Why did TRT work ... and then stop?

Therapeutic Efforts Pharmaceutical
#1

I wanted to start a thread on this because it’s the main source of hope I’ve found in all of this: When I first tried a Testosterone injection, it worked. It worked amazingly. My sexual function came roaring back. I can vividly remember the afternoon when I started to feel it. The slightest erotic thought – or even just some lame romantic thought – would immediately produce an erection. A real erection, one that wouldn’t die down with the slightest distraction. My mind wanted to think about sex. I’d see someone attractive and the fantasizing would begin and I’d feel it downstairs and it would quickly build to a point where I just had to have some kind of release … and then, when I did, the whole process would start back up again right away. It was just like it had always been before I entered Propecia hell.

That was two years ago – November 2012. That day was one of the best of my life, because I genuinely believed that through the miracle of Testosterone I was climbing out of the deepest hole I’d ever been in. It was incredible how everything else immediately fell into place. My mood brightened, my optimism and ambition were restored. I sat there making a list of all of the friends I’d grown distant from because of this – now I wanted to reach out to all of them, to tell them why I’d been so distant, how I was finally back to being the old me, and to just go back to life as it had always been. I wrote down self-improvement things that I suddenly had the drive to do; projects I suddenly had the energy to dive into. I was smiling. I had my life back and I couldn’t believe it.

But then … it went away. By the middle of the next day, it was like my sex drive had just been turned off again – right back to nothing. I was devastated. But then it came back a day later – first about half-way, then all the way. Then it flickered off again, but then came back. About a week into it, I had a date, and it was the only time since all this began that I could be with someone with everything working right. It was great. And I was again thinking it would all be OK; my system was slowly coming back to life, through fits and starts, but the momentum was clear. Soon there’d be no more “off” days. This lasted for about two weeks, at which point it flickered off yet again and I waited for it to come back …but it never did. Two years now.

I think back to this all the time. This is not an estrogen issue, as best I can tell. I was taking Arimidex daily and monitoring blood levels. (This was done with Dr. Alan Jacobs.) For the next nine months, I continued with injections, but never felt anything again – even when we pushed my total T level up to 1,894. Eventually, I gave up, and that’s where I am today. (This fall, I decided to take another injection, to see if being off it for a year would make me more responsive – but this time, not even an initial boost. Nothing.)

The only clue I can find in my bloodwork is this: I had a test done just a few days after I last felt the T working and it showed – for the only time in the 2+ years of dealing with this – that my SHBG level had fallen dramatically. As in, every test I’ve taken since this all started has shown my SHBG to be in the mid- to high 40s (the top of the range is 50). But on that one test on December 4, 2012, it was 20. Something in my system was working resulting in that number dropping during the first T injection. But after that, when the T stopped working, SHBG climbed up to the 40s again – and that’s where it is now.

I’ve seen other stories on here of guys with some initial success with T who, like me, just stopped feeling it. I wish Jacobs had tested more blood levels in that small window when it was working. What happened to my DHT? 3-adiol G? DHEA? Etc. All I know is that T went up, estradiol was controlled and SHBG came plummeting down – and I felt great. I wonder if focusing on this experience in guys who have gone through it could produce some clues. Anyone else go through this and have any thoughts?

1 Like
#2

Did Jacobs have anything consequential to say about what you experienced with supplementation working then not?

#3

As someone else said finding out why TRT only works for a limited time is the key to curing PFS.

I have also used TRT and felt great for a limited time.

Last year I had a nebido TRT injection but I didnt feel anything until 3 weeks after the injection, however when it did start working I felt better than I had in years but it only lasted for a few days.

I had another nebido TRT injection in March this year but after that injection I felt absolutely nothing.

But only a few weeks ago I used some TRT gel that I had lying around and I felt great but after about a week the gel started to have no effect.

There must be some reason why TRT works for us and then stops working.

1 Like
#4

I bloody know why it only worked for a limited time and explained it on the phone recent and you understood me, you are a bright guy! I found a way to make it work again snd I’m in full reversal! Mark, have hou ordered the propionate and arimidex? It’s not like I’m advocating injecting bleach lol.

2 Likes
#5

I used arimidex before but I have noticed no effect from it. The only form of testosterone propionate I have is Sustanon.

Testosterone propionate is not available in my country through a pharmacy.

1 Like
#6

sustanon is not a form of propionate, it has 4 esters of testosterone in it, one of those is propionate, you can order propionate from online, you are not willing to do that Mark? I can give you the sites, if you want I can PM you

#7

I’ll do it if and when its proven to work.

#8

Hasn’t someone got to try it to know? Who is doing it?

#9

The problem I have is that if I do try it he will probably have a new protocol within days of me starting his current one.

1 Like
#10

Least he’s trying though. I think he gets far too much criticism. When faced with few options can we afford to be rude?

#11

If you think its worth doing you should try it your self.

#12

I’m going to try a testosterone booster. JustQuit doesn’t think I need anything else.

My original question still stands, not just to you. If no one is willing to try how will we know if it works? I think JustQuit’s protocol has been stable for a few weeks now. Maybe worth consulting directly with Dr Jacobs if you’re not sure. What’s to lose?

#13

Guys, JQD’s protocol is amply documented in his own thread. I posted this to start a new discussion, not as an extension of the debates and arguments taking place there. I posted some of my own reservations with what he’s saying and (as he says here) I’ve spoken with him on the phone. I also said that I would respect that that’s his thread and not comment further there. Please, if you have thoughts or experiences relating to what I’ve posted here, I’d love for you to share and to discuss. If you just want to discuss JQD’s theories, there’s a different thread for that.

#14

Basically, he had two approaches. First was to attribute it to some kind of mental block – a reaction from excessive stress/anxiety/fear in which I shut down my own body’s production of Testosterone. The idea of the injection was, in his words, to prove to my body that it could still handle testosterone and to kick start it into working on its own. So when the shot stopped working, he theorized that my brain was still overriding my body and prescribed Klonopin, an anti-anxiety med, to take with it. This made me very tired during the day, so I can’t say I took the full dose he was recommending (2/day) for very long. I also can’t say that I got an discernible benefit from it.

At that point, he suggested that maybe the key to getting my body working again was raising T to supraphysiological levels. Basically, he decided to steadily raise the level with the belief that eventually I’d start feeling something. We eventually got the total T to 1,894 (!) and still … nothing. At that point, he was stumped. He said I should have been punching my hand through walls with that level of T, and get my mood was just as dead and depressed as ever. And sexually, not a hint of improvement.

Eventually, after nine months of tinkering, I gave up and stopped taking it. Interestingly, as I noted before, the SHBG level quickly rose after that one time it fell to 20. When my T was 1,894, SHBG was back up in the high 40s.

#15

Ok recent, I’ll respect your thread and leave it alone, but let me post this last thing. The reason test works then not is because when you first injected cypionate you did not have a massive amount of estrogenic testosterone in your body being aromatized into estrogen. So your 5ar reduced it to dht and you felt dht, as the cypionate started aromatizing, the estrogen shut down your 5ar and dht and testosterone as high estrogen signals the system that there is high test (I confirmed this with Jacobs btw). Cypionate is the most estrogenic form of test, most normal guys without pfs csnnot handle the estrogen from cypionate, let alone a pfs guy. There simply isn’t enough dht to handle that amount of testosterone cypionate.
Then you tried it again with aromasin which is suppressive and shut down your dht even more, there is no AI that can work with cypionate except maybe progesterone daily and chrysin daily (based on praying to heal’s doctor’s protocol). Cypionate has about a 10 day half life or 7 days, it kills you with estrogen fominance. Propionate is in and out leaving behind dht with a 5 day half life and little testosterone to convert to estrogen.
The good part of test for us is the first injection, then we can’t deal with the rest, once estrogen dominance kicks in and shuts down our dht (on a neurosteroidal undetectable level) we are screwed. The only way out of it is staying off test till it is out of your system, lowering estrogen with arimidex and inducing dht with propionate daily. Allowing dht to build up over 2 or 3 weeks and then keeping things steady and stable. If one day you have an estrogen peak that is hard to handle, your propionate will wear off in hours (along with the estrogen).
I won’t post anything more on your thread recent, not for nothing, before I understood what I know now, I was non responsive to enanthate for months. It wasn’t till I started using HGH as an anti estrogen (as it regulates 5ar and started reducing test to dht). Once these hormones are corrected the regular way, the neurosteroids also correct, they are undetectable via tests as far as I know.

1 Like
#16

I don’t want to turn this into an extension of your thread, but among my doubts about what you’re saying would be this:

  • “Then you tried it again with aromasin which is suppressive and shut down your dht even more.” You have been making this claim about Aromasin for a week now, stating it as an absolute fact and hanging a lot on it. And yet I can’t seem to find a single piece of supporting evidence online about the supposedly horrific suppressive qualities of Aromasin. It is used commonly, especially by guys. You yourself were pleading with people to use it just 10 days ago – and now you are saying it’s one of the chief reasons I feel nothing when I tried testosterone. That’s a very dramatic swing and – again – you are literally the only person I can find who says that Aromasin is suppressive.

Further, you ignore that – on your advice – I stopped taking Aromasin last week and instead switched to Arimidex. LOTS of Arimidex. You talked about taking it every hour and experiencing brief bursts of recovery. I began doing the same thing and felt – wait for it – … nothing. I’ve probably taken 25 mg of Arimidex in just the last 5 days. Now come on: if you’re saying that estrogen dominance is at the heart of this, then surely that would be enough Arimidex (25 mg!!!) to at least make me briefly feel a hint of … something. But no – I feel nothing.

  • “…there is no AI that can work with cypionate except maybe progesterone daily and chrysin daily.” But I tried this too! Earlier this year I began using tribulus and progesterone. No testosterone, no cypionate – just a natural T-booster with progesterone. And guess what happened? You got it: Nothing.

  • Also, as I told you earlier, before I tried the T injection that I describe in this post – the one that worked – I had been on Clomid for two weeks. And Clomid significantly raised my estrogen. It went from 7 on a scale of 29 to 35 on a scale of 36. A four-fold increase! So when I started with T, I already had a lot of estrogen in me. And yet, that first T shot actually worked! But then, despite taking daily Arimidex, I never felt it again.

But look at me. I started this thread to talk about something very specific that I encountered and I’m back to going back and forth with you on this. I broke my own rule.

#17

Even taking Testosterone scares the hell out of me. The notion of applying a soup of meds and trying to gauge what’s affecting what everything…well I’ll sit this out. With the “joke” medical insurance I have (essentially it’s catastrophic and I pay cash), this way beyond my resources.

Thanks for providing the more complete picture of what Jacobs thought.

#18

I’m the same! Using Testosterone scares me. But so does never recovering my libido and sensitivity and wasting my life away. What the fuck do we do? I hate this.

#19

A time machine is probably a more likely solution in my book. I’ve just resigned myself; this is it.

#20 
  Steve, my intentions are to help you, they are pure, I had the same experiences as you till I figured this out. I have never used progesterone as an AI so I don't know how well it works. Also I don't know how good your natural test is, if it's very bad tribulus won't do much. As I explained many times, I wasn't on test cypionate, I was on enanthate and had my dht running with HGH controlling my estrogen via induction and regulation of 5ar enzymes that started reducing test to dht and thus controlling estrogen.
    You simply aren't understanding the science behind this I think, dr Jacobs is able to follow and understand what I'm saying and he agrees, I have discussed it with him. I was unable to control estrogen on test cypionate before I had pfs, I can't imagine with it. The fact that you felt something form cypionate substantiates what I'm saying. You had an initial boost of dht from the cypionate till you became extremely estrogen dominant. You will never respond to test cypionate no matter how much arimidex you take, you can't be estrogen dominance then fix that while on cypionate, not possible.
    If you quit cypionate for 1 week or more and for propionate and took arimidex for 3 or 4 days before you started propionate you would feel it and you would be able to feel that burst every day you injected propionate. I have kept my hormones pumping since I got pfs, when I started aromasin it was great at first. Then my body reacted like it did on dht, I started needing more and more arimidex. Aromasin is modeled after dht so it makes your body think you have enough dht and you won't produce more. In a normal guy with normal dht the rules are different, so far this has been the case with the guys I have worked with wirh pfs, made them all go downhill recovery wise eventually.
      You are really stubborn, I explained in detail why this is happening, I went to Harvard and majored in pharmacology and have been studying hormones for more than 6 years. I have been studying pfs for 6 months and I managed to reverse it. I understand what's going on in your body, you don't. I can help you reverse it but you are too stubborn to accept my help. You keep harping on the same point I have explained over and over. All arimidex will do is make you feel less miserable at this point. The estrogen has completely shut down your dht and the aromasin has done the same.
       The principals of my concepts have not changed, I just swapped out the AI for one that was not suppressive of dht and within a week I soured and surged with dht. You need that initial boost of dht you got from that first shot to occur every day without the following estrogen that came from all that estrogenic long acting testosterone. There is only one way that I know of to do that, that's propionate do to its short half life and quick peak. The idea is to create that environment that allowed that first surge for you, and replicate it every day. It's simply not possible with cypionate and arimidex and with aromasin you will never recover. If there was anything about aromasin being suppressive to a guy with pfs online it didn't exist till now lol. When you suppress a normal guy's dht it just suppressed his test, aromasin increases test in normal men.
       You seem like a smart enough guy to know that as we discover new things we improve our methods. There is someone here more stubborn and pig headed than you, and he is well known, and I have reversed his pfs today with tribulus and arimidex. After a few weeks of getting his estrogen under control with nothing else but arimidex (which is what you need). Then induced his dht with tribulus, it's not a recovery but enough for him to see this is all true. He learned exactly what I'm saying by his arimidex use I taught him to reverse estrogen.
       When his propionate comes in he will respond the same way but better and then come forward and then you will believe. You aren't responding to test because you have complete dht shut down, it took me a week to recover from aromasin. This is my last post here, I am just trying to help you, I'm not crazy, dr Jacobs follows what I'm saying. Based on what you consistently type you just simply don't understand what I'm explaining and have explained for hours. I can freakin help you man, I don't know why you are being so stubborn. I was non responsive to enanthate test for 2 months, it wasn't till I started inducing HGH that I became responsive (to an extent) do to its regulating my 5ar and reducing test to dht.
        When I already had my dht pumping I went back on enanthate after starting aromasin, my dht started shutting down and I had to take 1mg of arimidex per hour to keep it from completely shutting down for days till the enanthate wore off. Propionate induces dht more than any other form of test, i used to use it to boost my dht on enanthate before I knew what was going on, sometimes it worked and sometimes not.
        Once your dht is shut down from estrogen dominance no amount of AI is going to turn it back on, cypionate just is too estrogenic. If you did what I said you would respond to test every day like you did that day from cypionate before you became estrogen dominant (on a neurosteroidal level). This is my last post here, I cant force help on someone, Goldstein uses dht which is counterproductive. It will make you improve but to a point and never past that point, and your condition will never recover.
         This protocol is designed to induce your dht and get your system working properly again so your neuro steroids correct themselves. Good luck recent quitter, if you ever decide you want to reverse this you know where to find me, I would be happy to help you. I know you are disalusioned but I don't see why you can't try what I'm offering which has already been successful in 3 guys (including myself). When this other guy comes forward you will regret you didn't do this now.
          Sorry for posting again but it was in reply to your post, you just don't understand me, it's weird, you did after we talked on the phone and then you go back to the same basic questions with answers I have given you. I'm not wasting my time just to argue with you, I'm reversing this and trying to help you as you want to be better and are trying everything but the one thing that works! No doubt my protocol will evolve overtime more and more, that's how science is, but arimidex and propionate will always work. Even dr Jacobs is now going to start using it, if you can't follow what I'm saying then just try it man. 7-10 days off cypionate, arimidex every day to lower your estrogen, then propionate 10mg a day with arimidex as needed (as you feel estrogen) then increase to a higher dose as you can, I'm on 30mg a day now and everything is perfect. Sometimes I need more arimidex than other days, but everything is working.
          Good luck my friend