I apologize if this has already been discussed – I wasn’t able to find it anywhere.
As has often been discussed, increasing T has negative effects for many of us. Short-term, it seems to work, and then the body responds and brings us to what is often a worse point than how we started. If we’re lucky, removing the treatment brings us back to where we started. This was my experience with hCG.
My reasoning for the “gradual increase” idea is based more on intuition/analogy than anything… when something reacts hypersensitively to a normal amount of force, it can be better to ease in very gradually and let it adapt, a bit at a time. Kind of like the frog-in-hot-water analogy – put a frog in boiling water, and he’ll jump right back out again. But put him in lukewarm water and heat it up slowly, he doesn’t notice the change in temperature, and cooks to death. In our case, the cells see the jump in androgens and ‘fight back’; perhaps if we introduce increases a bit at a time, it can re-learn to accept higher values?
Another approach I’ve wondered about is the opposite – a few sudden but frequent changes. I.e., when a mechanical system gets stuck, sometimes it’s best to hit it hard and let it (hopefully) re-find its homeostasis. Take higher doses of T in an on-off-on-off-on-off pattern for a limited amount of time. Not a good long-term strategy, but the point would be to disorient the cell’s regulatory mechanisms, and – maybe – they’d find their way back to normal. Something like this seemed to happen to my T levels with sporadic dosing of T cream – my natural production seemed to go up from mid 300’s to upper 400’s (but no other positive change).
In either case, the mechanism I’d be wanting to alter is the androgenic response of individual cells, and the feedback loops involved in regulating that response. I’m making no assumptions about what those mechanisms are.
I’m not terribly hopeful in either of these, but you never know. In a couple weeks, I’m seeing a PFS doc who will want to give me hCG. My last experience with hCG was pretty bad, and I don’t intend to simply repeat the past – so I’m considered suggesting one of these approaches instead.