HOY-Because I HAD to try it...

[Z-Man]

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?

@Shannon, Thanks for getting back to me so quickly! I have my doubts about the subconscious resistance because I had such high hopes before and early on in the sub. When libido sags, no am wood, I do admit to getting nervous and wondering if I should go back on TRT, or even the supportive parts (e.g. HCG) that keep the balls going. 
1) after two days off, I felt its effects sagging (I was at that point feeling the effects, not strong enough, but it was promising) and went back on the third day
2) I'm using 4 loops/night - when things started to go awry, I stopped the daytime loop (about 7 days ago)
3) During the day I was listening to the FLAC but stopped that
4) I'm playing it on a DOSS box speaker. I copy 4 of the mp3 files to a tf / micro sd card and put it in the box. it has lights so I have to throw a cover over it. It is supposed to have 20-20,000 hz response. It worked great on all your other subs that worked for me. I try not to keep phones in my sleeping space, and what's more, a phone just doesn't have that much volume--we run a wall A/C that I'm sure would mostly drown it out with white noise.
5) I have been playing it at full volume with a towel thrown over it. When I do this with the ocean version it doesn't muffle the sound much at all.

Hope you got some ideas!
RonO

-- also, I have long treated myself, so my confidence in doctors is NOT that high and I firmly believe in alternative methods of healing, thus my interest in your products and willingness to invest substantial amounts of money and time to make them work.
Also, I'm mystified cause the TID was so powerful.
Unless, I chose the wrong sub-- I had also been intrigued (and almost bought) the SARM...

What you're not realizing with your doubts about the subconscious resistance is that the conscious and the subconscious are COMPLETELY different awarenesses, and they frequently have COMPLETELY different points of view, responses and desires.  I have been in this field since 1992.  Trust me when I say I think it's a subconscious effort at fear based sabotage.  There are several things that point to that.

So here's what I want you to do.

First, you almost certainly have it way too loud.  That will tell your subconscious that the urgency is extremely high, and it may not be able to keep up with what it believes is expected of it if that happens.  This can result in depression and it simply giving up, either because it exhausts itself trying so hard or because it feels hopeless to satisfy the urgency it perceives.  This is why I specify in the instructions that you should play it on your cell phone through the speakers, and I even give you a specific volume to use.

So.

FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS.  Play it on your cell phone speaker, and use the specified volume.  Use FLAC.  The only thing I want you to change is the number of days off per cycle.  Set that to 1.

When I give the instructions, it is because I know things you probably don't about what's in it and how it and your subconscious work.  It is very important to follow the directions, and ONLY change things once (and if) you see that it's not working when used EXACTLY according to the instructions, or you get AutoConfig telling you to change it.

Let's see how things go when you follow the directions for 2 or 3 cycles.

Not being picky here, @Shannon, just clarifying.
1) if there is a loud window a/c running because of the 90 degree weather
2) AND there is a case on the cell phone that is difficult to remove
3) AND that case makes it difficult to hear normal music and spoken word under normal circumstances,

Do I have to take the case off each night to play the sub or is it ok to just turn it to the top end of the range you assign?
I assume also that I must download a special player for FLAC files since Apple won't play them

and is it ok to put a towel over the phone so that the light doesn't bother me when it flashes on for whatever reason during the night and leave it in airplane mode with wireless and bluetooth turned off?

The best app for flac is Vox mp3 & flac player. It makes a playlist and if you add files to offline they won't use any data or need wifi.