My Blood Work On 100 MG Testosterone Per Week (With Accurate LC/MS-MS)

I recently lowered my weekly TRT dose down to 100 mg Testosterone Propionate split into every day subcutaneous administrations with an insulin pin.

Micro-dosing every day results in the most stable blood serum concentrations possible, less aromatization, and more free testosterone.

Every day micro-dosing is the closest thing you can get to replicating what would otherwise be healthy endogenous secretion of testosterone.

While more stable blood serum concentrations could be achieved with every day administrations of a longer ester like Enanthate, I opt for short esters for a reason.

Why I Opt For Short Esters

The reason why I opt for short esters is because it gives me more leniency if I need to pull something in order to do an experiment for hair loss prevention, or for some health marker.

It allows me to change a variable very quickly, have the hormone clear my system, and then give me accurate data to work with for my next experiment much faster.

With long esters like Enanthate or Cypionate, if I wanted to do an experiment I would have to wait for a much longer hormone clearance period.

You might be wondering, “Why would you want your testosterone to clear the system?”

Well, some of my experiments are a bit unorthodox to say the least.

Why I Lowered My TRT Dose To 100 MG Testosterone Per Week

I've been trying to titrate my weekly TRT dose down to see what the lowest amount is that I can get away with without losing a high quality of life, good libido, good state of well-being, no brain fog, etc.

My oldest TRT regimen at the very beginning was 200 mg Testosterone Enanthate per week, which was way too much.

I was pretty much on a mini-cycle when I was using that much.

Since then, I've slowly pulled back my dosages, and have been really pushing the envelope this past year to see how low I can get the androgen load in my body without losing muscle or experiencing impaired physiological functions supported by androgens.

The reason why I'm doing this is because I believe that once you satisfy a therapeutic level of androgen receptor activation to support basic physiological functions, than any excess above and beyond that will likely just contribute to greater levels of organ stress than necessary.

Most notably in a cardiovascular context.

Basically, I want to minimize the likelihood of cardiovascular issues, while still maintaining as high of a quality of life as possible.

By titrating down, I can evaluate where things level out in terms of risk to reward.

Inaccurate Testosterone Blood Test Results

Before we get into my blood test results, I would not be doing my due diligence if I skipped over the opportunity to explain why it is absolutely critical that you get high sensitivity testing done whenever you assess your hormone profile.

As you may or may not know, the majority of men are not getting accurate blood test results.

A minority of men using Testosterone even get regular blood work, and of that minority, an even smaller minority are getting accurate lab testing.

If you get your Testosterone and Estradiol levels tested using the more primitive direct chemiluminescent immunoassays, you will not get accurate blood test results.

I urge you to get your hormone levels tested with liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS-MS) moving forward if possible.

It is a more sensitive and specific method when measuring Testosterone and Estradiol concentrations when compared to immunoassay, and the difference in test results between the two methods are massive.

Next time you need to assess your hormone profile, I advise that you at least get the following high sensitivity hormone profile and add the sensitive assay Estradiol test to your cart on top of that.

High Sensitivity Hormone Profile

Sensitive Assay Estradiol

Direct ECLIA Vs. LC/MS-MS Blood Test Results

Direct ECLIA is stated to be “sufficiently sensitive and accurate” for screening for androgen dysfunctions in men.

The reality is, it is a rough way to assess deficiencies, but it is not a reliable way to accurately measure your hormone profile on TRT, and certainly not on supraphysiological doses of androgens.

If you aren't getting highly sensitive and specific testing done via LC/MS-MS, you will not get accurate blood test results.

I have proven this in my own blood work numerous times.

The following is one example of this.

These Estradiol test results came from the same tube of blood.

Night and day difference between the two results.

Standard blood test assays can't even differentiate between Testosterone in your body and entirely different anabolic steroids.

Get high quality blood work when you get it.

If you don't, you will be completely in the dark when it comes to deciphering exactly what deficiencies and/or imbalances you have in your hormone profile.

My Total Testosterone On 100 MG Testosterone Propionate Per Week

This is what my total Testosterone level was on 100 mg Testosterone Propionate per week determined via LC/MS-MS.

465.4 ng/dL on a reference range of 264-916 ng/dL.

Frankly, I was a bit surprised.

I thought it was going to be closer to 600 to 700.

I was shooting for 700.

I don't want to be teetering into mini-cycle territory, but I also don't want to be walking around with very average levels.

465.4 isn't even average, it's low.

Keep in mind when you evaluate blood work that there should be a happy medium between quality of life vs. quantity.

There's a balance that I'm still trying to achieve, regardless of my shift in priorities over the past few years.

Ideally, I would have wanted to see a 700 ng/dL total testosterone level, or slightly higher.

A lot of people are going to say, “total testosterone doesn't matter, all that matters if free testosterone.”

Frankly, I think you would be best served by shooting for a high-normal free testosterone and a high-normal total testosterone level.

Just because free testosterone is the measurable bioavailable androgens we can use, it doesn't necessarily mean that total testosterone doesn't have some sort of impact on physiological functions when you're accounting for the SHBG bound, as well as albumin bound testosterone in the body.

There’s weakly bound testosterone in the body that may have some sort of physiological impact, and there may be other factors at play too that we are not yet even aware of that don't get accounted for when you only take free testosterone into account.

In addition, the free testosterone test can vary wildly.

It is notorious for being all over the map.

That’s why I like to take the result of total testosterone determined via LC/MS-MS as well as free testosterone into account.

I would just be more comfortable having them both on the high end of normal to be honest.

My Free Testosterone On 100 MG Testosterone Propionate Per Week

This is what my Free Testosterone (Direct) level was on 100 mg Testosterone Propionate per week.

19.6 pg/mL in a reference range of 9.3-26.5 pg/mL.

It’s not exactly where I'd want it, but it is certainly better than my total testosterone level.

My Estradiol, Sensitive On 100 MG Testosterone Propionate Per Week

My Estradiol level determined via sensitive assay testing was 23.8 pg/mL in a reference range of 8.0-35.0 pg/mL.

My Estrogen sweet spot is around 30 pg/mL, so I evidently have some leeway to increase my weekly TRT dose.

Based on my blood work I probably have 25 mg or so of leeway where I can build up to higher (but still therapeutic) Testosterone levels.

I don't think there's going to be a significantly detrimental impact by me doing so.

If I do decide to increase my Testosterone dose, I would also increase the amount of aromatization in my body.

But, because my Estradiol is only at 23.8 pg/mL, that gives me a solid 11 pg/mL of leeway before I'm even at the top end of the reference range.

These blood test results justify the addition of another 25 mg Testosterone per week should I decide I want to boost my total and free testosterone levels a bit higher.