I had testicular cancer in 2023 and had my left one removed. I recovered quickly and had no physical issues. Stayed healthy and active. It relapsed last year and I did 4 rounds of chemo ending this past September. I started back to the gym in February and am really struggling. Energy is low and recovery is long. I got my Testosterone checked and it was at 220. I've never had any issues with it prior to this. I have a doctors appointment next week to discuss options. Just wondering if anyone has experience with this or just low T in general. What questions should I ask? What should I be looking for?

No cancer, but mine was in the mid 200s and I got on TRT at the very beginning of this year. Still early on, but so far it's been very beneficial. More energy, better mood, less anxiety, killing it in the gym, etc.

Obviously your situation is different with your health history, but my PCP wouldn't even consider treating it (even though it was low enough that insurance will cover it). I had to go to a men's health clinic. If you want to go down the TRT road, you want the IM injections. Depending on who it is, they may try to put you on clomid, pellets, or a few other less effective options. IM injections is the way to go.

I second this. I had T in the low 200s. My primary care doc wanted to do pellets but I wanted control so I went with a men's clinic as well. I agree that intramuscular injections are the way to go. That way you have immediate control and can increase or decrease the dosage very easily and quickly.

Feel free to ask me any questions or DM if you like.

Thanks for the advice.

Also, Jay Campbell has a book Testosterone Optimization Therapy that I found helpful.

It's written more for gym bros trying to optimize and goes into peptides and whatnot, etc... but it has a detailed background of everything you need to know about TRT. You can just rely on your doc to make sure your numbers are good, but I sure as heck don't when it comes to my health. I want to see all my labs and read up on each thing. I was also a biochem major at TAMU.

The two main things to keep tabs on (in my non-doc opinion) are estradiol and hematocrit. Your body will convert T to estrogen, and too much is not good. One of the docs at the clinic nuked mine with too much estrogen blocker and low estrogen is not good either. You don't need an E blocker unless you are having adverse symptoms from too much E.

Hematocrit is thickness of blood. T stimulates red blood cell production. Easy fix, just donate blood. I had Hepatitis as a kid so they won't let me donate blood. The men's clinic does a blood dump- phlebotomy when I need it. It's included in the fee I pay.

Again, non-doc here, so listen to a doc over anything I say.

Another thing I wanted to mention is -- and this may be overkill -- but I get four blood tests a year. I go to my primary care doc every six months and get two "free" tests from the clinic a year so I space those out in-between.

If you are doing IM injections that is important and that way you can optimize your T/E and get blood dumps when you need them.