kaberett | [healthwork] T+4 weeks; gym

I started testosterone, as one pump per day of Tostran, on the first of June. So far: I'm possibly noticing some subtle changes in body shape, based on how clothes are fitting, and I'm definitely feeling less cold all the time. Decapeptyl injection the first (of this round) happened yesterday, so I'm expecting the next two weeks to be pretty rough, and then we'll see how I'm going and whether I want to up my dose. (I strongly suspect that what I actually want is to ditch the Decapeptyl and just carry on with low-dose T, but we'll see how it goes.)

Last year, at the beginning of July, post-top surgery, I got my act together to join my local gym and resume doing rehab physio per UCLH's instructions. I talked about this a bit last August, and it is actually useful for me to review Progress I Have Made, so I'm going to do that. Numbers below the cut (relating to resistance/reps/etc, no bodyweight). Back when I resumed doing this physio programme, it looked like this:

stationary bike, resistance level 1, 2 x 1m30 (warm up & cool down)
rear delt machine fly, 10kg, 1 x 5 reps
seated machine fly, 10g, 1 x 5 reps
leg press, 10kg, 1 x 5 reps
seated leg curl machine, 10kg, 1 x 5 reps
seated calf raise machine, 10kg, 1 x 5 reps

On Wednesday this week, it looked like this:

stationary bike, resistance level 5, 2 x 7m30
rear delt machine fly, 18kg, 3 x 10 reps
seated machine fly, 18kg, 3 x 10 reps
leg press, 23kg, 3 x 10 reps (safe one-rep max, after everything else: 45kg)
seated leg curl machine, 18kg, 3 x 10 reps
seated calf raise machine, 18kg, 3 x 10 reps

... except actually I was sneaking eleventh repetitions in on a bunch of those.

That's 34 gym sessions over 52 weeks, which I'm pretty pleased with, not least because that time period included "three months in Belfast" and "one broken foot".

Three weeks ago, instead of trying for upping the mass, I added an extra set (to convince myself I'd be able to up the mass and maintain three sets). This time last year, the total weight shifted during a gym session was 250kg; my current normal routine adds ~2850kg, and my max (during that "eh, let's do four sets" session) is 3120kg (ignoring bonus eleventh repetitions, An Extra Fifty Kilos Because I Can, etc). Less obviously (from my notes), my RPM on the stationary bike has gradually crept up from ~60 to ~85-90 without my knee giving out. It's been slow and painstaking and frequently frustrating, per my post last August, with increase in at most one of the number of reps, or the number of sets, or the mass I was shifting, but this is also an order of magnitude increase in what I can (in a highly controlled environment) safely do without fucking myself up. I'm now obviously getting cardiovascular exercise and working my large muscles in addition to strengthening my small stabilising muscles.

The goal for the next year is, I think, one of "add Pilates back in" or "work up to two sessions a week". Because I might actually be able to. Because while I started out with it taking several days for my knee to calm back down, it's now typically fine again within 12 hours and definitely within 24.

Here is a concrete and quantifiable thing I can do, now, that I couldn't, this time last year.

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lunabee34

Yay for progress!

sfred

Well done for achievements!

Would you be up for sharing your thinking behind trying Decapeptyl and considering stopping it? (For context, I have no gonads and am actively putting oestrogen into my system as well as testosterone.)

kaberett

I've previously used GnRH agonists in combination with Tibolone as HRT, for endometriosis management, and got on with the set-up really well until tachyphylaxis (as it's apparently called) set it. On the basis that it had previously worked well for me, Dr Seal wanted to prescribe it again and see how I got on with it this time, and I didn't particularly feel like arguing at that point even with an advocate in the room.

Basically I think the entirety of the CHX team is convinced I must be really unhappy about my periods for gender reasons, and I'm not -- they're inconvenient and painful but they don't cause me dysphoria -- and I can't quite face having that argument on top of all the others.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that while it's true that Zoladex was a good time, one pump of Tostran a day isn't going to be enough to counter the menopausal effects, and it's not clear that I've managed to convince any of them to prescribe Decapeptyl doses on a timescale that won't lead to me needing to go back through the progestin-overproduction cycle every dose, and I'm not convinced I want more testosterone than I'm currently getting.

So I'm going to see how dose 1 of Decapeptyl goes, and if I'm ehhhh about it then I'll just... not bother renewing.

sylvaine

Eeeeeee, this is so exciting! (And motivating me to get back to my gym, as well)

Thanks for sharing more detail. I wonder what assumptions Dr Seal would have made about me if I'd still had a uterus and gonads.

vass

This is all very cool.

this is also an order of magnitude increase in what I can (in a highly controlled environment) safely do without fucking myself up. I'm now obviously getting cardiovascular exercise and working my large muscles in addition to strengthening my small stabilising muscles.

This part in particular is so cool. And I really admire your patience and maturity in sticking at the small stabilising muscle stuff, because it's incredibly important and useful, and I would find it so frustrating.