So yeah I realize this isn't of interest to everyone but I'm friends with a lot of bros around my age in the Lifestyle with this interest and I'm sure there are a handful here on reddit from time to time that might be in similar circumstances and have a similar curiosity about testosterone replacement so I'm posting my recent experience as a point of interest as a longtime swinger. I am not a medical professional, an endocrinologist or scientist of any sort, nor am I advocating for or endorsing trt. I'm not even sure it's longterm effective for me yet. It's a journey I've only recently undertaken after some prolonged consideration and consultation. I thought I'd share early results as they develop.

If you want to skip all the reasons why I did it and see what the reaction was to the first round of trt then just skip to the last paragraph.

Some factual stuff about my situation: I'm 55, white, historically high baselines of happiness and overall life satisfaction. 6'1", 165-170 lbs, lean muscles. Weekly weight resistance and light cardio but not ripped. Happily married 23 years. She checks all the boxes for me. Always has. We've been in or around the lifestyle all of those 23 years. Full swap. More about that in a bit. Two kids, 17 and 11. A dog, a cat, a yard that requires regular mowing to keep the HOA off our asses. The normal stressors many guys around my age have but a few extra stressors as well. My particular career in finance can be punctuated with periods of high stress. Additionally I've been overseeing my parents' healthcare as they've aged. It's not been pretty and it's all been on my shoulders. My dad recently passed from a long debilitation from a stroke. My mom is in the final stages of dementia. It's been years-long odyssey taking care of them, watching them decline and overseeing their estate. On top of that wheel on a family vacation we were struck by another vehicle that ran a red light light causing all sorts of additional trauma and stress. I'm sure these things have affected my endocrine system.

But this all really started in earnest about two years ago when my wife and I stopped drinking. We realized we'd become binge drinkers and partied too frequently. When we stopped cold turkey that's when I began to feel fatigued in the afternoons. At first I thought it was a longterm withdrawal symptom but eventually I sorted out that I was feeling tired because I was no longer amping myself up after work on beer or wine, that I would have likely been feeling this tired much sooner if I'd quit drinking earlier. Who knows how long my energy levels had been leveling off? From then on my energy observably seemed to sap more and more, going through cycles where it would get worse and then spike back up only to trough down again. Recently it got very concerning. My libido was noticeably in decline during more recent troughs. There'd never been a time in my adult life where I was even momentarily disinterested in sex. I love sex, love women, particularly love sex with my wife whose energy, attitide, scent, everything has always driven me nuts but there were times when it was becoming a labor to even think about sex. This was new to me. My erections had been starting to suffer a bit too. I'd never had much of an issue with erections with my wife except on the few occasions I'd given myself whiskey dick or something similar (I'm looking at you, MDMA). Its an established fact between us that if we kiss for more than 20 seconds sex is practically inevitable so if we were someplace where sex wasn't possible we'd better not cause kiss for long. Srure, maybe I wasn't as hard for as long as I had been in, say, my twenties, but I was still showing up well. In swing scenarios my erections had been highly situational depending on my connection with my partner. I could be a porn superstar if there was a great connection and occasionally undependable or worse in situations that were forced or too emotionally vacant but I would supplement with cialis as an insurance policy and that would usually suffice. Recently when I troughed, however, all of that would collapse. Zero energy, little to no interest. No bueno. Not who I wanted to be. This has been getting progressive noticeable until it was something I couldn't dismiss. It was starting to scare me, honestly. Even outside of swinging I'm not ready to give up a life of energy and passion, not if it can be sensibly addressed.

Most of my friends had already opted for trt a long time ago. In fact, I'm not aware of any males in our rather large social circle that haven't at least cycled on and off testosterone. I held out for a long time. I didn't want to succumb to shots and there were medicals concerns like increased estrogen, etc... and anywhere I looked for info on trt there was a dizzying array of conflicting information and volumes of difficult to understand metrics.

Recently my wife who is perimenopausal has been researching trt for herself and based on her research I began to take the idea more seriously for myself. I had blood panels done and consulted with my doctor and some specialists in town. Even brought my wife with me to a few consultations to help poke holes in the idea but the more we learned the less concerns we were left with and eventually I decided, fuck it, I'll try it. If the fatigue, loss of drive, etc... wasn't a necessary life passage let's see how it goes.

I'm not the guy to expertly address general concerns and particulars about trt. There are qualified resources out there for that so I'll just move now to the first round of treatment.

The doctors put me on a plan to increase my testosterone to double the amount I tested at. I was administered the first shot and told to expect to start seeing results in approximately three to four weeks. That was about a week and half ago. Curiously 10 minutes after my first shot on my way home I experienced a "lifted" feeling in my head. I don't know what to attribute that to but I felt it was important enough to include here. I thought maybe they'd put b-12 in the shot but they refuted that. Maybe it was just placebo effect. For the next week my energy was slightly higher but not by much and my interest in sex wasnt much out of the trough it had been in. I wasn't a collapsed jellyfish laying under the covers by 8pm but I wasn't running through walls either. It was early on in the process so I took as a meaningful sign that my energy wasn't AS low as it had been and looked forward to my next shot a week later. I took that second shot a few days ago. I'm not going to mischaracterize it as some life-changing Wizard of Oz moment where everything turns from black-and-white to technicolor but I'd be lying if didn't admit the change is already obvious. My energy is fine. Much higher and consistent. My interest in sex is completely restored to where it had always been. My erections are just fine without any aid of cialis. We've fucked twice today when we had the opportunity to do it (not always easy in a house with two kids and pets). It's early yet. Maybe this is some unrelated upswing and I'll trough again. But maybe not. Maybe this treatment is for real. I'll report more after next shot. It looks pretty promising thus far.