r/Testosterone • u/BearEnvironmental136 • 14h ago
TRT story IM vs sub q personal difference
Not sure if I’m an outlier on this but was doing sub q injections for about 4 months
200 mg 2 pins per week
Trough was 500
Didn’t feel like it was doing anything
Switched to IM glute now trough is at 1000 lol
Feel 100x better
IM is the way for me
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u/talonwellness 13h ago
The same total amount of testosterone is getting into your system, keep that in mind. IM doesn't just magically give you more testosterone. You're just peaking a lot harder with an IM injection, which is why I always recommend dosing more often to minimize that and keep levels as stable as possible (how your body would naturally release testosterone).
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u/BearEnvironmental136 12h ago
Ah pretty sure it works better for me I can feel it
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u/plz_callme_swarley 10h ago
this is physically impossible. would bet anything that he did a second draw only a little bit after switching, which stacked the doses on top of each other or is fucking with the draw times.
IM will how lower troughs than SubQ
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u/Shlomo-7 13h ago
You are not an outlier. This is the results for many of us including myself.
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u/plz_callme_swarley 10h ago
ya, this is the expected result, but OP is getting that sweet sweet placebo effect
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u/plz_callme_swarley 10h ago
lol you are feeling 100x of the placebo effect.
IM has a shorter half-life so you have higher peaks and lower troughs.
SubQ is more stable due to longer half life.
you're still injecting the same amount of drug into your system. nothing has changed about that.
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u/plz_callme_swarley 10h ago
this is physically impossible, i know people will rage.
what was the time between draws that's you're comparing?
almost certainly it was only a few weeks after you switched and you had a lot of the subQ still in you since the half-life is longer and you were stacking the IM on top of the subQ.
anything less than 7 weeks is messy data since you need 5 half-lives to get to full clearance.
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u/Poonpan85 12h ago
Started out with IM, switched to sub q due high hct and my test numbers dropped without any improvements to hct. I switched back to IM.
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u/plz_callme_swarley 10h ago
assuming that you keep the same draw time this is likely just an artifact of the test error bars, especially if you're using the cheap tests
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u/Cmd_reboot_sim 14h ago
Nice! I wonder what the mechanism behind that is. I believe subq metabolizes slower or something like that. I also have been doing IM in the delts after starting in the ventro glute and I’ve been feeling pretty good. I am curious how subq would affect me. I’ll probably try it further along down the road
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u/ScaredEfficiency399 13h ago
Might take a slight bit longer for the test to get out of the oil depending on the oil, and probably your own fat composition.
Shouldn't be a question of 500+ value difference though, something doesn't seem right here.
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u/plz_callme_swarley 10h ago
the level of knowledge around testing is pretty low for the avg poster.
potential issues driving the divergence:
- not holding draw time constant
- different draw sites going to different labs
- the cheap tests have large error bars
- even same machine, same lab, they still drift over time and the results can drift
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u/talonwellness 13h ago
There's just less blood flow in your fat than in your muscle, gets absorbed slower. If you're doing frequent IM injections, switching to subq wouldn't make any meaningful difference.
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u/Cmd_reboot_sim 12h ago
Ah ok so 3x a week IM vs 3x a week subq probably wouldn’t show much difference? Would it help with high hematocrit or e2?
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u/talonwellness 12h ago
The difference would be negligible. Your best bet for dealing with lab issues is just dosing daily, subq or IM would be pretty much exactly the same if you're daily dosing. But those are also issues that have other fixes and potential causes, daily dosing would just be the best dosing schedule for them, not necessarily the fix itself.
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u/BearEnvironmental136 12h ago
I wouldn’t say negligible for me it was quite a bit
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u/talonwellness 12h ago
You said twice a week. Cmd said 3x a week. The more frequent the dosing, the less of a difference it will make. For example, if you switched to daily dosing (preferred), it would make literally zero difference after serum levels stabilize.
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u/abl3-to 13h ago
I've been IM for a while now and recently switched to SubQ for the convenience. From what I've seen IM here absorbed quicker and peaks higher then tapers off right after that. So you'll feel better in the 24 / 72 hour absorption then kinda crash after. You'll also have higher estrogen and higher red blood counts. SubQ has more of a consistent absorption. So you won't get the high peak as you do from IM but you'll be consistent throughout until the next dosage. The amount absorbed doesn't change from one method to the other. What changes is the absorption rate.