I'm mostly a lurker around here, but I thought I'd let everyone here know that I just got my prescription for testosterone after well over a year of jumping over hurdles.  My endo was so nice, and just gave me a very basic examination--painless, no pelvic exam--and voilà.  He's got me on a very regular dose, and we will see how it goes.  I will be doing my first shot by myself today... Perhaps I will start a vlog. 

Way to go V. Congratulations and also insanely jealous

Congrats! 

woot 

Congrats!

Alright that's flippin' awesome! Congrats man!

Thanks, guys.  It's been a trip just to get here, but I am glad I finally have.  Still haven't gotten the prescription filled but I'm eating dinner.    I was feeling quite apprehensive but the doc was great.  Not the worrisome type, either.  He said negative side effects are minimal and that "well, half the world has this circulating through their system, so it can't be that bad."  But he's the best endo in the province.  Exactly the experience I was hoping for.  Woop!

haha he sounds awesome.

Grats man. 

Bah, I have to wait until tomorrow to get my first shot, because the damn pharmacy doesn't stock the proper sized needles, only tiny 25G.  They're ordering in a box of 100 23G syringes that, apparently, another guy taking the same T uses, and I was surprised to hear it'll cost less than $10.  So that's 100 weeks of syringes, and I've got about 6 months worth of T, I think.  I guess waiting one more day is not too horrible.  It's funny -- it takes all this time to get here, and then when you realize you can't get your shot right away, you are still depressed and outraged.

Congratulations, I also ordered a box of needles to ave around I have had it for over a year now.
Cheers,
Myles

Congrats!

Congrats  thats excellent.

Just wait til you do your own shot the first time. I shook like a leaf but didn't feel a thing. After a couple shots I got used to it. Now I only worry about hitting a vein but even if you do, it's not like you're gonna die. I used to think it would do damage if I hit the vein on my way into my muscle. But it won't. I've never had anyone else do my shots. Why did you decide to do them yourself? Just wondering.

It's good to hear there's not a lot of pain.  It's standard here, apparently, with these injections for them to be done at home.  My endocrinologist showed me the basics, although not with a needle, mind you, and told me that if I was uncomfortable with doing the shots, I could go to any walk-in clinic and they would assist me.  However, I've done a lot of intramuscular shots with birds before, seeing that I have a lot of interest in veterinary medicine.  I get the basic idea and have watched videos about it, as well.  Should I be concerned?  I'm quite confident about giving myself a needle.  I'm far more paranoid about others doing it.

Bah, you aren't that much of a lurker that we don't remember you :p

Congrats on the T!

Good on you man! 

Regarding self injection my Endo told me to numb the area for about 5 minutes before giving myself the shot.  Then use some alcohol swabs before just grabbing the top of the thigh and pushing it on in.  No reason to over think.

I've given myself 4 shots so far.  The first 3 gave me a lot of soreness and stiffness in the muscle for a couple of days which was bothersome.  However this last one a few days ago felt fine, no pain at all. 

When giving myself a shot this is what I do:

Wipe the area I'm injecting into and the top of the vial of T with an alcohol swab.

Take the needle out of its package. The needles I get, the needle part which screws into the tube of the syringe is usually on loosely, causing it to not fill up or inject properly. Causes T to leak out or makes it hard to get it in the syringe. So I tighten the needle on the syringe.

Roll the vial of T inbetween my hands to warm it up for a few minutes. I do this cause at room temp, it goes into the syringe verrrryyyy slowly. Warming it some makes it go into the syringe a little faster.

Draw twice the amount of air as T that I'm going to inject (ie. I inject 1 cc so I draw 2cc of air into the syringe.

Push the needle into the vial, turn the vial upside down, inject the air into the T.

Now I begin the slow task of getting the T in the syringe. Takes awhile even with warming the vial. What I do is I pull the plunger past the 1cc mark until it looks to be a little over 1cc in the syringe, then I push what's excess back into the bottle. This way I'm sure I get the full dose with no air bubbles.

Pull needle out of vial. I pull enough air into the syringe to make a small bubble. Some people say this helps to "pack" the T into the muscle but personally I do it so no T dribbles out of the syringe.

Stick needle in leg. Slowly push plunger. Remove needle. Viola. Done.

Hey, guys, I know this thread is aging a little but I thought I'd update it.  Unfortunately, literally the day after I got my T, I came down with a pretty severe case of food poisoning from a chicken burger I ate that day.  It was campylobacter poisoning -- not fun.  I was down for about a week, Thursday to Thursday.  So, on Thursday, July 15th, when I was finally feeling better, I decided to get my first shot.  Mind you, it was at about 11:00PM.  My father apparently has a lot of experience giving intramuscular shots for vitamin B, so he decided to do the first one.  All we did was, of course:

1.  Take out alcohol swab and swab the top of the vial
2.  Take out syringe, inject 2x the air into the testosterone and draw out dosage
3.  Switch needles (I like to draw with one and inject with another as this ensures it'll be nice and sharp)
4.  Swab thigh
5.  Grab muscle tightly in one hand and do injection with the other.

I had absolutely no pain upon injection.  It was as if he had merely poked me.  We did it slowly and calmly and it was pro.  I had very minor pain the next day, with a sort of bruised feel to my thigh, but it was gone the next day.  I'll probably do my own shot pretty soon, but I am pretty glad I have someone with that kind of expertise.

So, when I could have been on T for over a week, I've only been on it for three days.  It was a very unlucky thing, getting sick like that, but at least I'm on my way now.  Just thought I would let everyone know, for some reason.

Congratulations on starting, V, and good luck to you.