I have been a bit overwhelmed yesterday and today. I gave a little advise to about dealing with emotions as an educator, in their case they are a sex educator and I'm a retired classroom teacher, to a person on Twitter. The emotions are much the same. This wonderful educator added my twitter name to a list that has many people becoming aware of me on twitter, and hopefully this blog. I have been overwhelmed at the new number of followers and since it is coming from someone trying to build community, I try to check each one to see if they should be followed back as part of that community. With doing all that and my wife injuring her knee two days ago, I'm a day late on this post.
Yesterday I gave myself my seventh injection. I'm getting a little better at it. This week was my right leg's turn again. It seems I've had a few problems with that side. Two weeks ago I noticed the chair I sit in was keeping my arm in a position that made hitting my mark difficult. I wasn't missing by much but enough to possibly be the cause of problems. Yesterday I sat in a different chair and it seemed to work fine. It seemed such a small change but made things work much better. The first chair is a desk chair with arms on it. The one that worked better doesn't have arms, so my arm has more freedom to go where I want it to.
So I should start seeing some results. I know to get rid of my belly and build muscle mass is going to take time, but I am seeing some results. My weight has gone back to where it was in August when this started. My thigh increased about eight percent over the two weeks. Since walking is the main exercise I'm doing I hope at least part of that is muscle. Not much change but things are starting to change, I had gone nine months or more prior to starting the therapy with almost no change, so this is a good sign.
I'm sleeping between seven and eight hours a night. Before the replacement therapy there were times I was lucky to get five hours. One of the desired effects is starting to show up. The doctor warned my skin could get oily, which it did last week. He said it probably wouldn't be any more than when I was young, but it is a bit more. I hope this is the most it will go.
Somewhere I read there is an increase in hair growth. I have a full beard that is salt and pepper now, more salt than pepper. At one point I wondered how it would look with the cheeks shaved similar to what Jonathan Frakes did as Commander Riker in Star Trek: The Next Generation. It didn't look good on me but I did start keeping the top of the part trimmed better than just where ever the hair wants to grow. A few months ago I actually forgot to shave there and it didn't even matter. I trim my beard and shave my neck and those two places on my cheeks once a week. I noticed this morning that my cheeks can no longer be skipped. They are ready for the next shave and it's still two days away.
I was told erectile disfunction is dealt with using other methods, the famous little blue pill. I am surprised at how often I wake up at night with an erection now. Almost every night. And morning wood has come back into my life. Last week it was each morning until Thursday. I don't know if Thursday was not there as it was getting so close to the next injection or worry about my wife hurting her knee. The worry about the knee is decreasing as it is improving with just some rest and heat.
This coming Wednesday I will have my first blood draw since starting therapy. Hopefully by the next post they will let me know how well the numbers are increasing. I don't know enough about the process to know if I'm getting close to the time where they decrease the dose to just maintain the levels. I think I still have some time to go before that. The week after that we will be traveling to Southern California to visit my daughter and her family for a few days. We need to take a love seat sized swing my wife bought them. My next blog post about progress with TRT will be written while there.
Comments