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Testosterone has a half-life of hours – between one and ten, probably more like four on average. So testosterone for injection is “esterified” – it has had an ester added to it which slows down absorption. The choice of ester determines the length of the half-life.
We aren’t certain how quickly Testosterone Enanthate is absorbed, but 4.5 days is probably about right. As usual there has been little research done on something which has so little potential for large profit.
Test E is delivered in an oil base – a “depot”. For instance Bayer Primoteston comes in a 1ml syringe containing 250mg Testosterone Enanthate (which in turn contains about 180mg pure testosterone) – in a castor oil base. If it is injected very slowly into one spot and not massaged or otherwise disturbed too much the testosterone will be made available to the body over a period of time, hence the “depot” term. Imagine a perfectly spherical injection of Test E being delivered – the outer part of the spherical “depot” is absorbed initially; the inner part is left until later. The problem is, of course, that no-one has any idea how to do this consistently, and any movement of the muscle will move the oil around. Bayer says on their product page for Primoteston “the depot effect of testosterone enanthate permits long intervals between injections”. Bayer is being disingenuous – it would be more accurate of them to say “the depot effect of permits longer intervals between injections (we’re not sure how much longer but we think it is probably significant.).”
If you inject the full 1ml dose in one go then it will take some time before it is all absorbed. The smaller the “depot” the more rapidly the testosterone will get into the system – more surface area is available – so we could lower the vagueness factor by injecting smaller doses more frequently. If you were to inject the same 1ml in ten 0.1ml doses then the depot effect would be minimised and it would be available more quickly. The enanthate ester would still slow the rate of availability, however.
There are other pretty strong reasons for thinking this may be a good idea. One is simple enough: injecting a large spherical depot into a muscle causes trauma – the smaller we can make the depot the lower the trauma.
Testosterone levels fluctuate daily, far more so in young men than in the elderly. For a man in his twenties fluctuation during the day of 30% is expected, for older men it drops to around 10%. T levels are highest on waking in the morning, though there is a much lower correlation for older men.
Daily fluctuation is normal, however large fluctuations over a period of days, weeks or months are not normal, and are strongly linked to disruption of the HPTA– the hypothalamic-pituitary-testicular axis, which is the mechanism the body has for maintaining hormonal stasis (static levels). If the HPTA senses that the T level is artificially high then the testes will stop producing testosterone. (They don’t call it “Testosterone Replacement Therapy” for nuthin’.)
Medium- to long-term fluctuation in testosterone levels is also strongly linked to depression.
So the worst possible scenario would be if someone undertook testosterone replacement therapy thus depressing his natural testosterone production and, at the same time, caused large fluctuations in his testosterone levels. But that’s what most doctors will cause by infrequent injecting.
Simple modelling can be used to calculate the theoretical testosterone levels in different injection protocols.
We will model the effect of two protocols, E3D and E10D, with two possible half-lives – 4.5 days and 10 days. The results are interesting.
If Testosterone Enanthate has a half-life of ten days – a true “best case” scenario – then an E10D injecting protocol results in peak testosterone levels 93% higher than the trough.
If the half-life is 4.5 days, which is probably much closer to reality, then an E10D protocol would cause peak T levels four times higher than the trough, whereas an E3D protocol causes a peak only 34% higher than the trough.
So if, as we believe, the half-life of Testosterone Enanthate is 4.5 days then it is strongly advised to move to an E3D or similar injection protocol.
If the half-life is ten days it is still strongly recommended to move to an E3D protocol. Fluctuations of nearly 100% in a ten day period are far too great.
(The following graphs ignore the depot effect and assume all injected testosterone is available immediately. Not accurate, but OK for the model.)
Testosterone levels assuming a Ten-Day Half-Life
Testosterone levels assuming a 4.5 day Half-Life
Bro science from a sample of one.
In my case I have been injecting half a vial – 0.5 ml – of Bayer Primoteston E3D. My T levels are consistently higher than “normal” – sitting at about 1,400. While I believe I have no negative side effects from the high levels – and a lot of positive ones – I am always seeking the lowest dose which will fix the problem. Twice I have moved to an E5D protocol and have abandoned it after two or three weeks – depression came back with a vengeance, almost immediately. That puzzled me as I believed my T levels still should have been around the 840 mark – why should depression strike again?
So I did this modelling and was quite surprised at the results. Merely by moving from an E3D protocol to E5D my T levels changed from fluctuating between 60 and 80 to fluctuating between 55 and 90.
Now I have moved to 1/3ml E3D – the same dose, just 50% more frequently, and depression has disappeared again.
And when I inject 1/3 ml I use a 27g needle, it takes about ten seconds, and life is simple. Zero pain, as the needle is so tiny and the depot is so small. As I say to people – it takes way less time than cleaning teeth. Why wouldn’t anyone do it?
We aren’t certain how quickly Testosterone Enanthate is absorbed, but 4.5 days is probably about right. As usual there has been little research done on something which has so little potential for large profit.
Test E is delivered in an oil base – a “depot”. For instance Bayer Primoteston comes in a 1ml syringe containing 250mg Testosterone Enanthate (which in turn contains about 180mg pure testosterone) – in a castor oil base. If it is injected very slowly into one spot and not massaged or otherwise disturbed too much the testosterone will be made available to the body over a period of time, hence the “depot” term. Imagine a perfectly spherical injection of Test E being delivered – the outer part of the spherical “depot” is absorbed initially; the inner part is left until later. The problem is, of course, that no-one has any idea how to do this consistently, and any movement of the muscle will move the oil around. Bayer says on their product page for Primoteston “the depot effect of testosterone enanthate permits long intervals between injections”. Bayer is being disingenuous – it would be more accurate of them to say “the depot effect of permits longer intervals between injections (we’re not sure how much longer but we think it is probably significant.).”
If you inject the full 1ml dose in one go then it will take some time before it is all absorbed. The smaller the “depot” the more rapidly the testosterone will get into the system – more surface area is available – so we could lower the vagueness factor by injecting smaller doses more frequently. If you were to inject the same 1ml in ten 0.1ml doses then the depot effect would be minimised and it would be available more quickly. The enanthate ester would still slow the rate of availability, however.
There are other pretty strong reasons for thinking this may be a good idea. One is simple enough: injecting a large spherical depot into a muscle causes trauma – the smaller we can make the depot the lower the trauma.
Testosterone levels fluctuate daily, far more so in young men than in the elderly. For a man in his twenties fluctuation during the day of 30% is expected, for older men it drops to around 10%. T levels are highest on waking in the morning, though there is a much lower correlation for older men.
Daily fluctuation is normal, however large fluctuations over a period of days, weeks or months are not normal, and are strongly linked to disruption of the HPTA– the hypothalamic-pituitary-testicular axis, which is the mechanism the body has for maintaining hormonal stasis (static levels). If the HPTA senses that the T level is artificially high then the testes will stop producing testosterone. (They don’t call it “Testosterone Replacement Therapy” for nuthin’.)
Medium- to long-term fluctuation in testosterone levels is also strongly linked to depression.
So the worst possible scenario would be if someone undertook testosterone replacement therapy thus depressing his natural testosterone production and, at the same time, caused large fluctuations in his testosterone levels. But that’s what most doctors will cause by infrequent injecting.
Simple modelling can be used to calculate the theoretical testosterone levels in different injection protocols.
We will model the effect of two protocols, E3D and E10D, with two possible half-lives – 4.5 days and 10 days. The results are interesting.
If Testosterone Enanthate has a half-life of ten days – a true “best case” scenario – then an E10D injecting protocol results in peak testosterone levels 93% higher than the trough.
If the half-life is 4.5 days, which is probably much closer to reality, then an E10D protocol would cause peak T levels four times higher than the trough, whereas an E3D protocol causes a peak only 34% higher than the trough.
So if, as we believe, the half-life of Testosterone Enanthate is 4.5 days then it is strongly advised to move to an E3D or similar injection protocol.
If the half-life is ten days it is still strongly recommended to move to an E3D protocol. Fluctuations of nearly 100% in a ten day period are far too great.
(The following graphs ignore the depot effect and assume all injected testosterone is available immediately. Not accurate, but OK for the model.)
Testosterone levels assuming a Ten-Day Half-Life
Testosterone levels assuming a 4.5 day Half-Life
Bro science from a sample of one.
In my case I have been injecting half a vial – 0.5 ml – of Bayer Primoteston E3D. My T levels are consistently higher than “normal” – sitting at about 1,400. While I believe I have no negative side effects from the high levels – and a lot of positive ones – I am always seeking the lowest dose which will fix the problem. Twice I have moved to an E5D protocol and have abandoned it after two or three weeks – depression came back with a vengeance, almost immediately. That puzzled me as I believed my T levels still should have been around the 840 mark – why should depression strike again?
So I did this modelling and was quite surprised at the results. Merely by moving from an E3D protocol to E5D my T levels changed from fluctuating between 60 and 80 to fluctuating between 55 and 90.
Now I have moved to 1/3ml E3D – the same dose, just 50% more frequently, and depression has disappeared again.
And when I inject 1/3 ml I use a 27g needle, it takes about ten seconds, and life is simple. Zero pain, as the needle is so tiny and the depot is so small. As I say to people – it takes way less time than cleaning teeth. Why wouldn’t anyone do it?
