crazy_person
New Member
hey internet people.
im 40 yo, 5'9 no partner no kids, dont want kids.
been on trt since last november with a year prior on clomid+metformin. reta since may.
was hypogonadal for like probably 12-13 years. first got actualy diagnosed around 2018 but couldnt find a dr to put me on "because i was too young and couldnt possibly be hypo, just sleep more". the reason i found out i was hypo, was my adderall stopped working and my attention span was measurable in seconds and it was heavily impacting my job. i made lifestyle adjustments to yield minimal improvement and was basicaly forced to live with a full slate of menopause (manopause?) symptoms for the better part of a decade. my test was around 225 and my dht was basically 0 and my e2 was like 4 and i had like very low shbg and like a negligible amount of free test. things were real bad. I put the work in even with no results though and stayed discciplined in the process. i had been reasonably active/fit even through most of this, but at some point in my mid 30s i had a complete collapse, gained 50-80 lbs in like 3months without any lifestyle/diet change, got fatty liver, damaged kidneys, and a bunch of other stuff, and my doctors kept insisting that it wasnt a cascade from hormones, i must have some rare autoimmune disease. they were wrong. it was plain old hypogonadism. i also had some kind of PFS like incident when i was in my late 20s trying to preventatively take finasteride, and i now suspect given my past and current labs that i had the reaction i did, because of having already low dht, pregnenelone, dhea levels, low e2, and high prolactin. this isnt a problem anymore and i seem to have solved it, the lasting effects from the finasteride crash. i did end up losing my hair but i can live with that. its important to note that for most of my life, i also thought i was ACE, i do not experience sexual attraction, but i do experience aesthetic/romantic attraction. im now finding out that this may also be hormonally induced- we'll get to that later, due to an experience when i took 4000 hcg in a week at the orders of dr who was not well versed in hpta hormones.
in fall 2022 i couldnt take it anymore so i started trying to dr shop, and finally found a gp to script me cream, but i didnt want cream so i started looking for endos to take over my treatment. and they gave me all of the scaremonger stuff and myths and bad info. my test was consistently in low 200s, but i kept getting all these terrible endos who refused to take over managing my treatment. some even left nasty comments on the back ends of the patient portals to other doctors, leading me to constantly get punted. complex case with lots of things going wrong metabolicaly, liver, kidney, etc and nobody wanting to deal with it, at any cost.
eventually i went to get a full panel of labs from marek, but was hesitant to go the no insurance route, and ended up being stupid for years, ended up bouncing through nearly a dozen doctors, spend ungodly amounts of money, got the ultrasounds, of the liver/kidney/adrenals, got the brain mri, got the genetic testing for intersex (im not) and the whole 9 yards. i should have just gone to a clinic or UGL. i understand this now but i didnt then.
i finally found a dr who would work with me and also be cool with seeing a clinic on the side, but he was kind of horrible in his protocols, and he put me on 12.5 clomid eod. when this brought me up to like low 300s test and i said i didnt really feel a whole lot better just like ok enough to get out of bed and not feel 100% broken but only like 90% broken, he said that i should go back to my pcp and find another etiology. i found some research that some people dont respond to clomid and brought it to him, and he was willing to let me get on test and give it another shot after like a year on the clomid. but he put me on another insane protocol at 50 cyp a week+ 4000 hcg a week. at this point id been researching for a while but wanted to humor the dr as this was going through my insurance and i wanted to deal with getting that all aligned and then trying to dial it in. this was an awful protocol, and shot my e2 past 100 and my test to around 1100. i got crazy amounts of edema, and my weight went even higher, peaking around 220. the most interesting thing about this, was i got horny for the first time in my life, ever, and i felt like my nuts were going to explode- this is when i discovered i might not be ace, but i didnt fully connect the dots on how to deal with it yet at that point. but given all the high e2 side effects, i ran to a new urologist to get anastrazole, to serve as possibly find another dr to switch to, etc, but eventually went back to my endo and had a conversation and at the end of it i told him i wanted to revise the doses and go to 100 cyp and 1500 hcg/week. this stabilized my for a while, and now that the insurance was happy he was way more flexible about things and then when i acclimated, this would put me in the 700s and he was happy, but i wasnt i wasnt feeling right still. i talked with him again and he was willing to let me play with my own dosages to fine tune as long as i was good about getting labs when i change and didnt show up with crazy levels. so i ended up running my own experiments and protocol. this landed me at 140 cyp/1500 hcg, which put me about 47 e2, 14 shbg, 330 free, 215 igf1, and about 1015 free with 3x/week dosing on hcg and 2x on cyp. i then switched to 150/1000 both m/w/f split. i was able to put on 8 lbs of muscle according to a scan in about 6 months doing this (at 140) but i was also sitting at my peak lifetime weight and needed to do something about that too, as i was still excessively fat for my weight and still felt shitty.
after i got this stable and put some muscle on, i added reta in may, and l have lost about 42 lbs since then (220->178) this almost completely fixed my liver, fixed my lipids, and pretty much everything else. all of my markers are basicaly in range now except GGT. and i pulled that down from 340ish to 80. and im now taking some supplements to fix that. reta dosing was 2mg month 1, 3mg month 2,3. 4mg since. will probably move to 5 next week.
in doing this, and actualy getting myself fixed, ive had to do a TREMENDOUS amount of research and basicaly doctor myself, while trying to play nice with my doctors and finagle things through insurance. in the past 2 years ive read every conceivable medical textbook, journal, whitepaper, blog post, podcast, youtube video, and forum post i can find on the subject, regarding trt that i can get my hands on.
im extremely disciplined with labs and testing. i get a full hormone panel, cbc/lipids/metabolics at least 4x a year. i get advanced kidney testing with cystatin c based gfr at least 3-4x a year. and in 2022 and this past summer i went to marek and got full everything available labs- ill continue doing this probably eoy. with the shear amount of dr visits i have (5+ doctors im dealing with for everything), i sometimes end up with much more frequent labs, and ill throw in self directed labs occasionally also. im typically getting SOMEthing drawn at least once a month or two as im trying to take a very data-driven approach and ill often get extra labs i want to check for wrtitten into that stuff or ill do labcorp on demand.
i also test sometimes monthly for vitamins/minerals/etc. as an example i had to go through several brands of vitamins to get working vitamin d, and then find the right dosing. i ended up finding a working brand and then took 20k iu/day for 6+ months and that brought me from 11 vitd3-->100, and then i pulled back to 10k.
my current stack is something like this
4mg/week reta in a subq bolus (m)
5mg cialis daily
30 mg adderall daily (20/10 split)
10mg claritin (fixes reta sides)
50 test cyp x3/week (m/w/f)
330ish hcg 3x week (m/w/f)
60 armor (t3/4) just started will be titrating this up next few weeks/months.
adding dhea, pregnenelone, and NAC over the next week or so, and a supplement complex to improve homocystene based off my most recent labs/clinic. clinic thinks that raising thyroid will lower prolactin a bit, and that + adding dhea+pregnenelone may fix my missing libido and also help my fat loss.
other supplements:
omega 3
500 coq10/day
10kiu d3/k2 /day
magnesium/potassium
b-100 complex
creatine/betaine/atp/astragulus (ghost mass)
im currently testing vitamins/minerals quarterly cuz ive got them stable now.
my current protocol im finally going to a tele clinic for oversight over all my markers and whatnot. and all the non test/hcg meds outside of my adderall. im seeing a separate endo for my trt but im basically managing it and as long as i show up under 1100 ish hes ok with it and getting guidance on that from the clinic as they are more experienced.
over the past year according to the inbody machine at my gym i gained 8 lbs of muscle, and i track my weight daily, and ive lost just over 40 lbs. I have lost zero strength on my lifts since starting the reta. some of my lifts are actualy higher. strength wise, i can squat and deadlift 3 plates and i can just barely bench 2 plates for 1rm. im looking to add a 3rd and possibly 4th day now that i can handle the recovery finally.
if i had to guess im around 22% bf. the inbody says im lower.
training wise, i lift with an experienced coach currently 2x a week in upper/lower split. this was only 2x a week because i couldnt handle the recovery. I've been training with the coach for years, and i had essentially zero progress just soreness/acid buildup until i got on trt, and then a lightswitch basically flipped and now every week im adding weight or reps in most lifts. so i built the good habits even with no progress, and now im being rewarded for it. we typically do 6 week programs and will swap between hypertrophy and power lifting programs depending on progression. the visual progress since trt and then trt+reta is quite stark. especially in my shoulders and upper back.
i currently eat ~1600 cals a day and about 180g of protein. when i started the cut i was 250g protein then 230 then 200, etc as ive dropped weight.
i dont always have the appetite to stomach that much food so i supplement protein heavily with shakes (fairlife + isopure). i dont plan my other macros just protein. i always eat a carb before the gym
im at about as much test/e2 as i can sustain right now without using AI. (1015/330 free/210 igf1/47ish e2)
my test, hcg, and reta are all done sub-q with .5 length 27 gauge bd tips, in abs, delts, or quads. ive never injected in vg or glute. i have done IM in delts before but i prefer subq.
im trying to get .125 arimidex compounded as i seem to be extremely responsive to it, 1mg a week can crash me out and so can pretty much anything > .5 if im not careful. earlier even 1/4 was enough to crash but im adapted enough to handle it now if i need it.
when i was in college i had a roomate who was on gear and was the biggest guy in the gym, so im not unfamiliar to this scene before jumping in. way back then he tried to get me to take some gaspari m1t with him but i never used it cuz the forums said scary horrible stuff about it.
this was pretty comprehensive. i have managed to find several people with similar profiles in some of the telegram groups who had similar journeys so i felt this might be worth posting. im hoping tht if someone sees this and has a similar journey they can accelerate time to success in their treatment by not following my path, and not have to live with terrible hormones as long as i did.
im looking to get on cycle when my next set of labs come back if everything's clean. more of a trt+/++ type of thing or a smaller cycle to dip my toes in and then maybe next year i can look at doing a genuine blast.
i understand sourcing very well, and i have a fairly large pre-emptive stash many aas compounds, hgh, and the glp peptides, all of these are jano tested/coa and some were tested in groups. pre-emptively stashed for the next phase of my journey.
im trying to look into putting my first cycle together. i dont have any intention to step on stage, but i am involved in some competitive amateur (untested) athletics that i want to stay in shape for as i age.
im 40 yo, 5'9 no partner no kids, dont want kids.
been on trt since last november with a year prior on clomid+metformin. reta since may.
was hypogonadal for like probably 12-13 years. first got actualy diagnosed around 2018 but couldnt find a dr to put me on "because i was too young and couldnt possibly be hypo, just sleep more". the reason i found out i was hypo, was my adderall stopped working and my attention span was measurable in seconds and it was heavily impacting my job. i made lifestyle adjustments to yield minimal improvement and was basicaly forced to live with a full slate of menopause (manopause?) symptoms for the better part of a decade. my test was around 225 and my dht was basically 0 and my e2 was like 4 and i had like very low shbg and like a negligible amount of free test. things were real bad. I put the work in even with no results though and stayed discciplined in the process. i had been reasonably active/fit even through most of this, but at some point in my mid 30s i had a complete collapse, gained 50-80 lbs in like 3months without any lifestyle/diet change, got fatty liver, damaged kidneys, and a bunch of other stuff, and my doctors kept insisting that it wasnt a cascade from hormones, i must have some rare autoimmune disease. they were wrong. it was plain old hypogonadism. i also had some kind of PFS like incident when i was in my late 20s trying to preventatively take finasteride, and i now suspect given my past and current labs that i had the reaction i did, because of having already low dht, pregnenelone, dhea levels, low e2, and high prolactin. this isnt a problem anymore and i seem to have solved it, the lasting effects from the finasteride crash. i did end up losing my hair but i can live with that. its important to note that for most of my life, i also thought i was ACE, i do not experience sexual attraction, but i do experience aesthetic/romantic attraction. im now finding out that this may also be hormonally induced- we'll get to that later, due to an experience when i took 4000 hcg in a week at the orders of dr who was not well versed in hpta hormones.
in fall 2022 i couldnt take it anymore so i started trying to dr shop, and finally found a gp to script me cream, but i didnt want cream so i started looking for endos to take over my treatment. and they gave me all of the scaremonger stuff and myths and bad info. my test was consistently in low 200s, but i kept getting all these terrible endos who refused to take over managing my treatment. some even left nasty comments on the back ends of the patient portals to other doctors, leading me to constantly get punted. complex case with lots of things going wrong metabolicaly, liver, kidney, etc and nobody wanting to deal with it, at any cost.
eventually i went to get a full panel of labs from marek, but was hesitant to go the no insurance route, and ended up being stupid for years, ended up bouncing through nearly a dozen doctors, spend ungodly amounts of money, got the ultrasounds, of the liver/kidney/adrenals, got the brain mri, got the genetic testing for intersex (im not) and the whole 9 yards. i should have just gone to a clinic or UGL. i understand this now but i didnt then.
i finally found a dr who would work with me and also be cool with seeing a clinic on the side, but he was kind of horrible in his protocols, and he put me on 12.5 clomid eod. when this brought me up to like low 300s test and i said i didnt really feel a whole lot better just like ok enough to get out of bed and not feel 100% broken but only like 90% broken, he said that i should go back to my pcp and find another etiology. i found some research that some people dont respond to clomid and brought it to him, and he was willing to let me get on test and give it another shot after like a year on the clomid. but he put me on another insane protocol at 50 cyp a week+ 4000 hcg a week. at this point id been researching for a while but wanted to humor the dr as this was going through my insurance and i wanted to deal with getting that all aligned and then trying to dial it in. this was an awful protocol, and shot my e2 past 100 and my test to around 1100. i got crazy amounts of edema, and my weight went even higher, peaking around 220. the most interesting thing about this, was i got horny for the first time in my life, ever, and i felt like my nuts were going to explode- this is when i discovered i might not be ace, but i didnt fully connect the dots on how to deal with it yet at that point. but given all the high e2 side effects, i ran to a new urologist to get anastrazole, to serve as possibly find another dr to switch to, etc, but eventually went back to my endo and had a conversation and at the end of it i told him i wanted to revise the doses and go to 100 cyp and 1500 hcg/week. this stabilized my for a while, and now that the insurance was happy he was way more flexible about things and then when i acclimated, this would put me in the 700s and he was happy, but i wasnt i wasnt feeling right still. i talked with him again and he was willing to let me play with my own dosages to fine tune as long as i was good about getting labs when i change and didnt show up with crazy levels. so i ended up running my own experiments and protocol. this landed me at 140 cyp/1500 hcg, which put me about 47 e2, 14 shbg, 330 free, 215 igf1, and about 1015 free with 3x/week dosing on hcg and 2x on cyp. i then switched to 150/1000 both m/w/f split. i was able to put on 8 lbs of muscle according to a scan in about 6 months doing this (at 140) but i was also sitting at my peak lifetime weight and needed to do something about that too, as i was still excessively fat for my weight and still felt shitty.
after i got this stable and put some muscle on, i added reta in may, and l have lost about 42 lbs since then (220->178) this almost completely fixed my liver, fixed my lipids, and pretty much everything else. all of my markers are basicaly in range now except GGT. and i pulled that down from 340ish to 80. and im now taking some supplements to fix that. reta dosing was 2mg month 1, 3mg month 2,3. 4mg since. will probably move to 5 next week.
in doing this, and actualy getting myself fixed, ive had to do a TREMENDOUS amount of research and basicaly doctor myself, while trying to play nice with my doctors and finagle things through insurance. in the past 2 years ive read every conceivable medical textbook, journal, whitepaper, blog post, podcast, youtube video, and forum post i can find on the subject, regarding trt that i can get my hands on.
im extremely disciplined with labs and testing. i get a full hormone panel, cbc/lipids/metabolics at least 4x a year. i get advanced kidney testing with cystatin c based gfr at least 3-4x a year. and in 2022 and this past summer i went to marek and got full everything available labs- ill continue doing this probably eoy. with the shear amount of dr visits i have (5+ doctors im dealing with for everything), i sometimes end up with much more frequent labs, and ill throw in self directed labs occasionally also. im typically getting SOMEthing drawn at least once a month or two as im trying to take a very data-driven approach and ill often get extra labs i want to check for wrtitten into that stuff or ill do labcorp on demand.
i also test sometimes monthly for vitamins/minerals/etc. as an example i had to go through several brands of vitamins to get working vitamin d, and then find the right dosing. i ended up finding a working brand and then took 20k iu/day for 6+ months and that brought me from 11 vitd3-->100, and then i pulled back to 10k.
my current stack is something like this
4mg/week reta in a subq bolus (m)
5mg cialis daily
30 mg adderall daily (20/10 split)
10mg claritin (fixes reta sides)
50 test cyp x3/week (m/w/f)
330ish hcg 3x week (m/w/f)
60 armor (t3/4) just started will be titrating this up next few weeks/months.
adding dhea, pregnenelone, and NAC over the next week or so, and a supplement complex to improve homocystene based off my most recent labs/clinic. clinic thinks that raising thyroid will lower prolactin a bit, and that + adding dhea+pregnenelone may fix my missing libido and also help my fat loss.
other supplements:
omega 3
500 coq10/day
10kiu d3/k2 /day
magnesium/potassium
b-100 complex
creatine/betaine/atp/astragulus (ghost mass)
im currently testing vitamins/minerals quarterly cuz ive got them stable now.
my current protocol im finally going to a tele clinic for oversight over all my markers and whatnot. and all the non test/hcg meds outside of my adderall. im seeing a separate endo for my trt but im basically managing it and as long as i show up under 1100 ish hes ok with it and getting guidance on that from the clinic as they are more experienced.
over the past year according to the inbody machine at my gym i gained 8 lbs of muscle, and i track my weight daily, and ive lost just over 40 lbs. I have lost zero strength on my lifts since starting the reta. some of my lifts are actualy higher. strength wise, i can squat and deadlift 3 plates and i can just barely bench 2 plates for 1rm. im looking to add a 3rd and possibly 4th day now that i can handle the recovery finally.
if i had to guess im around 22% bf. the inbody says im lower.
training wise, i lift with an experienced coach currently 2x a week in upper/lower split. this was only 2x a week because i couldnt handle the recovery. I've been training with the coach for years, and i had essentially zero progress just soreness/acid buildup until i got on trt, and then a lightswitch basically flipped and now every week im adding weight or reps in most lifts. so i built the good habits even with no progress, and now im being rewarded for it. we typically do 6 week programs and will swap between hypertrophy and power lifting programs depending on progression. the visual progress since trt and then trt+reta is quite stark. especially in my shoulders and upper back.
i currently eat ~1600 cals a day and about 180g of protein. when i started the cut i was 250g protein then 230 then 200, etc as ive dropped weight.
i dont always have the appetite to stomach that much food so i supplement protein heavily with shakes (fairlife + isopure). i dont plan my other macros just protein. i always eat a carb before the gym
im at about as much test/e2 as i can sustain right now without using AI. (1015/330 free/210 igf1/47ish e2)
my test, hcg, and reta are all done sub-q with .5 length 27 gauge bd tips, in abs, delts, or quads. ive never injected in vg or glute. i have done IM in delts before but i prefer subq.
im trying to get .125 arimidex compounded as i seem to be extremely responsive to it, 1mg a week can crash me out and so can pretty much anything > .5 if im not careful. earlier even 1/4 was enough to crash but im adapted enough to handle it now if i need it.
when i was in college i had a roomate who was on gear and was the biggest guy in the gym, so im not unfamiliar to this scene before jumping in. way back then he tried to get me to take some gaspari m1t with him but i never used it cuz the forums said scary horrible stuff about it.
this was pretty comprehensive. i have managed to find several people with similar profiles in some of the telegram groups who had similar journeys so i felt this might be worth posting. im hoping tht if someone sees this and has a similar journey they can accelerate time to success in their treatment by not following my path, and not have to live with terrible hormones as long as i did.
im looking to get on cycle when my next set of labs come back if everything's clean. more of a trt+/++ type of thing or a smaller cycle to dip my toes in and then maybe next year i can look at doing a genuine blast.
i understand sourcing very well, and i have a fairly large pre-emptive stash many aas compounds, hgh, and the glp peptides, all of these are jano tested/coa and some were tested in groups. pre-emptively stashed for the next phase of my journey.
im trying to look into putting my first cycle together. i dont have any intention to step on stage, but i am involved in some competitive amateur (untested) athletics that i want to stay in shape for as i age.
