Thanks again to everyone! This is really helping me to make an informed decision. First, my sympathies to those who made no choice or have regret on requiring a permanent need for T replacement. It kind of makes me feel that my efforts, even just the thought, to lower my T is taking for granted the fact that I can produce it naturally. This just seems like the only way to permanently grab control over this thing between my legs, if not temporarily experience life without its interference. I have desperately tried a chastity 'fort'/cage type of device (anyone need one?) but determined it was not any type of solution... so here I am. I just wish it was different timing as I can't afford to lose motivation, focus, energy or memory right now, but alas, I am too determined to turn back at this point. I am definitely interested to hear more experiences and I will return the favor by sharing mine once I get to that point. The syringes arrived yesterday, I am just waiting for the vials which just shipped yesterday as well. It's funny I was just recalling when I first started reading about chemical castration via depo provera how I thought that one was supposed to inject it in their balls... good thing I got that straightened out! LOL.

I think personality change and the so-called eunuch calm are highly over rated. I could see reduced sex drive being mistaken for these if castrated at a younger adult age.

When I was on the castration drugs the thing I noticed was hot flashes, lots of them, one day at work it was the end of the day and we were all standing outside our cubes, when I got one of the most sever hot flashes ever, I break out in sweats so I grabbed a folder off my bosses desk and started fanning myself, and said,"damn, hot flashes, must be the change of life" everybody thought this was very funny and the hot flash passed, my boss asked me if I was OK and I said yes, 'wonder what caused that' she laughed and life went on without them even realizing that what I said was the truth.

So remember the truth is sometimes so fantastic and so wrong it will be cast out in favor of something else.

Good luck to you,

River

smoothie36 (imported) wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2011 5:51 pm I think personality change and the so-called eunuch calm are highly over rated. I could see reduced sex drive being mistaken for these if castrated at a younger adult age.

An interesting observation. The TERM "eunuch calm" is very undefined.

Perhaps a better more comprehensive term would be Low T Lifestyle.

Sometimes not desired, not sought, and a very big problem.

Sometimes desired and sought, but not attained, a very big problem.

And sometimes, desired, sought, and attained. OH, what a relief it is. !!!

There are parts of high T life that I enjoyed, and indeed miss.

But overall, having low T is preferable.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

It is all a matter of what you want, and don't want.

In my case, the benefits of low T far out weigh the benefits of high T.

And the negatives of high T far out weigh the benefits of low T.

What I have lost by having a lower T is preferable and beneficial to me.

Maybe not to you, or to someone else.

To each their own. Or at least we try, in spite of living in a world where other people judge how we should and should not live.

Yes, I forgot the hot flashes and I also end up sweating quite a bit when I sleep. I also felt very weak and had no stamina. 5 minutes of hard work would make me very tired. I also got drowsy but unable to sleep very well until completely exhaustesd. there are lots of downsides so be very careful. If you do the chemo you may be able to stop and turn it around if you don't like it but don't stay on it too long in case you make it irreversible. I would trade you even up in a second to have a problem with too much T. I also put on weight real easy even while minimizing my caloric intake and got "man Boobs". I thought I might have to start wearing my wife's bra if it got any worse. There were other side effwects also but I can't remember all of them now. Did I mention memory loss? Ha! Ha!

So it has been about 2 1/2 weeks on depo...300 mg to start, then 150 a week later. I will jot be continuing doses mainly because I am experiencing this loss of energy/motivation everyone has been talking about. I would say that it happened almost immediately with the real 'drag' occurring 3 or 4 days into it. The energy loss is much to be disered; I could still function once I was in gear, but getting there was somewhat of a chore. For example, my normal routine of coming home after a crazy day at work, I found myself on the couch (not out of the norm) eventually drifting into this lifeless being, completely incapable of doing anything but sleeping. I had a 'regular' night of sleep prior, and yeah, work was mentally exhausting, possibly contributing, but even after my 2-3 hour nap, I found myself stuck or glued to the couch. My world was in a total daze? or perhaps funk? hard to describe, but only until I mustered up all my strength both mentally and physically would I be able to get up around 8 or 9 pm to finally make dinner. I will say that once I got up, and started moving around, I was able to stay motivated and somewhat energetic to my task... though cleaning up after myself seemed like a chore by the time I was done eating. Soon after vegging for a little, I would find myself wandering off to bed earlier than before. I have no problem falling asleep again whereas taking a nap before cc would usually mean I wouldn't fall asleep til the wee hours. I feel like a sleep machine and maybe that is partially due to my love affair with sleep, or because I am currently on a 1 or 2 month lull in physical activity, but getting out of bed in the morning became/has become somewhat of a chore. Once I am up, however, and begin my shower, I'm good to go. I feel rested, but once I start really moving throughout the day, I become physically exhausted. For example, walking the couple blocks to work from my car, or up and down stairs in the office throughout the day leaves me winded. I am constantly moving during the day with my new job, communicating to different people on different floors, and those stairs are kicking my ass! Getting to an employee and then having to talk to them I feel short of breath sometimes struggling to say a full sentence ... I actually feel winded in general noticing my breathing has become heavier while idle. It is not unbearable, but it is not a desired effect either. I challenged myself in the midst of my 'energy crisis' with a weekend full of activity. I started with a 10 mile downstream paddle in the kayak, a 16 mile bike ride and 2 mile hike (with a semiloaded backpack) one day, and a 6 mile upstream paddle the next day. The first day I was fine with the paddling only becoming a little winded at times when I needed to exert myself more or portage my boat, but overall it was a success keeping up with the others. The bike ride was a bit different... I was able to physically keep up with my mates, but I was winded practically the entire time. Usually the adrenaline kicks in by mile 1 or 2 and I am on fire, but this time I was huffing and puffing to keep pace. The hike was a little less rigorous, but I did become winded more than usual. The next day when I did my upstream paddle, I found myself with slightly more energy and was able to to perform better but maybe since I opened up my vessels a bit the day before? There could have been other factors involded with my experience, such as my current lull in exercise, but I am usually able to jump back in the game seemingly seamlessly (never have I experienced this much shortness of breath). So now that I got the negatives out of the way, the reason I chose this path was to eliminate... well, you can read my previous posts as to the whys. The effect on my genitals has proved more than what I expected with my erections ceasing close to a week into my cc. I stopped getting morning wood and stopped obsessing about constant erections which no longer exist, getting off only to see if it was possible. My dick never gets hard and I love it. Why can't I achieve this without the energy loss?! grrr. So anyway, other aspects of the process have been satisfactory as well. Despite the loss of energy, my mental health is stable. My job has kicked in full force for the past few weeks and I am performing above expectations. The new company is thoroughly impressed and not one person would suspect a thing. Now I know I only have been in a state of probably only slightly lowered t for a short time comparatively speaking, but achieving my goal of no erections, I feel whatever level I have reached is as far as I would ever need to take it. That being said, I would not consider surgical castration at this point since it seems i'd want to be on t replacement which is something I would not voluntarily depend on. The outcome of this experience has been pleasantly surprising despite the energy loss, and I would do it all over again perhaps when I have a better handle on my life in general. Right now I just want to move on and not take my energy for granted. Maybe this experience has opened my eyes a bit more in that regard and the erections will just have to be dealt with when they start coming back.

In my early life very few people suspected that I had low testosterone unless they knew what they were looking for. I did have enough to develop a moustache and chin hairs. My hair is black but for the peach fuzz mascara would do the rest. (Being picked on was a concern of mine.) I had what was described as a vibrant personality and almost more energy than anyone else had. I had the energy to dance into the early dawn when I wanted to. Of course as a low-testosterone person most women wouldn't want to have anything to do with me. I was never a good catch. I could work as hard as anybody but I did have definate limitations in lifting and certain other physical tasks as much as any of the men would. I was once chastized by a physician for having worked to hard. The truth. Anyway where this is all going is that before him only one other person noticed that I perhaps needed more testosterone. This was when I was still in high school and that person was the head nurse at the doctor's office when I went for a routine physical check-up. She offered to put me on a T-therapy regimen but it didn't happen. My dad was in a bad mood and meanwhile I didn't want to end up being like him anyway. I think the only real things it affects is a very deep voice which I don't quite have, physical power, and libido which I never cared about having in the first place. As for personality generally older people would like me better since I seemed to be considerably more open, responsive and considerate than my brothers and most other young people around.

I think one of the largest problems I have living in the male persona is my need to be more emotional and expressive. For years, my most powerful emotional times have always consisted of anger and rage. I'm hoping when my useless testicles are finally removed in June that I can become more like the person I always feel inside. You'd think regularly taking cyproterone and enduring multiple rounds of ethanol injections would have helped lower my T levels significantly, but just the presence of them there still bothers me.

Answer to the question...YES! Absolutely! In my instance, a prolactinoma turned off my testicles. When I was diagnosed, after I had it approximately 12 years, my testosterone level was in the low female range (Really Low "T") and my prolactin level was about five times that of a lactating woman.

Naturally, the high prolactin level produced physical effects, impotence, feminization of my body, weight gain, growth of breasts (I had a really nice rack! ) Despite all this, the major problems were the mental effects of low testosterone.

At a time when I should have been at the height of my mental powers I was, irritable, angry, depressed and had a total lack of ambition. What edge I had was lost. Life had a palpable thickness to it, as though I were walking around under water all the time. I alienated a great many of my friends and my wife became unable to hide her contempt for me. (Probably aggravated by the fact that her income passed mine.) There was no feeling that my life could ever get better and I contemplated suicide. In correspondence with other men who have these tumors the general opinion is that undetected prolactinomas are one of the leading causes of suicide among middle-aged men.

Since I was diagnosed, and the tumor suppressed by medication (The tumor was stage IV at diagnosis and inoperable. Luckily, there are a couple of medications that can reliably suppress them.) my personality has changed again. It has not gone back to what it was before the tumor, I am older and there was, in effect, a twelve year hole in my life, but a certain edge has returned. Knowing that at my age I have a literal deadline for whatever I wish to accomplish from this point has shaped my attitude as of late, but I still feel confident that my life is not over. HRT has given me a lot more energy and drive, with the only negative side effect being the distraction of wanting to fuck every attractive woman I see. I am old enough and experienced enough to handle that minor distraction.

I have hypogonadism and have been on T for 2 years. I can say that there is a huge difference when I am on T and not and it has to do with energy levels. Have noticed a few more late night erections, but the real change is the ability to get up in the morning and start the day. I know this thread is a year old, but I wanted to add my $.02.