| Mungy@HorribleISP.gov 2006-12-06, 9:56 pm |
| "Muerta" <not@home.com> wrote:
Thanks to you and to Wanderer. Comments below.
>Dosage-according to the info from the companies that make the stuff, the
>dosage is 400-800mg's per month. OK, so weekly, that equates to a max of
>200mg. T cyp comes in strengths of 100 and 200mg per ml (cc). I do .6 to
>.7cc of 200 mg per ml, so that gives me 120-140mg per week. That keeps me
>around 600-700 ng/dl, which is well below the max T serum level that the
>docs "say" we should be at.
If I understand what you're implying, whatever dose you take is the
one that puts your T into the 600/700 range. I.e. there's no "take two
a day" standardized number; you have to experiment. You do agree that
once weekly is best though. Right?
>Injection-T cyp is like motor oil. It is thick. I use an 18 gauge needle to
>draw it into the syringe, then swap to a 25 gauge to inject. A 1 1/2 inch
>needle for glute, a 1" needle for anterior thigh. I buy BD syringes/needles
>from http://www.getpinz.com which now auto-switches ya to their new name. I
>buy a case (100) 3ml syringes with 1 1/2" 25 gauge needle, and then a bunch
>of just 18 gauge needles, undo both packages, switch the needles, swap the
>vial of T, inject a little air in the bottle (1/2 cc), then draw the T, pull
>the needle, hold it vertically, draw a little air into the syringe, tap out
>air bubbles, put the 25 ga back on, slowly push the plunger until a couple
>of drops og T slide down the needle. This not only gets air out, but you
>turn the needle, and it lubes the needle for easier injection.
You realize you're dealing with a moron but I'll gradually catch on I
suppose <g>. I presume 25ga is thinner than 18ga and that's why you go
through this swapping. I suppose the thinner the gauge the less it
hurts. This business of letting a couple of drops slide out seems
strange though. You're dealing with a little over half a ml. That
seems to be a couple of drops right there. I suppose it'll become
clear when I see it.
I've never considered this so my research is lacking but there seems
to be three injectible products (from Medscape):
Testosterone Cypionate IM (generic)
Testosterone Enanthate IM (generic)
Testosterone Propionate IM (generic)
The monographs don't seem to say what the difference is and why one
would choose one over the other. Do you have any input here?
>Then, the swab/syringe is handed to the wife, I lie comfortably on the bed,
>on my side, with leg slightly drawn up and relaxed on whatever side is to be
>injected. The wife swabs injection area,
Swab? With what? I thought this had been eliminated as ineffectual in
eliminating germs and the only reason it continued was the MD's desire
not to upset the patient.
> puts it in, *aspirates* (that is a
>slight drawing back of the plunger until a couple *small* air bubbles appear
>to make sure it's not in a vein),
Where does the air come from? No air in my muscle as far as I know.
> and then injects. If you ever get blood
>timge in the aspiration, withdraw, dispose of entire syringe/T, and start
>back at step 1. In all the years, I've never gotten tinge.
>It takes a little bit to get T cyp through a 25 ga needle, but it leaves
>much less trauma than a 21 ga.
>Pain-not much to it, amigo. No two shots feel the same no matter who gives
>them. As the wife gets better, they get better. It really didn't take squat
>for her to get the hang of it. Occasionally I will flinch, or she will
>intoduce slight horizontal movement, and although not real painful, you know
>the needle is in there.
>There is sometimes some very, very slight soreness at the injection site,
>but it's just something that you might notice when walking or physical
>activity.
OK, that puts my mind at rest. Well not completely--you might have a
high pain threshold--but it sounds OK.
>The T peaks in your system ~2 to 3 days after injection, then declines, so
>make sure that future tests are done the day before injection, not 2 days
>after ;-)
>BPH- there was a discussion in this group, oh man, had to be over 5 years
>ago, that scientists were looking at estrogen in men as a source of prostate
>problems because it occurs at the point in life that T is declining, and E's
>are going up. As we age as men, that's the way it works. T goes away, E's
>take it's place. I can't remember who started the thread, but I remember at
>the time that it went for awhile. Maybe somebody can jump in that remembers.
Well that's still the theory and there's a drug in stage three that is
designed to reduce/prevent/shrink BPH. It's an aromatase inhibitor
similar to Arimidex. Don't know why they don't just use Arimidex. When
I was talking to the PCP I suggested that one of my problems might be
too much aromatization into estradiol and asked him if the blood test
came back with high estrogen would he be prepared to prescribe
Arimidex. Er...er...he claimed no experience even with female breast
cancer patients (the real use of the drug) because he leaves this to
the oncologists. As it turned out my estradiol is around 28 and the
reference range goes up to 50+. OTOH I haven't actually got my copy of
the tests yet. Also, I seem to remember that Campbells Urology, the
bible of the urology business, says males should be more like 3 to 5
but I might be confused with nmol's and other measures. I have to go
back and read it again.
As usual the lack of information is frustrating; not my lack of
information, the medical industry's. It occurred to me that if free T
was "very low" and regular T was just on the low side and E was OK,
the difference must be in SHBG. Unfortunately we didn't test for this
nor DHT. If it's in SHBG why not work on that directly? What the hell
is the purpose of sequestering 90+ %? Why not just produce less T? Too
easy. You know the body's not going to let you get away with a simple
solution when a complex one exists (but may not be possible). Thanks
to Wikipedia for at least the basics but it really produces more
questions than it answers. Based on my reading of the entry if I were
diabetic I'd be in much better shape T-wise. Nah, don't believe it.
More research necessary.
>I don't know if you were around when I originally switched to T cyp, but I
>posted that it was like "a film was peeled from my soul". It was a
>remarkable experience for me. My wife injected me, we were sitting watching
>TV about 2 hours later, she looked over at me, her eyes got big, and she
>said, "wow...the sparkle is back in your eyes!". I felt alive again.
>I can't say everybody has that experience, but for cognitive function, and
>an overall sense of "well being", your gonna feel it.
>Delayed ejaculation- I know that's been a popular on/off discussion here,
>but agin, I don't recall. A little help from our friends, maybe.
My current (and on/off since the beginning) position is that my
seminal vesicles don't produce enough fluid or that the fluid is
leaking out before the main event. There's a myriad of suspects and
the usual lack of information. For example: When do the seminal
vesicles fill with fluid? You have three (or a combination) choices:
1) all the time probably subject to some level of hormones probably T
which is one reason I like the TRT idea at least as a trial. IOW like
sperm production.
2) during sexual arousal. Support for this comes from the build it up,
let it go down, build it up again, let it go down, phenomenon. The
more you cycle within reason the bigger the "load". However this must
depend on some only-when-aroused hormone like maybe a prostaglandin.
Tests?
3) at the moment of emission. Strangely this seems to be the stand
taken by the urology and physiology text books but it violates the
build-it-up cycle and it seems like an awful lot for the seminal
vesicles to do in a very short space of time. The one thing it has
going for it is that the anatomy books don't show any valve or
sphincter between the seminal vesicles and the ejaculatory ducts so if
#2 or #1 is the method it would just leak out. Well, maybe the
prostate forms the valve by clamping down on the ejaculatory ducts but
the clamping action is poor in BPH and that why so many sufferers have
ejaculatory dysfunction. If #3 is the method it's probably not T (nor
any other hormone) based but is actioned by nerve transmissions from
the CNS. I.e., look to defects in neurotransmitters or nerve damage as
in diabetic neuropathy or to absence or overload and down-regulation
of receptors (like serotonin). T would just be a building hormone
necessary for the maintenance like its effect on muscle mass.
Or some combination of 1+2 or 2+3 or all three but if so in what
proportion?
My PCP says no one (including him) knows because it's not considered a
disease process or problem so no one does the work of finding out.
He's probably right <sigh>.
>OK, lets see...I'l quote you from above...
>
>"Also let's not sugar-coat this? It hurts, right? What sort of hurt?
>Hours of pain, can't sit down? Dull ache for the rest of the week?
>Momentary pain as it goes in? Aspirin-level pain? Abscessed tooth
>pain? I too intend to have the wife do the dirty work. By glute you
>mean one butt cheek, right? From the side? From the back? Is this some
>huge needle that goes in a couple of inches? Could it hit the hip
>bone? Can you do any damage? What happens if you don't go deep enough?
>Does it take a long time to go in (the fluid)?"
>Glute is a quadrant area on either buttcheek. Lotsa diagrams online. Its
>kinda halfway between your butt crack and hip bone, upper half of either
>cheek. It's called, like, "Gluteas Maximus" or some spelling thereof.
>1 1/2 inch needle, no, no danger of a hipbone, your shooting into muscle
>mass, one of our largest. The needle goes all the way in. If not, the worse
>that could happen is the fluid *could* come back out the "track" when the
>needle is pulled out. then ya gotta do it again. Very slim chance of that
>happening, though.
>No chance of damge that I can think of, even a sloppy shot is a momentary
>(I'm sorry) "pain in the XXX".
>Wow, hope that helped, Mungy. Fire back if I can babble anymore.
I'm firing <g>.
|