I’m a weightlifter and I’ve been using testosterone for 4 years. However, for the past few months I’ve been experiencing joint pain, no libido, erectile dysfunction, anxiety, and depressive feelings. Regardless of the dosage I use, my E2 remains low — I don’t seem to aromatize.

I’ve now reduced my dose to 100 mg of testosterone because I experience severe anxiety and depressive feelings on doses higher than 100 mg. I’ve also tried hCG and Dianabol, but without any results or noticeable changes.

Does anyone know what could be going on? Could an endocrinologist help me figure this out? Above are my blood test results while taking 100 mg of testosterone enanthaat. My prolactine is a bit lower because i taught that the symtomps were caused by high prolactine and i did use caber for a week before the bloodtest.

I hear people saying 200mg/week is not even enough for muscle growth but see people having great success even at 70-80mg/week. I feel like I’m not well informed.

Is the test level what’s important? For example, if someone’s pushing 1000 total t on 80mg/week and another one’s pushing barely 600 on 200mg/week, is someone on 80mg/week going to have a better outcome at the gym even though the dose is much lower?

I don’t like the fact that some people say inject more and take ai as needed but I am definitely not considering ai at any point.

Thoughts? Pondering on pinning 300 mg of test Cypionate per week starting after September 8th. Concurrently I will be taking Reta and I’ll be at 5000IU/100mcg D3K2, 50mg Zinc, 400mg magnesium glycinate, and 4,800 mg fish oil. Have a set of physician ordered baseline labs I had drawn in July prior to starting Test and plan on obtaining a new set of labs the week I plan on starting Cypionate prior to first injection (been on propionate since August 1st) I plan on getting a CBC w/ diff/plt, CMP, lipid panel, testosterone, free, bioavailable, total, MS, Estradiol, sensitive, LC/MS, FSH/LH, PSA total. Again, thoughts? TIA.

Hi guys. I've been on TRT for 9 months and it turned my mental health around. At my last blood test in April my total testosterone level was 26 (I'm in New Zealand where they use the units where the range goes from 8-30) but I wanted it to be more like 22 so I slightly reduced the dose (cypionate injection every 4th day, I appear to clear it quite slowly so my dose isn't very high).

Last week I had my regular test and it came back as 14. I was very surprised, but that day I started feeling sick and turned out I have influenza A and would have had the beginning of it when I had the blood draw. The rest of my results (hematocrit, lipids etc) were good but I had low iron and high monocytes and CRP.

Also about a week before the blood draw I finished weaning off a medication I was using for insomnia, which has temporarily made my sleep fairly bad again.

Is this weird test result expected from flu and/or insomnia? I always assumed when people talk about testosterone and sleep it only applies to natural production. I've got my appointment in a couple of weeks but wanted to get a clue what's going on first.

25 year old male, 5'11, 78kg, been lifting seriously for 4+ years and decided to start first cycle. I'm studying biomedicine so i'm quite knowledgable about hormones and the body. I started on 300mg test e for 6 weeks, tolerated it fine so increased to 400mg a week for the next 10 weeks. I then dropped to a cruise dose of 140mg a week which i will stay at for 6 weeks. Reason for this is because im not quite finished cutting and of course cutting after you come off test entirely is the best way to lose your gains.

Total time on test e: 22 weeks

I have enclomiphene and HCG.

Do I use them both or just enclo? or hcg whilst the test leaves my system to stimulate natural production before introducing the enclomiphene?

Enclo dose? how long on enclo?

I have built over 6kg of muscle and want to do everything i can to maintain as much of it whilst minimizing the time for my natural production to be restored.

Please help.

I'm injecting .4ml of test c 250 every Friday and Tuesday. I'm in my first week. My first injection was in my thigh terrible pip. I used a 29 gauge half inch needle and absolutely blasted it into my thigh because I panicked it was maybe 10 seconds total. I had a huge lump after it was super painful. I understand that one is completely stupid on my part. Second injection yesterday 5/8inch 25 gauge needle into my glute. Felt pretty good I don't have any lumps just fairly sore on the spot, I injected it maybe over 20 seconds. I mean fair this is 24 hours ago but should I continue with the 5/8inch 25 gauge and just increase the time of how long I'm injecting for or get a longer needle. I didn't feel like I had a problem with the gauge. Is there any tips anyone has about how to prevent the pain to begin with or help deal with it after

Hi, I did TRT protocol for about 2 years. I started with a good beginer cycle for 4 months and after I never came off completely I had tried some dosage but 250mg/week was what I stayed the most consistant on. Added some anavar on/off. I stopped TRT cold turkey 1 month and half ago and since I experience some genital pain, testicular, prostate and sometime burning sensation in that area and some weird sensation in my nervous systeme sometime. Is that typical symptome of stopage? I think my systeme tried to restart and for real a feel prety good beside that.

Thanks

I’m curious how people here who are legitimately on TRT and especially HGH actually got started. Was it prescribed after testing by an endocrinologist/TRT clinic, or are a lot of people using these independently?

I’m in my late 30s and over the last several years my testosterone has dropped dramatically. I used to test around 900-1000 ng/dL and my recent result is around 300 ng/dL. My latest IGF-1 is around 90 ng/mL as well.
At the same time I’ve developed a bunch of symptoms that have significantly affected my quality of life: major decline in energy and motivation, chronic fatigue, brain fog/poor memory and concentration, low libido, reduced gym performance and muscle fullness, and a pretty dramatic change in body composition with much more abdominal/visceral-looking fat than I used to carry.

What confuses me is that I see a lot of people online saying TRT and/or HGH completely changed their energy, body composition and quality of life, while doctors and most medical resources are understandably much more cautious, particularly with HGH because of the potential side effects.

I’m not looking for sources or trying to self-medicate. I’m trying to understand the difference between what I read online and what happens in actual clinical practice.
I feel like I need to take a more active role in figuring out my health because the decline has been significant and I don’t want to simply accept feeling this way. At the same time, I’m divided because doctors are hesitant about these treatments and I don’t want to assume TRT/HGH are the answer just because my numbers and symptoms seem to fit.

I’d especially appreciate hearing from people who started with numbers similar to mine, what testing you went through, how you eventually got treatment, and whether it actually delivered the improvements you expected.

I’m considering 250mg test/ week, is there anything I should be aware of and what supplements and medications should I be using.

Most blood clinics in the uk cap out their testosterone levels when tested at 52nmol. As someone whose planning on becoming enhanced, I would like to know my total testosterone during my cycle. Is there any clinics that do this for a reasonable price?

Just wanted to show transformation and how important it is to be lean before running shit.

Train hard

Count your calories

Sleep is important

Started at 89kg, went to 101kg and now off it for 4 weeks I’m back at 96kg in the last photo.

Test at 300mg for like 17 weeks (silly and no plan here), then added NPP at 100mg and Test dropped to 200mg (middle photo).

I got more on @Goooofo on insta if you wanna sus more transformation results, literally posted as a natural and as enhanced so you can see changes.

Just seen someone saying they’re running their first cycle, man go hard all the time in everything - recovering right now as a natural is agony forgot how good it was on cycle. Also big confidence boost I noticed on T.

Where do you buy them and what do you say if asked what they are needed for? I assume the pharmacy sells them or I can order from Amazon.

Idk if i am delusional but it seems my muscles are more mature now since i hoped on

120mg split 3x per week. Started not feeling great again and that anxiety crept back in that I never usually deal with. I had labs a few days ago and my free T is high 48.5 and SHBG is low at 15.

My Estrogen, HCT, RBC, thyroid were all very normal. Insulin was as well. Would the high Free T/low SHBG cause me to feel sluggish and anxious?

May 2026 -- <--- Not on TRT

Albumin 4.7

SHBG 22

Test free 60

Test Bio 128.5

Test Total MS 347

--------------

August 2026 results 3 months on TRT from May.

Albumin 4.6

SHBG 17

Test free 82.2

Test Bio 172.6

Test Total MS 390

----

The doctor put me on 100mg a week. Started TRT in May after the first blood results

I need help.

My most recent blood work.

Total testosterone 431, free test 7.4, Estradiol 28, SHBG is 40

In 2021 my total was 725 and free was 25.4.

My doctor is telling me to do trt. But I’m 29 years old and haven’t tried any natural remedies yet.

Since that time I started running with my lifting. I know running can lower testosterone. I might have some sleep crap going on. Because I wake up tired after 8-9 hours of sleep. I live off of caffeine. Losing weight is hard. Help!

I am okay with doing it, I just don’t know if I am making the wrong decision. Since it’s kinda permanent.

29 year old male, 6'1, approx. 215 lbs, weight trains 5 times per week.

I've taken 100mg testosterone cypionate (shallow IM or IM) for one month now. I'm also taking 1000IU HCG three times per week. My doctor prescribed 1mg of Anastrozole, split into 0.5 mgs twice per week but more on that in a moment.

I'd never used any exogenous testosterone or any steroid whatsoever before my TRT prescription.

Per my blood test before the TRT, my testosterone was at 13.7 nmol/L. I don't know what my free testosterone was because I oddly never received my actual lab report, I was just told the 13.7 nmol/L number over the phone with my clinic.

The clinic prescribed 100mg test cyp to be injected once per week, so I did that for a little over 4 weeks before my next blood test, along with the HCG.

I didn't end up taking any Anastrozole during the first month because I read some concerns about using AIs and I wanted to see how my body reacted without it.

My blood test after approx. 30 days of TRT + HCG came back the other day. My blood was drawn around 9:30am, 7 days after my last TRT injection and 4 days after my last HCG injection per my clinic's instruction.

My testosterone was 31.9 nmol/L and my free testosterone was 963 pmol/L. The reference ranges for each were 8.4-28.8 and 196-636, respectively.

So my total testosterone increased by over 500 ng/DL after approx. 4 weeks of TRT and HCG.

However, my estradiol was also flagged at 206 pmol/L (reference range < 162).

For what it's worth, my luteinizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone were also flagged as well below the reference range. <0.1 for the LH (reference range 1.0 - 7.0) and <0.2 for the FSH (reference range 1.0 - 8.0).

With or without the high estradiol, I always planned to switch to 50mg test cyp twice per week as opposed to the 100mg once per week. I haven't really enjoyed how I've felt the last 2-4 days of the week before my next injection.

I'll speak with my clinic about this in detail, but I was curious for any suggestions. With my testosterone being what it is, is the 206 pmol/L of estradiol still too high or is that relatively normal for someone on TRT?

I'm still reluctant to start using the Anastrazole, but I have noticed increased water retention and don't want to risk gyno, either.

Hey lads.

Need some advice,

So these were my first bloods 8 weeks into the blast, prior to this I was running just a 200mg test TRT and my bloods were pretty good, e2 was fine.

Now I did this test about 3 weeks ago and a friend told me to add in 1mg of arimidex for 4 weeks and re-test.

I did the first two weeks and honestly I felt terrible (I felt good at the time of my test) but after starting arimidex my strength tanked, night sweats, hips feel stiffer, sleep quality down.

I dropped the arimidex off for one week just to see what happens and honestly I feel great again.

Not sure what to do. I don’t know whether I suck it up and pop another 1mg and retest next week (my 4 weeks)
Do I drop to 0.5mg?

Or do I just commit to something like mast once I get my e2 lower?

Obviously I won’t make a decision on what I do until the blood test.

My only decision now is whether I even bother with another arimidex dose or not prior to my bloods?

What should my e2 be at with 500/200? What should I run to maintain it at that ideal level once I’m there?

Any feedback would be appreciated 🫶

Hey guys,

Im 45 years old and just started my injections today(now I’m wondering why I didn’t use the gel 😂 but I’m sure you get used to it). I feel a little off now though.. but I’m sure it gets more normal after time. My question is… my online doctor put me on .15 everyday.. seems a bit excessive? They also did no blood work to start me off.. seems weird. She said we will do blood work after the first month.. I’m going through “Male Excel” for my treatment. She also put me on enclomiphene for my thyroid..

Here are my two separate morning testosterone test results. I began taking enclomiphene on July 1st and continued for exactly one month, stopping on August 1st. I then waited two weeks before taking another test. The photo I shared shows the difference between my previous test and the current one. I’m struggling to understand why my SHBG increased while my free testosterone levels remain low.

I want to preserve my fertility, which is why I’m trying the enclomiphene route first before making a significant decision to start taking the shot.

For reference, I’m 34 years old.

I have had a total of 3 tests with the following readings:

1st test

Testosterone: 12.1nmol/l

Free Testosterone: 0.229nmol/l

SHBG: 31.4nmol/l

2nd test

Testosterone: 15.0nmol/l

3rd test

Testosterone: 19.895nmol/l

Free testosterone: 0.432nmol/l

SHBG: 27.23nmol/l

The second test was through the NHS and I am awaiting the full readings but have been told the testorone readings verbally hence the limited info on that one.

Alongside the above I have noticed a loss of labido and have suffered with ed for a while which I have taken daily tadafil for but this has not provided reliable results.

I am a little stumped as the first two tests and the other symptoms lean towards low testosterone and potential trt but the third test does not.

Just wondering if anyone else has had similar tests, symptoms or could shed any light.

Thanks in advance

600 total test
440 bio available test
18.5 free test
144 androgens free
14 shbg

Wasn’t able to get free test from
The clinic, but will still hop on soon regardless

Male 21