HOY-Because I HAD to try it...

[Shannon]

Hi All, (8/25/2022),

Overall, this is not going to be a great report.

I am kind of on my third cycle. I had done a short second cycle but several things militated against faithfulness to it-- one was a sleepless night that we couldn't explain, so I turned it off and skipped it the following night (this was during my second cycle I think).

I'm 3 days in after my last break of 2 or 3 days, and just not feeling myself at ALL.... 

• The mental clarity and memory improvement are gone....
  
• My moods have sunk to an all-time low and am struggling with low-T  crankiness, it's subtle and sometimes I don't notice it till after I've triggered a conflict with the wife. This happens due to me over-reacting to something legitimately negative she does, that I just can't handle, but WAS handling fine early in running the sub.
  
• The first couple days of this cycle my testicular size started to reverse and grow again, but yesterday evening and today, has sunk again.
  
• I am losing weight that I don't want to lose and having trouble eating enough. The weight isn't good weight-- my belly is actually a little bigger today than it was two weeks ago, yet I'm 5 pounds lighter than 4 weeks ago. This means I'm losing muscle cause I don't have much fat anywhere else on arms or legs, etc.
  
• Libido is at an all time low, sexual excitement and erections are hard to get
  
• Wife's weight loss stopped for a few days and the reverted.
  

@Shannon: I'm trying to figure out how to proceed here. Do you think there is still a chance I'll see the T come back up over another week, or is it turning out to not work for my needs? It's doing great at boosting metabolism, but that actually worries me because of my history of Grave's disease (hyperthyroid). Should I take a prolonged break, go back on my T stuff and so on? Take another run after a month? So far my productivity isn't affected, but my short term memory has been negatively affected over the last few days and I'm worried THAT will affect my productivity.

Advice?

RonO

p.s. It occurred to me that a possible plan would be to go off it again, see if it 'blooms', and then wait till effects fade again. One of the symptoms of low T for me is a panicky feeling. It is extremely unpleasant. When I was first diagnosed with Low T, I had figured it out by the symptoms and got my dr. to make the test ONLY by bargaining with him to take a 'depression test' because he was convinced I needed SSRIs... "Here, take these!" Then when my test came back I had the T of an 84-y-o man, twice my age at the time.

It looks to me like what you're dealing with here is a subconscious fear of having your hormones not be good enough, where they should be, or something similar, which may be in part causing that to result artificially, and which appears to be interfering with you allowing the sub to do what it's designed to do out of that fear for some reason.  This is of course extremely irrational, since executing would solve the problem, but it looks like that part of you is convinced that only the doctor/pills/patches/etc. can (or should be allowed to) help, and if that's the case, then this is self sabotage, with a focus on testosterone levels based on what scares you the most. 

Going off a hormone optimizer is going to drop them like a rock, and within a few days to a week the benefits will likely be entirely gone, since it takes constant effort to produce and maintain them. Since that is all it does, there is unlikely to be a bloom at all.

So let's look at your usage patterns and see if we can find a solution there.

First, how do you feel after 2 days off?  3?
Second, how many loops per day on are you using?
Third, what format?
Fourth, what are you playing it on?
Fifth, what volume?