Are you thinking about starting TRT and want to know what happens when you start TRT? In this video, I'm going to break down week by week up to around week 10, what happens in the body, how you're going to feel, some of the things to watch out for when you're starting TRT, and why it's important to get your labs checked and when you might want to do that.
00:00 Introduction to TRT: What to Expect
00:35 Understanding the Basics of TRT
01:53 Noticing Changes: Weeks 3 to 6 on TRT
03:58 Navigating Side Effects and Their Timing
06:39 Customizing Your TRT Dose and Final Thoughts
So what happens when you first start taking testosterone? Keep in mind that this is for the average person, and there are always going to be outliers in this kind of scenario. Basically, you're not going to notice anything by the way. This is referring to injectable testosterone replacement therapy, like testosterone cypionate. But generally, it would apply to other forms of injectable testosterone and even topical testosterone. You would expect to kind of get the same pattern going on.
The main distinction, though, is that injections are a little bit more reliable. You can really count on the injections getting into your body, whereas the cream, you may not be able to rely on it for an improvement or change in how you actually feel day to day. Now, if you're using more of a topical form, you may not notice this because it's simply not absorbing through your skin. And that would be why you're not noticing. Of course, it could also be because the dose isn't high enough or your estrogen is too high as well. And the same types of things could limit the upside for injectable types of testosterone. And that's really where testing comes in. Testing can be helpful and useful in narrowing down whether or not you're on the right dose and if there are other complicating factors to optimizing your hormone levels.
Now, mostly where this improvement is going to come in terms of how you feel is with energy and motivation, and that's again in week three to four. This, I think, is a pretty reliable thing, but it's not going to be a drastic improvement as you might be expecting. Sometimes people expect that it's going to really change how they feel, turn them into a superhuman, and things like this. And that's really with testosterone replacement therapy. You're not going to see that. Sometimes you do, but typically it's more described as an improvement in energy and motivation. People aren't as exhausted at the end of the day. Instead of going home and sitting down and resting at the end of the day and maybe falling asleep and taking a nap, they're working on projects, doing other things around the house that they typically would leave to do another day when they're not feeling as tired.
In addition, at the 3 to 4-week mark, you may also start to notice some improvements in your libido, erectile function. Maybe you're getting a little bit more AM erections and things like this. An enhancement or further improvement in the things that you notice in week three and four. So, if you haven't noticed anything yet in week three or four, maybe that's where the things I just described are going to show up in week five and six. If you already have noticed them, they're just going to get turned up a little bit more. So, more motivation, more libido, more erectile function. Your body should be pretty well saturated, as much as it's going to be based on your current dosing strategy. So, basically, that means that all of the nooks and crannies of your tissues have been saturated as much as they're going to be with the current level that you're on. Your body's in a new steady state as long as you're consistent with the injections and doing it on a dosing schedule that makes sense, like once a week or more. If you're doing the injections intermittently or if you're not sticking to a regular dosing schedule, you're probably going to get much more mixed results. So now onto some of the manifestations of side effects and when those might present.
So, I have had people note side effects and symptoms after taking one shot or even the second shot. In these cases, I don't tend to think that it is actually from the testosterone that's causing the issue unless you're already somewhat high and you really didn't need the testosterone. More than likely, there's some kind of reaction going on with the carrier oil in the injection itself. It could be like an allergic reaction, but I don't think it's from the actual testosterone because as we've just discussed, one dose usually barely raises the levels and most people don't even feel it.
With all that being said, it definitely does happen, and the exact mechanism isn't clear, but usually, this type of thing is the exception and not the rule.