Guest guest Posted November 22, 2002 Report Share Posted November 22, 2002 Capucinoman, I'm on AndroGel now; I started out on injections Feb '99. My primary hypogonadism comes from HIV infection. My PCP's nurse gave me my first couple shot and I wanted to learn and just needed for her to point out areas of glutes to inject into. She also taught me to withdraw Depo into 3 cc syringe using an 18 G needle then putting a 22 G on for injecting. That I changed rather quickly...to withdrawing/injecting with 22 G needle. My method was to prop a 2 x 4' mirror against my desk.... mirrored surface was facing 6 o'clock...I was seated in a side chair parallel to mirror and facing 9 o'clock. I could look down/back to my right and see where I wanted to put needle (bevel up). It's a little difficult but it is important to aspirate some to ascertain that you are not in a blood vessel....what would happen...potential for an embolism to heart. I always had a band-aid ready to apply....I would also massage injection site some to disperse the cypionate. You can feel your gluteus maximums...lateral surface of ass cheek. I was in a 12 week weight training for HIV+ men and during that time I was injecting 200 mg/wk depo and I gained 10 lbs lean cell mass. Later PCP put me on 100 mg/wk. I had T levels measured twice and as shown below my free T was wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy out of ref range. Blood collected 8th day after last injection of 100 mg Depo-Testosterone on... June 4th '01 .. . .Testosterone .. . . . . .Total . . . . . . . . 989 (241 - 827) .. . . . . Free. . . . . . . . .42.0 (6.6 - 18.1) July 9th '01 .. . . . ..Total . . . . . . . . . 774 .. . . . . Free. . . . . . . . . 38.8 I asked to go back on AndroGel, which I'm on now. I would highly recommend that you monitor your estrogen/estradiol levels as frequently as you monitor your T levels. Of all T delivery systems, injections potential more T > conversion. By August 2nd, my estrogen was 198 (40 - 115) and estradiol 87 (<54). I had been trying chrysin/dim gel and Di-Indolin...that works for some men but was ineffective for me...so I went on Arimidex, 1 mg/dy and that brought my numbers down. There's some good information in our links/files sections that you might want to investigate. Good luck, OR eon 64yo HIV+ gayman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 22, 2002 Report Share Posted November 22, 2002 > I said that I just wanted to learn to give them > to myself, and he had no problem with that. When I mentioned that to my doctor, he looked at me strangely and said that none of his other hypogonadal patients do it themselves. Then again, he's a GP and probably doesn't have all that many. They taught my partner how to inject into my gluteal area since I'm not limber enough to do it myself. I've since switched to using my thigh and injecting myself. > I have a lot of things I'm > wondering about, such as, will my voice deepen (I'm 39, and sing > tenor)? I've not seen any physical changes directly related to the T, but there are some common changes, most notably changes in body hair. I've not read anything that suggested that one's voice changes as a result of TRT. --Marc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 22, 2002 Report Share Posted November 22, 2002 > The doctor told me I could try the gel, patches, or shots. I > said I wanted the shots (once a month...no mess). Once a month shots will give you a roller-coaster effect of having a very high T level at first, with conversion to estradiol, to a below normal level at the end of the month. Shots every 2 weeks or even every week will make you feel better. For 3 years at least I gave myself weekly shots and felt OK. > I know I can have a nurse teach me how, but what do you guys do? > For those of you who do this, where do you give yourselves the > shot? Your leg? Your butt? Your arm? Have the nurse teach you. I alternate butt cheeks; I put my thumb on the front top of my hip bone and scratch an arc with my forefinger across the upper 1/4 of my glute (in other words, I use the span of my hand to sweep out an arc on my butt cheek, with my thumb being the pivot point; a bodybuilder taught me this) . This leaves a reddish arc in the skin and then I inject somewhere along there. > I have a lot of things I'm wondering about, such as, will my voice > > deepen (I'm 39, and sing tenor)? Will I become stronger > automatically, or do I need to be doing some strength building > exercises? What's going to change, and > how soon will I notice a difference? Your voice may deepen a little, but only after a long time, like years. You will become a little stronger without any exercise, but strength building exercises will make more of a difference. If you don't take too much external T you should lose a little body fat, but if you take too much, you may GAIN more fat because of the conversion of T to estrogen and estradiol. The first thing I noticed was my skin got oilier and I got a few pimples. My body odor changed. After months I became alot hairier. My libido improved, I slept better, and was less depressed. I didn't notice more nocturnal erections for weeks. My sexual performance improved very slowly and gradually over a period of months. > I got treatment for low testosterone when I became impotent. > Viagra worked very well, but my libido has also been low for a long > time. I'm looking forward to improvement in that area. Don't expect overnight miracles or to be like a 20 year old again. I still use viagra and yohimbine and am very happy with the results. I only need 25 mg of viagra with 1/2 of a 5.4 mg tablet of prescription yohimbine to be able to have sex twice in an 8 to 12 hour period. I still can't have sex (that is, to ejaculation) 3 or more times a day anymore, like when I was younger. > I guess the biggest question on my mind is, how do I do this, > and what am I in for? The changes are very gradual and subtle, at least they were for me. At first you may notice a big improvement followed by a slight decline back to the way you were before. This is because your body will cut back its own production of T in response to the external T and you may start converting more T to E. I'm not sure there isn't a placebo effect at first too where your expectation of change is huge and there's some kind of psychological trick being played at first. Also keep in mind everyone responds differently, so your experiences may be very different from mine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 22, 2002 Report Share Posted November 22, 2002 >The doctor told me I could try the gel, patches, or shots. I > said I wanted the shots (once a month...no mess). He gave me a > script, and told me that if I wanted to, I could just have the >girls > in the office do it. I said that I just wanted to learn to give them > to myself, and he had no problem with that. So, here I am...now what? > I know I can have a nurse teach me how, but what do you guys do? > For those of you who do this, where do you give yourselves the > shot? Your leg? Your butt? Your arm? Do the injections a few times with the nurses supervising. I started by having my partner do them in the glutes. For the sake of convenience I now do my own in the leg. If I could reach my butt well enough to inject and aspirate, I would use that site. Once injection per month is too infrequent in my opinion. A friend of mine is a female to male transexual. He told me that his support group consists of 20 or so individuals. All of them prefer injection to any other therapy. All self-administer their injections. All or nearly all choose once a week or so for their injection schedule. The common thread of those who successfully use injections for an extended time seems to be self-administration and reasonably frequent injections. >I have a lot of things I'm > wondering about, such as, will my voice deepen (I'm 39, and sing > tenor)? Possibly. I went through puberty normally and my voice changed then. There has been no change in my voice (which is not particularly deep) since I started testosterone treatment. My transexual friend has had a dramactic change in voice but he never went through a male puberty when he was at that age. >Will I become stronger automatically, or do I need to be > doing some strength building exercises? You'll probably get some strength increase from the treatment alone. Treatment + strength training will be greatly more effective in gaining strength. I guess the need for training will depend on how high your strength goals are. >What's going to change, and > how soon will I notice a difference? > I got treatment for low testosterone when I became impotent. > Viagra worked very well, but my libido has also been low for a long > time. I'm looking forward to improvement in that area. > I guess the biggest question on my mind is, how do I do this, > and what am I in for? > An improvement in libido is a reasonable expectation. I responded rather quickly. Others seem to take awhile. I don't know if it matters but I think I was diagnosed fairly soon after becoming hypogonadal. I have had a slight increase in acne. Over time my body hair has increased and thickened noticably. Brad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.