TRT Guidelines - Bloods done

Hi all with so many different opinions and so many industry "experts", i thought it might be a good idea to come on here and ask before i pull the trigger on this.

Stats:
Age: 38
Weight: 90kg
Height: 1,88m (i think)
Tall and skinny

I do crossfit 3-5 times a week. 

Goal:
I have been feeling very sluggish lately, and the other uncles are beating me in the workouts.
ibido is not great but not bad. having 2 kids does not leave a lot of room for testing my libido. 
To still compete with the other uncles at the gym. 

[img]<blockquote class="imgur-embed-pub" lang="en" data-id="A9AxAHp"><a href="https://imgur.com/A9AxAHp">View post on imgur.com</a></blockquote><script async src="//s.imgur.com/min/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[/img]
Diet is relatively stable.
Not planning on any more kids, vasectomy done

Below are my bloods:

Bloods https://imgur.com/A9AxAHp

It confirms that my test is slightly low. 

The nurse wants me to start off on 0,5ml or 50mg of Test E 300 from UPA. 

and then we do bloods again after a month, and adjust from there. 

Does this sound in line?

 

Clinical trt is dosed at 1mg/kg
So you been 90kgs will mean you need about 90-100mg for trt.

Try that out then re-test bloods. If needed you can increase dosage.

post all your bloods done. 

First off what does your diet look like, that would be most of the issue.

Test isn't that low, shbg is high, if you lower shbg you would feel a lot better.

3-5x per week may be too much to recover from if diet is up to shit.

Hi Sorry for the delay in reply. 

I remembered I posted here and just wanted to update and ask some more questions as i picked up the "nurse" does not know a lot

After testing on 2025-03-18 Results below:

T-TESTOSTERONE (ABBOTT)                    20.1                  Reference Range  8.3 - 30.1 nmol/L
SEX HORMONE BIND.GLOBULIN               60                     Reference Range1 1 - 78 nmol/L
FREE TESTOSTERONE - CALCULATED 286.9 L                Reference Range 295-734 pmol/L
L=Low

LIVER FUNCTIONS
S-TOTAL PROTEIN 73 64-83 g/L
S-ALBUMIN 50 35-52 g/L
GLOBULIN 23 21-35 g/L
BILIRUBIN TOTAL-S 13 < 22 umol/L
S-CONJ. BILIRUBIN 5 < 9 umol/L
UNCONJ. BILIRUBIN 8 < 19 umol/L
S-ALK. PHOSPHATASE 66 53-128 IU/L
S-GAMMA GT 22 < 60 IU/L
S-ALT 25 < 41 IU/L
S-AST 41 H < 41 IU/L

LIPOGRAM
SPECIMEN TAKEN FASTING
LIPAEMIA ABSENT
S-CHOLESTEROL 4.0 < 5.0 mmol/L
S-HDL CHOLESTEROL 1.0 L > 1.0 mmol/L
S-LDL CHOLESTEROL (meas) 2.9 < 3.0 mmol/L
S-TRIGLYCERIDE 0.71 < 1.70 mmol/L
CHOL:HDL RATIO 4.0 H < 4.0

I decided do go ahead with the nurse's recommendation of 150mg or 0,5ml of Test E 300 from UPA labs one a week (Wednesdays)

The first couple of weeks was great
This week I went for bloods again on Tuesday (day before next pin) 
Results below: 2025-05-06

T-TESTOSTERONE (ABBOTT)                  16.8             8.3 - 30.1 nmol/L
SEX HORMONE BIND.GLOBULIN             46               11 - 78 nmol/L
FREE TESTOSTERONE - CALCULATED 283.4 L        295-734 pmol/L

To my untrained eye it does not look that much different after 49 days. I put it down to the fact that it was day before pinning so test levels have dropped. (According to the nurse my body has consumed all the test ) 
This last week was very stressful, and i did not feel great, but I blamed the stress. I started noticing my  morning wood disappearing, and mental health has not been great, feeling very emotional and stressed, plus my balls have gone soft, and ED. 

Now I hope i did not fuck up, but I suspect my E2 is high and have asked the clinic test my blood for that as well, just waiting for results. 

The nurse wants me to up my dosage to 300mg per week. But I don't feel comfortable with her judgement anymore. 

To answer your first question@Empire

Diet is fairly clean, my wife is a type 2 diabetic, so we keep sugars to minimum. Eat unprocessed foods, veggies, fruits and some whey and creatine. 

I do have a busy lifestyle with small 2 kids and working 90km from home, days start early and end late. Bodyfat is probably around the 18% mark 

To be honest i rarely do crossfit 5 times week anymore, as it hurts too much, i will mostly try Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday

I'm hoping to get some advice on here rather.  Some guys have suggested i split the dosage to twice a week, 75mg twice a week. Will also post my E2 results here for recommendations.

 

If I were you, I would go with a slightly higher dose, more frequent injections, 3x a week, 20iu (60mg) of test e, done into the muscle with an insulin syringe. Get the 29g 0,33mm needles. They are perfect. This will also keep estrogen in check.

Your test is still low, hence why we want to up the dosing, but we also want to keep the injection frequency higher. Also, try and get 8 hours of sleep per night, too. i doubt your e2 would be sky high, potentially still low based on your test levels.
 

Hi All

I split my dosages to twice per week every 3.5 days - but I kept the total dosage to 150mg per week, or 75mg per shot and during my last bloodworks results were:

Total Test - 41.8
SHBG - 44
Free TEST - 896 
E2 - 103

Which to me looks ok?



Now my next curveball is I was fortunate to be offered a job in Switzerland, and they want me there sooner rather than later, and it seems that I will have to be there in early august. 

I was hoping to continue the TRT there, but it seems to even get panado there is tough. There are TRT clinics but the cost is eyewatering. I can try take a vial or 2 with my luggage, but also not to keen on the risk involved. 

If i need to stop TRT , what is the best way to stop, and what can I do to try and recover natural T production?  

 

Come off and do blood work after 6 weeks and see if you have recovered.

Take care of all the other factors like sleep, stress, nutrition and give yourself a better standing to recover from

Just an update from my side. 

Since doing my last pin on the 20th of June, the halting to TRT has not been as bad as a thought it would be. 

I have decrease in Libido but basically just back to pre TRT days, no ED fortunately. 

Will do bloods towards the end of the month to see if system has recovered. 

All in, i would have preferred to stay on, as life was just a little better. 

Will reconsider when I get to Switzerland and if there is UG suppliers there. 

Honestly you maybe never needed TRT in the first place with a total T of 20. That's a decent amount of T production for close to 40.

There are so many things that affect our SHBG levels and free T.

Sure your free T is a bit low but
Good chance it'd be less laborious to increase your free T naturally to a decent level, than to fuss with trying to get the right balance with TRT.

That is true, i could have tried to get T levels up more naturally, but was brainwashed before I did my research.

I know better now.

Another update

Went for bloods yesterday and this is the result:
TT: 21.4
SHBG:55
Free Test: 330.3

Last pin was in <!--td {border: 1px solid #cccccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}-->20/06/2025
I trust the above T levels are all natural?

Any recommendations to see if I can lower SHBG more?
Sleep is ok
Diet ok
Stress is controlled but flares up now and again with the departure date coming closer and closer 
Training is going ok, some workouts are hectic, where others are ok
Will adding Boron, Vit B and Magnesium help? 
currently drinking VitB 1000ui, Omega 369 in the mornings  and Mag Glycinate 300mg and melatonin before bed
Any proven benefit of using tongkat or Ashwagandha? not too keen to spend money in snake oil.  Thanks again for all the input
 

Shbg is more related to diet, to lower it, you need a decent amount of insulin present..so your diet being ok is the issue.

Yes there is power in adding in ashwagandha as it lowers cortisol, when cortisol is elevated dhea is low, so that's a precursor to testosterone. 5x your half life is to get rid of the ester. If using cyp, 60 days post last injection you would have a true indication of test levels of a natural level.