Posted that because this was after having a full strength coffee that should have knocked the socks off me. So it is a pretty good indicator my cortisol is already very high. I have not drunken any coffee for weeks and when I did I only drank 1/3 of a cup 3 times a day. That was enough to give me some energy before the testosterone injections.
I was just trying to be helpful logging my experiences for others who might try this. I think 95 percent of what I have mention relate directly to the symptoms I am experiencing. And I think making observations about the way my body reacts to different compounds could help zero in on the root cause.
But I am happy to keep a private log and post it every week or so.
A note regarding cortisol. I remember one day I had to go out and do a bunch of stuff I took 10mg cortisol before I left. It sure did not help me. That day I also remember not eating for like 8 hours. Did not feel hungry.
So should I stop posting here? Can you tell me what I am screwing up by posting my log?
I think writing every detail is very important, and would be very helpful for any body who follows this is route in the future. please keep posting the way you have been doing this so far. I also write diary at home, and if I miss my supplements, then can not remember clearly how I felt the day before. each detail is very important.
Yesterday I felt much better mentally and appetite was a lot better. I think this is simply because the pregnenoline was out of my system. That stuff seems to be really bad for my head. I think it must be the estrogen that it converts into. I feel more twitches when I am on it. As stated I also put T cream on my scrotum. It could have been that too. I was still having small twitches yesterday but less than the day before.
So it looks to me as twitches > loss of appetite > negative thoughts are caused by estrogens.
Last night I took 0.05mg arimidex to see if that will fix my twitches. Morning wood was a bit better this morning. Still had it when I stood up. Possibly noticing a little bit of pain in my sholder. This seemed to have happened last time I took arimidex.
I want to say that my cystic ance is cured by using testosterone injections. This could be lower estrogens, or maybe lower DHT, or higher cortisol. When I tried 45mg E3D. Acne seems to start coming back.
Since taking that arimidex. Possibly feel a tiny bit of pain in my right shoulder I got this last time i took it a week or so back. But feeling good today appetite good. Energy good even though got woken up early.
I ordered some pro hormones today. Some anabolic ones. I have one called stanadrol which converts to DHT. The other ones I ordered are mostly anabolic, I want to see how I responds. I am not taking them to get strong or anything. I will take minimum possible dose and probably only for like 1 week at a time as an experiment. They do not convert into estrogen. They are not good for the liver, so you have to be carefullabout this and make sure you take lots of antioxidents.
Before I try any of this stuff I will try the proviron first while I am injecting test, I will reduce test so I can ensure my estrogen is not too high.
today felt good, morning did not feel great got woken up early not enough sleep despite that had energy all day.
Felt good. No skipping mills.
Little bit of pain in right shoulder and noticed a little pain in elbow. This happened last time i took arimidex.
Injection day tomorrow. I will stay on 27.5mg. Acne has totally cleared up.
I think to get my libido back im going to need to lower test which will lower SHBG and Estradiol. I will then add in proviron / stanadrol / masteron / trenbolone. This should increase the androgenicity in my body.
Im not taking any pregnenonone or rubbing any test cream on my nuts that is like tourture.
Still getting some twitches, mostly in quads. I inject my t there.
Last night did not sleep very well. I took a gaba but took it with the meal. Couldnt fall asleep had another. Fell asleep but feel I woke up at night.
I had a very good appetite when I first started this. I kind of think maybe my blood sugar has gone up from increased cortisol. I have lotsss of energy.
So I took a jarrows addrenal stress optimizer to reduce cortisol. When I purchased these I thought they increased coretisol. I took one when my cortisol was low. I felt my cortisol went even lower. Got really tired.
The jarrows adrenal optimizer made me yawn a lot at first, then a bit hard to think. But after that I think it relaxed me a bit. Probably good to take in stressful situations I guess.
Have been finding it hard to eat today. Feel like meals are sitting in my stomach too long and not being digested well. Appetite also not good.
Once I stabilize on this protocol I will stop this log. Looks like I am not going to see any libido. But hope to get my great feelings of wellbeing and appetite back though.
Based on what Ive read and experimented with it seems that there are a few key actionable things to look at when trying to adress libido issues
-At the hormonal level : thyroid hormones (hypothyroidism is a libido killer), T/E2 balance, prolactin. Maybe DHT but in our cases its a delicate lever to manipulate.
-At the neurotransmitter level : mainly dopamine (somehow correlated with T and inversely correlated with prolactin), GABA and serotonin are important too, though.
-Psychological factors (a complex issue, also strongly interdependant with the 2 above levels), stress management, healthy lifestyle (exercise, diet, proper rest etc). All of these will impact the 2 levels above.
If everything above is in order or no improvement has been noticed from manipulating/optimizing them, it safe to assume that the problem may remain at the “histological level” : something is physically wrong with the genital tissues, and the subsequent impairment of the “brain-penis connection” makes it impossible to feel the normal physical/sensory feedback/manifestations of libido, leading over time to its annihilation (or leading us to subconsciously “ignore” it as the body knows it wont be rewarding/satisfied). Its my own theory but most should agree it’s based on mere logic/common sense. I think you’ve noticed the pudendal neuropathy thread and know where I’m getting at.
So, sorry to ask this personal question, but have you recently been in physical intimate contact with a woman since you’ve been on this TRT protocol? Have you tryed taking viagra before getting physical with a woman? I think that if you havent you might be surprised at what you’d feel if you did it. If you have but sill didnt feel any fuzzy/warm sexual urge, then try taking some mucuna extract (standardized in L-dopa) also along with the viagra before engaging physical contact with a woman. I’d be surprised that you wouldnt feel any libido whatsoever.
BTW I’m saying physical contact with a (sexy) woman (or man of course if it’s your thing) because porn CANNOT be a substitute to be testing one’s libido. At least this applies, as a fact, for myself.
For me it seems very much the T:E ratio. I recovered my libido at arimidex. At one point I was thinking of taking a trip to the soapy massage place cause i live in thailand. And I remember stopping at the traffic light drooling at an average looking girl next to me. The libido was not constant like this thought the days. But it happened on arimidex. I have not been able to replicate tho. Seem to get sore joints quickly.
As for the girlfriend part. Im in sydney at the moment doing blood tests and stuff. I have no female here, even if I did, I wouldn’t have sex. No desire.
Yes I have taken viagra before. One time I had a girl over and I wanted to make sure I would be ok. I said I would take a shower, and popped the V. In the shower I got a full wood that would not go down. I had to try and distract myself for like 7 minutes to try and get rid of it.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with my penis it works fine which is good. Its just the total lack of desire.
My thyroid looks all ok in the tests apart from RT3. But that was probably because my freecortisol was really low before taking the testosterone. I suspect its high now. Waiting for results on this.
As you obviously already know, sore joints means you’ve lowered E2 too much. It’s very hard to precisely manipulate E2 with arimidex. Have you tried aromasin? Should be easy to get in thailand, too.
That’s where I was getting at, although your libido obviously isnt optimal, things might be different once you get close and personal with a girl. It happened that girls “attacked” me during periods where I was feeling totally desireless, I would never had made the move myself, but felt aroused, to my great surprise, when the girl started to rub herself against and me and we started making out. During the same periods I wouldnt feel any arousal whatsover from watching porn btw.
Did this happen during a period when you were generally feeling some libido or not? If yes then nothing suprising of course (but would you have gotten a rigid boner without viagra?), if not well that kind of substanciates my point.
By “it works fine” do you mean that you’re able to get rigid boners without viagra when you have good libido levels? If so, then you’re among a very lucky small minority of “PFSers”! By “tissue damage” I didnt necessarily mean penile tissue damage (although degrees of fibrosis/peyronies are somewhat frequent among us and a logic consequence of the loss of regular morning/nighttime erections). Please check the pudendal neuropathy thread attentively I you havent done so already. viewtopic.php?f=27&t=5661
Yeh I will try some aromasin when I get back there. I also ordered this PES Erase. Seems to be not so strong. People are taking 3 tablets a day.
Yep, few days I took 0.05 arimidex and had a little bit of joint irritation the next day that went away in a couple days.
I think im pretty good at determinign my libido. Normally its ok at the last minute when kissing with girl. Last time when I came of high dose T + HCG my libido was at all time low. I met a girl who wanted to get on. Went to her room. Kissing all that, felt 0, absolutely nothing. Had to escape.
The story with the shower wood, my libido was no good there. But for the last 4 years I can normally get it working at the last minute when Im with a girl.
My wood is 100% fine. If I have desire it works perfect.
Most theories do not correlate with my observations. I am working on making more observations about my reactions to hormonal changes. Once I have an extensive list of these then I will see if any of those theories match my observations.
OK i promise I wont try to convince you any further but
Pudendal neuropathy can possibly (logically) fluctuate along with the level of inflammation going on. The symptoms can independently be different degrees of ED, numbness, and/or pelvic pains.
Maybe you “felt nothing” because you couldnt feel nothing “down there” at this moment? (also could obviously have been a result of suboptimal hormonal levels at this moment)
Libido no good but you got a boner with viagra? It could be that maybe you’re not able to gauge your “libido” as well as you think. Without any libido its difficult to get spontaneous erections like this (except morning/nighttime). Could be that viagra allowed the (otherwise present) libido to have its physical effect by forcingly increasing blood flow in the penis, and you werent “feeling” it (the libido/erection signal) because it was impaired by a weakened nervous transmission of the signal from your genitals to your brain?
Maybe you are, very naturally, correlating “desire” with what you can actually feel at the sensory level?
I’m not sure this is a logical or optimal way to proceed.
Of course you can (should) ignore all of what I’ve written above, it’s only pure speculation.
But the pudendal neuropathy isnt a theory but a FACTUAL DIAGNOSIS based on TESTING : you either have it or not. So try to do the test (I hope this will be more widely available soon)! You dont have anything to lose. Mew is right in that people tend to think too much in terms of “theories”, making therapeutic/diagnosis decisions based on which theories they agree with or not (most often not so rationally). Theorizing is necessary to identify relevant research targets but at the individual level empirical TESTING is what matters. This is, in my opinion, a test that ALL of us have to do. Do the test, then you can rule out a pudendal neuropathy diagnosis, instead of deciding it cannot apply to you based on opinion or approximative guesswork.
Of course If you are POSITIVE that all your problems are resolved when adressing T/E2 balance, feel free to ignore all of this (maybe just remember that E2 can also be linked to inflammation in the pelvic area, please read the pudendal and the latest posts in prostatitis thread for more info on that. Also you should know that twitches/fasciculations can be a sign of neuropathy)
I have started getting hip fat (love handles) after fin. Also acne that is now fixed on estrogen.
As I said I recovered libido on arimidex.
I feel much worse when I take something that makes my estrogen go up.
My hair falls out when I take high doses of testosterone.
I grow extra body hair when I take lots of testosterone.
If i felt nothing it was because the hormones effect the feeling of my penis. On arimidex at the good points I could feel my dick it was really alive.
Vigra does nothing for my libido full stop. The extra blood makes it hard, that does not make me feel horny.
You create a theory based on observations. The more observations you have the more likely you will come up with a useful theory.
I am working on observing how my body reacts to different hormon levels. I know my body reacts strongly to different hormonal levels. So I am not going to look past this until I can say what hormone manipulation will do and what it wont do.
Ended who is able to get his libido back on arimidex reports that when he takes DHT at the times where he feels his E/T balance is good. His libido goes off the charts. Robocopp also takes aromasin ever day and when he does not his libido suffers. Many other people have had some kind of recoveries while reducing their estrogens.
Well it’s a good idea in this complicated situation and considering what you have observed already, but If you ever come across a way of doing do the test Ive been talking about for cheap, I hope you’ll agree that it would still be worth considering. Your problem may indeed lie solely at the hormonal level. What you said hints that you have no androgen resistance whatsoever at least (I react the same way to androgens, have had the occasional miraculous results from hormonal manipulation, still have pudendal neuropathy). I hope you will achieve the perfect balance with the grossly imperfect pharmaceutic hormones-effecting tools that we dispose of, it not easy but not impossible.
Achiving a perfect balance will be impossible. But so far hormone manipulation has totally fixed 2 things (cystic acne and fatigue). My well being was much better and so was appetite for the first 2 days if I can get them back + libido. I will be happy enough with that. Maybe 10 years down the track my body will naturally recover.
Last night found I took some valerian and also passion flower(first time) before I slept. Woke up feeling wide awake some time in the early morning. I guess about 5am with really hard wood that would not go down. The type that you have to bend over to pee. This happened the first few times I took gaba. Woke up with a pretty good morning wood. But at 5am found it hard to go back to sleep and get into a deep sleep. I dono why I have this insomnia on low doses of TRT. Never had it before.
Yesterday appetite was bad. Felt like food was sitting in my stomach and not being digested. I skipped my daily exercise because of this.
I have decided to inject subq E2D. People say levels are more stable. I will inject about 17mg E2D subq.
Last night I took valerian + time release melatonin + passion flower before going to sleep. Only a very small dose of valerian.
Slept really wall. Woke up with a wood that would not go down.
Im going to stop updating this evey day now as I think I am at a stable point.
I can summarize.
First week felt a great sense of well being and appetite went up a lot, digestion was a bit better and libido was unchanged.
The testosterone gives me lots of energy, so much so that I find it hard to sleep. Before I was fatigued all the time.
The testosterone totally fixed up my back at butt cystic acne which was a big issue for me.
My appetite and sense of well being to dissapear after the first week. I suspect that is something to do with the T/E balance.
Possible when I take a small dose of arimidex my appetite is somewhat better the next day.
My testicles have not shrunk at all even though my LH is undetectable.
My blood sugar is pretty much always over 5+, did not test it in the first week.
Suppliments that effect my sleep seem to have an effect on my nocternal / morning wood. Gaba, passion flower, valerian, melatonin. I suspect it is the first 2. Possibly something to do with GABA and maybe GH?
My SHBG has moved up, my E is the same as it was before I started this, but now my calulated fee T is higher.
What I have experienced can be seen in normal hypogondal men. You will find many reports on the net of men feeling good in the first week or so, but after that the benefits fade away to an extent.
I will stay on the testosterone for the extra energy and as a cure for the ugly scaring cystic acne that I was getting. Maybe over time it will improve some other things. Like tooth sensitivity, love handles.
