Various similar scenarios continue to come up as the years pass, my hope here is to simplify a few parts of this for those who are curious or need help.
***It is very important to remember that for the purposes of this discussion some assumptions have had to be made. There are a few reasons for this but for the most part it is because of gaps in my knowledge and difficulties in finding reliable proven science. Individual reactions and outlier results are at the top of the list, I accept that but this piece will only be reflective of the experiences expected for the large majority which IME is about 85%+ of men. I'm also probably gonna copy paste a bunch as I go here, most will be my own words from other writings but I won't be using quotation marks either way. I'm trying to keep it short and simple, wish me luck
Their are certain situations that occur in our lives where frequency of dosing may be unavoidably extended to the point where using the most common esters would see levels drop below the desired trough. One could attempt to avoid this by jacking up the dose but this will only get you so far no matter how high you go.
For example even at a huge dose of 2000mg/week delivered in 2 1000mg shots E3D 30 days after last shot T levels will be in the basement, around 200ng/dl. With the same setup at 200mg/week levels would be down to 200ng in 15 days and effectively zero by day 30 (20ng).
One solution is to use a much longer ester but in my mind this comes with the rather important limitation of having to limit peak levels to a level where side effects are not an issue.
So the challenge and the intent of this writing is to shed some light on some common hypothetical situations and the tactics that might be used to work though them. I'll use numbers that are close to the actual expected real life results but keep in mind they are used loosely, to really nail it down we'd have to look at a lot of data for each individual before putting a plan together.
Second thing regarding assumptions is the carrier oil -
I have some concern here, it seems a certain lab uses grape seed oil for a lot, maybe all(?) of their oils. Pharma Testosterone Undecanoate is made with either Tea Seed Oil or Castor Oil. So maybe this is an exception for them. The type of oil used as the carrier in injectables has an effect on half life. Most of the time it's not a big deal but in this case, this raw, these oils, it is. For a preparation made with TSO vs CO half lives are approx 21 vs 34 days, big difference.
Regardless of who manufactured the Undec this discussion will assume it's characteristics to be similar to TSO and the pharma reported 20.9 days terminal half life will be applied. The goal in both cases will to be identifying an Undec protocol that is comparable to a Enanthate Protocol the average user might be more familiar with. IOW if you are used to running X amount of TE how much TUD would you want to use to stay within the same ranges making management of sides and ancillaries hopefully quite simple.
BTW while it is true that the amount of active hormone in these esters is different that point becomes moot because we are using plasma levels as the metric.
Easy one first, exploring and comparing a Test Enanthate cycle dosing to a Test Undecanoate cycle.
Cycle A: 300mg/week of TE dosed 150mg every 3.5 days gives an expected range (wave) of 2133ng/dl to 3385ng/dl
Cycle B: 300mg/week of TUD dosed 600mg every 14 days gives an expected wave of 2195 to 3376
So this one is simple and fairly easy to see. ***My approach would be to crunch the numbers down to how much is taken in per day over whatever time period. 150mg/3.5 days is approx 43mg/day and 600/14 is also 43mg/day. Play with those numbers in anyway you like without getting too crazy with extending the time and you should be fine.
MUCH tougher is transitioning from TE to TUD while staying within the same ranges with the intent to avoid potential sides from any unwanted spikes and have the whole process feel seamless. Infinitely more complicated and work intensive behind the scenes. Current TRT protocol and some other previous data was looked at so as to dial this in fairly tightly. I will post the cliff notes below.
An example was given where a subject might need to abstain from dosing for an entire month, this would be a TRT situation but the general pattern should remain the same if you treat the numbers as percentages.
Here is how I would transition from E to U and stay within the same range of levels that you would have been realized at 150/week done 88mg every 4 days (E4D). The lowest plasma level at the trough on that (150) protocol should be about 1100ng/dl FYI.
Day 1 - Last shot of 88mg Enth
Day 5 - First shot of U 350mg
Day 10 - U 330mg
Day 19 - U 330mg . Shots will now be every 13 days from here on.
Day 32 - 280mg
Day 45 - 280mg and every 13 days from here on until last shot before departure
***Note that calculating the X mg/day intake strategy looks to be effective in this case too. Once ur stable that part is simple, its the staying in range during the transition with multiple esters being in your system that is the tricky part.***
If day 45 was the last shot then 30 days later plasma level should still be at approx 600ng/dl. 600 is right around the number that a lot of TRT protocols shoot for, most guys would feel fine there. I personally target 700.
Bumping up the last shot could raise that trough number but would also cause a considerable spike in peak levels which can be undesirable. We can discuss this but it might get confusing so let's do that separate from this convo if desired.
First order of business for me if possible would be working backwards from that last possible shot date before any travel and implementing this protocol asap.
Second thing would be urgently calculating how much product is needed to get all needs met and securing that product, don't be that last minute panicked guy.
Hopefully that gives y'all enough information to make some informed decisions in the future. For most people this should be enough to get through either of these scenarios. Exceptions to that are probably people like me who need to be very careful with sides due to extreme sensitivity to Estrogen related issues, motherfucking gyno in my case. Also many guys who are not side effect sensitive can likely get away with just winging it, hopefully just keeping all the above in mind will help some get through without issue.
***It is very important to remember that for the purposes of this discussion some assumptions have had to be made. There are a few reasons for this but for the most part it is because of gaps in my knowledge and difficulties in finding reliable proven science. Individual reactions and outlier results are at the top of the list, I accept that but this piece will only be reflective of the experiences expected for the large majority which IME is about 85%+ of men. I'm also probably gonna copy paste a bunch as I go here, most will be my own words from other writings but I won't be using quotation marks either way. I'm trying to keep it short and simple, wish me luck
Their are certain situations that occur in our lives where frequency of dosing may be unavoidably extended to the point where using the most common esters would see levels drop below the desired trough. One could attempt to avoid this by jacking up the dose but this will only get you so far no matter how high you go.
For example even at a huge dose of 2000mg/week delivered in 2 1000mg shots E3D 30 days after last shot T levels will be in the basement, around 200ng/dl. With the same setup at 200mg/week levels would be down to 200ng in 15 days and effectively zero by day 30 (20ng).
One solution is to use a much longer ester but in my mind this comes with the rather important limitation of having to limit peak levels to a level where side effects are not an issue.
So the challenge and the intent of this writing is to shed some light on some common hypothetical situations and the tactics that might be used to work though them. I'll use numbers that are close to the actual expected real life results but keep in mind they are used loosely, to really nail it down we'd have to look at a lot of data for each individual before putting a plan together.
Second thing regarding assumptions is the carrier oil -
I have some concern here, it seems a certain lab uses grape seed oil for a lot, maybe all(?) of their oils. Pharma Testosterone Undecanoate is made with either Tea Seed Oil or Castor Oil. So maybe this is an exception for them. The type of oil used as the carrier in injectables has an effect on half life. Most of the time it's not a big deal but in this case, this raw, these oils, it is. For a preparation made with TSO vs CO half lives are approx 21 vs 34 days, big difference.
Regardless of who manufactured the Undec this discussion will assume it's characteristics to be similar to TSO and the pharma reported 20.9 days terminal half life will be applied. The goal in both cases will to be identifying an Undec protocol that is comparable to a Enanthate Protocol the average user might be more familiar with. IOW if you are used to running X amount of TE how much TUD would you want to use to stay within the same ranges making management of sides and ancillaries hopefully quite simple.
BTW while it is true that the amount of active hormone in these esters is different that point becomes moot because we are using plasma levels as the metric.
Easy one first, exploring and comparing a Test Enanthate cycle dosing to a Test Undecanoate cycle.
Cycle A: 300mg/week of TE dosed 150mg every 3.5 days gives an expected range (wave) of 2133ng/dl to 3385ng/dl
Cycle B: 300mg/week of TUD dosed 600mg every 14 days gives an expected wave of 2195 to 3376
So this one is simple and fairly easy to see. ***My approach would be to crunch the numbers down to how much is taken in per day over whatever time period. 150mg/3.5 days is approx 43mg/day and 600/14 is also 43mg/day. Play with those numbers in anyway you like without getting too crazy with extending the time and you should be fine.
MUCH tougher is transitioning from TE to TUD while staying within the same ranges with the intent to avoid potential sides from any unwanted spikes and have the whole process feel seamless. Infinitely more complicated and work intensive behind the scenes. Current TRT protocol and some other previous data was looked at so as to dial this in fairly tightly. I will post the cliff notes below.
An example was given where a subject might need to abstain from dosing for an entire month, this would be a TRT situation but the general pattern should remain the same if you treat the numbers as percentages.
Here is how I would transition from E to U and stay within the same range of levels that you would have been realized at 150/week done 88mg every 4 days (E4D). The lowest plasma level at the trough on that (150) protocol should be about 1100ng/dl FYI.
Day 1 - Last shot of 88mg Enth
Day 5 - First shot of U 350mg
Day 10 - U 330mg
Day 19 - U 330mg . Shots will now be every 13 days from here on.
Day 32 - 280mg
Day 45 - 280mg and every 13 days from here on until last shot before departure
***Note that calculating the X mg/day intake strategy looks to be effective in this case too. Once ur stable that part is simple, its the staying in range during the transition with multiple esters being in your system that is the tricky part.***
If day 45 was the last shot then 30 days later plasma level should still be at approx 600ng/dl. 600 is right around the number that a lot of TRT protocols shoot for, most guys would feel fine there. I personally target 700.
Bumping up the last shot could raise that trough number but would also cause a considerable spike in peak levels which can be undesirable. We can discuss this but it might get confusing so let's do that separate from this convo if desired.
First order of business for me if possible would be working backwards from that last possible shot date before any travel and implementing this protocol asap.
Second thing would be urgently calculating how much product is needed to get all needs met and securing that product, don't be that last minute panicked guy.
Hopefully that gives y'all enough information to make some informed decisions in the future. For most people this should be enough to get through either of these scenarios. Exceptions to that are probably people like me who need to be very careful with sides due to extreme sensitivity to Estrogen related issues, motherfucking gyno in my case. Also many guys who are not side effect sensitive can likely get away with just winging it, hopefully just keeping all the above in mind will help some get through without issue.
