor and what are the danger signs?

High red blood count sounds rather dangerous, so do many of the other things.

One thing the doctor did not reply to even though I asked him a couple of times was - How soon would things like hair fall and all of the above symptoms start to arise if someone started TRT.

What was your experience the last time you went on it?

It's not a guarantee that your hair will fall out (faster) it's all genetics.

Sent from my SCH-R970 using 2+2 Forums

I havent noticed any additional loss of hair. My understanding is that DHT level affects this when it gets too high, which is part of why you want to be on something that suppresses DHT. Far more important than hair loss, prostate issues may happen with elevated DHT levels. I've been on stuff to suppress DHT, so that's probably why I havent been losing more hair.

To be honest I was thinking i might be able to get a doctor to prescribe me a 16 week trt of 250 mg / wk injected a couple of months from now when my training intensity should be up to near max. Although, now am happy with my morning T results even though they are middle-ish and not on the high end, at least they aren't on the low side.


The other more important factor is that I don't think credible doctors here will ever agree on TRT after hearing what the Endo told me about this field so it would have to be self administered and regulated.

That's why I wanted to know if doing just one cycle of just Testosterone 250mg/wk is:

1. Worth it
2. High enough dose to cause side effects
3. Something that can be stopped after the said 1 cycle and never repeated again or would I have to be on it for life.

I'm also interested in the impact that will have SS. I'd also want to know IF there are short-term results, will they linger after you get off of the cycle?

250mg/week is what was recommended to me if I were to start gear with the intention of never stopping (I am an old).

It's high enough to definitely see results but low enough not to have lots of side effects.

Think it's probably too low just to cycle and expect to see permanent results.

I was going to post this last year in the HC thread, but didn't end up digging into the issue to my satisfaction. I came across the mention in one of the research podcasts I listen to (transcript linked below), but didn't really get into the literature. I still haven't, so I'll post the point of departure here, if anyone wants to follow up deeper.

Apparently an issue in endocrinology is the (lack of) reliability in today's testosterone assays.

As described by Zajac, a clinical endocrinologist:

Transcript: http://upclose.unimelb.edu.au/episod...#transcription

Some further literature. Emphasis mine. Note that I have neither deep expertise in the field to understand the controversy and form valuable insights, nor the basic expertise to even judge whether a given actual expert's finding or paper makes sense or not.

Since people in this thread may have a deep interest and are actively experimenting, they may get to the bottom of it.



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1240029/


http://press.endocrine.org/doi/full/...jc.2003-032175

I've read from multiple sources that T levels are 20% or so lower now than they were 40 years ago.

Does this mean that clinical standards for "normal" have gone down as well?

Well the range is either time based or all data ever based - in other words the low end will always drift lower as more and more low(er) come in. It probably takes a significant amount of inputs to make the end ranges move though.

It'd be nice if they would segment the data with a moving end range based on date. That would show how much lower drift has really been occurring vs tests simply being done across a whole lot larger audience.