This is top of my list of ‘things nobody tells you about starting T’. It can seriously hurt and lifting can make it worse. But there are things you can do to minimise it.
How guys using testosterone (and variants) for performance/image enhancement cope with doing so many injections is beyond me. It hurts and you can’t (well you really shouldn’t) train the muscle you injected into for 24-48hrs after the injection because you can/will irritate it. I once did some squat reps with 100kg right after an injection, I could barely walk the next day and on reflection I was being pretty stupid. But if you can get it to hurt less then the impact it has on your training schedule is less.
I’ve been on T the better part of 5 years and in that time I’ve been on sustanon (in various doses), testosterone enanthate, testogel and nebido/reandron. Testogel was only briefly when the whole of the UK seemed to run out of sustanon and enanthate. I don’t like gels, there’s nothing objectively wrong with them, it’s just they don’t work for me.
Sustanon was evil. It was fine in terms of T effect, the sort of T you are on makes no difference, it’s all about T levels and your genetics. But the pain was worse than any other sort I’ve been on. We’re not talking agony but I did often have a limp for 2-3 days with ways of helping making almost no difference.
I switched to enanthate because of the pain with sustanon and it was much better. I could feel it but there was no limping. I’m on nebido now (and was on reandron in Australia though they are the same) because I find less regular injections more practical for my life in general. With nebido I have no pain at all, just a lump that hurts for a few days if I press it hard. Given nebido is 4ml I was expecting a hell of a lot worse.
However, my point is not that nebido is best. It’s that if you have pain see if you can try a different sort of T. I have a friend who found enanthate awful but sustanon no problem. I’m not why different people experience it differently, I’m not sure if science on it even exists.
If you can’t change or if you still have pain then there are still things to try:
How guys using testosterone (and variants) for performance/image enhancement cope with doing so many injections is beyond me. It hurts and you can’t (well you really shouldn’t) train the muscle you injected into for 24-48hrs after the injection because you can/will irritate it. I once did some squat reps with 100kg right after an injection, I could barely walk the next day and on reflection I was being pretty stupid. But if you can get it to hurt less then the impact it has on your training schedule is less.
I’ve been on T the better part of 5 years and in that time I’ve been on sustanon (in various doses), testosterone enanthate, testogel and nebido/reandron. Testogel was only briefly when the whole of the UK seemed to run out of sustanon and enanthate. I don’t like gels, there’s nothing objectively wrong with them, it’s just they don’t work for me.
Sustanon was evil. It was fine in terms of T effect, the sort of T you are on makes no difference, it’s all about T levels and your genetics. But the pain was worse than any other sort I’ve been on. We’re not talking agony but I did often have a limp for 2-3 days with ways of helping making almost no difference.
I switched to enanthate because of the pain with sustanon and it was much better. I could feel it but there was no limping. I’m on nebido now (and was on reandron in Australia though they are the same) because I find less regular injections more practical for my life in general. With nebido I have no pain at all, just a lump that hurts for a few days if I press it hard. Given nebido is 4ml I was expecting a hell of a lot worse.
However, my point is not that nebido is best. It’s that if you have pain see if you can try a different sort of T. I have a friend who found enanthate awful but sustanon no problem. I’m not why different people experience it differently, I’m not sure if science on it even exists.
If you can’t change or if you still have pain then there are still things to try:
- Warm the amp/vial before you draw it up then inject right away. Hold it in your hand, sit it on the radiator etc. because warm oil moves more freely.
- Inject slowly, as in so slow it feels silly.
- Experiment with different amounts of exercise in the day after as well as immediately after, it’s another one that varies person to person. However don’t lift or do anything that involves serious effort. I like a brisk 20-30min walk immediately after then not much else for the rest of the day.
- Apply a hot water bottle to the injection site a few hours later.
- Gently massage the muscle a few times a day for the 48hrs after injecting. The more pain you get the gentler you need to be.
- I’ve tried having nebido injected as two 2ml injections, one in each side, but I don’t think it makes a difference. But it might be worth trying, individual and all that, because it does seem to make logical sense that it could help. However, one in each side means you can’t rotate your injection sites by side- consider asking a nurse about showing you the right spot to rotate with quad and glute instead.