AndyJ's Body Enhancement Thread

Great thread Andy, props to the detailed records you keep of yourself. On top of that, you seem to have a level head about your plan and progress - great qualities to have!

Do you log weights/vacuum as well, or just same every time? Looking forward to updates about the ball pumping as well, feels like an underexplored side of PE.

To add on what Tutt was saying, AthleanX is a good channel for basic exercises/plans but I’d add: [P]Rehab Guys, Squat University, and/or EliteFTS (this one is more strength sports focused). Lots of rehab exercises, strong emphasis on longevity from each of them. All of them have sites/blogs if you prefer.

Hopefully your wife likes the new food, and wishing you luck on the mobility work :D

Apologies for the delayed reply; I didn’t think to check the thread for a while.

Yes, I log all the PE stuff thoroughly. I use a template in a text file. I was posting monthly totals for a while, but got out of the habit when I went to mostly maintenance PE.

I was only making very slow progress with the ball pumping; there was general discomfort everywhere, and occasional sharp pain in the scarred areas, and I was only pumping for short periods a few times a week. A couple of months ago the discomfort mostly went away and I was able to use higher vacuums and longer pump times, and the “snap back like rubber” effect when I came out of the tube started taking a half a day or more.

Since then I’ve mostly used the tube and the breast pump, and pump sessions of one to two hours. I have reasonable hang most of the time now, and the discomfort has almost entirely gone away. I don’t know if it was simply longer pump sessions or a plateau of some sort. I’m happy with the progress though.

And as a bonus, the right testicle has fully descended and and is now normal size. I suspect the root problem there is the testosterone/estrogen imbalance. Still another five weeks before the endocrinologist appointment.

I had the respiratory appointment yesterday. I printed out a month’s worth of blood pressure, pulse rate, and blood oxygen level data (four pages) and put it in a manila folder.

The doc glanced at the printout, dismissed the occasional resting pulse Ox of 94-95 as nothing to worry about, and said my shortness of breath was probably a heart problem. I told him I had a full workup done in 2016; he acted like that was the 20th century and said he was referring me to a cardiac doc. Then he listened to my lungs with his stethoscope and said they sounded OK. He didn’t take pulse Ox or have me blow into an air volume gauge; he said he would send me to an affiliate clinic for “tests.”

I got a clean cardiology bill in 2016. My resting pulse rate is usually in the mid-50s; at my age it would normally be in the mid-70s. I have trouble getting it over 90 even with cardio exercises. I suspect I’m just being sent on a trip through the referral-go-round, but I’ll go along with it.

I finally used up all the shea butter. I never cared for the odor, so this time I ordered some cocoa butter. The cocoa butter is almost odorless and a lot slicker than shea butter. It doesn’t seem to be miscible with hyaluronic acid, so after the first experiments I’m just using it straight.

So, I’m still on the bed in the unheated spare room. The temperature dropped down into the 40s last night, and it got cold in there even with the door open, so I rooted out the electric blanket. Aahh. Then I remembered the 9x12 heating pad I’d bought a year ago and never got around to using. It was, of course, in the last place I looked. I still think “stuff” changes location randomly, just to mess with me. I had to run another extension cord, having run out of places to plug in all the *other* stuff - the air bed’s pump, the CPAP machine, the breast pump, the Red Light Therapy lamp, the reading lamp, the charger for the tablet, the phone charger, and now the blanket and the heating pad. I would never have thought PE as being so… electrical.

I gave the heating pad a try this morning. First an hour in the straight tube using the breast pump. It felt pretty warm, but after a while I barely noticed. When I disconnected and removed everything, the tube felt very hot, though probably because my hands were cold. I didn’t notice anything unusual, and no edema. Generally it takes 90 minutes or so for that to happen when using the breast pump.

Since it was still cold and I didn’t want to get up, I shifted the tube to my balls, wrapped it, and did another 30 minutes, which was when my bladder insisted it was tired of waiting around. Got noticeably good stretch.

Now that the weather is cooler, looks like heat will be part of the schedule now.

I don’t know how hot the heating pad gets, but while my shaft isn’t bothered by it, it can be uncomfortably hot on my thighs. I was interested to note that I get slightly *less* edema when pumping with the hot pad than at room temperature; I would have expected it to be the other way around.

I wasn’t expecting any further improvement on the scars, but since I’ve started using the heating pad they’ve faded noticeably. I wish I’d known that earlier, but I’m still happy about it.

For the last few weeks, it has been mostly pumping and some edging. EQ has dropped to zip again. I was going to blame it on the heating pad, but it’s probably the testosterone problem since it has come and gone before. Still two weeks away from the endocrinolgist visit.

Still no action from the respiratory doc. It has been almost a month. I’m going to have to call and see what the problem is.

Still working on setting up the kitchen; mostly just malaise and lack of mobility, plus an unexpected electrical upgrade; most of the cooking equipment takes 1100-1350 watts, more than the old wiring could handle.

Still doing the stretching/motion exercises. Most of the crunchiness has gone away. I’ve managed to get some more work done on the drum for the speed bag. I should have just bought one already made. I’d never worked with MDF before. It makes choking clouds of fine dust when the saw hits it. And I still need to weld up the mounting bracket. Ah, well.

I saw the endocrinologist today. It’s a good thing I brought a copy of my July lab results along; they hadn’t been forwarded from the GP’s office. She made copies for her own records. The doc said she wanted to do some more lab work, but I was a candidate for testosterone replacement therapy. Her plebotomist drew eight vials of blood. Now waiting for the results to come back.

I saw the respiratory doc 09/28. We just got informed that the first of several ‘testing’ appointments has been scheduled for 12/17.

I ordered a vitamin D “home test” kit through Amazon. It was $40. D wasn’t part of the last couple of lab panels, for some reason.

The kit was from “Cerascreen.” They appear to be a German firm; at least you have to create a user account on a German web site to get your test results. The actual sample goes to New Jersey. The site worked with my not-common web browser and didn’t demand an excessive amount of information, though it did require my height and weight. It allowed selecting metric or US units. Weight came first, no problem. However, the back end couldn’t figure out any variants of feet and inches, so it thinks I’m five feet tall. I later realized the programmers were probably looking for a single integer, Euros thinking in millipedes or centipedes.

The test is basically just a few drops of blood into the sample container, but the instructions were complicated and in a tiny font in colors blending into a colored background. They instructions were clear, but annoyingly hard to read.

You’re supposed to run your hand under warm water for three minutes, then swing your arm around five to ten times, then use one of the two provided spring-loaded stabbies to puncture a finger, going in at a diagonal near the tip. Okay, for $40 I’ll follow the directions as-written. I test my blood sugar every day, but the stabby in the kit uses a wide blade instead of a needle. The sumbitch hurt. And then I could only get a couple of drops out. The instructions said four large drops were needed, and if there wasn’t enough blood the test would fail. After squeezing and cursing for a while I used the second stabby and still had to “milk” the finger, squeezing from the palm out. The sample holder is an interesting little device that looks sort of like a Roach Motel when you fold it up.

The kit came with a mailing bag and a prepaid mailing label with a barcode to identify the sample; I had to enter the human-readable alphanumeric onto the web page to link the sample with my account.

I expect to get the results sometime next week. It has been 36 hours and the bruise on my fingertip has gone away, but I still have two small scabs where the stabbies went in, and the finger is still sore. I didn’t realize how much work my right ring finger does on the keyboard.

I’ve put “ask for D3 test” on my list of things to ask for next time the doc runs a lab panel.

Five days now, and that finger is still sore, and the two red dots from the stabbies are still visible. I’ve cut myself badly and bled, and healed within the same amount of time. Furthermore, I don’t think the Stabbies From Hell drew any more blood than the teeny needle in my glucose tester kit.

A week before the visit with the endocrinologist I stopped all PE and dietary supplements so they would get an accurate baseline testosterone reading. EQ dropped and turned into ED within a few days. With one thing and another, I didn’t get back to my PE routine (which I’d adhered faithfully to for 468 days). I’ve been applying hydrcortisone cream to the scarred areas each morning after I shower, but eventually the scars stiffened up enough to crack. They didn’t shrink much - at least the external ones didn’t - but they got hard enough to crack. Both testicles still seemed normal size, and the scrotum wasn’t drawn up tightly.

This morning I used the 2-1/8” tube and the Mityvac and did 30 minutes at 4” Hg, then two hours with the breast pump. Normally I’d have slight edema after that long, but everything was fine. I put a tension ring down at the base and did 15 minutes of edging.

The “tight internal band” scarring on the internal tissues, which had almost completely disappeared shortly before stopping PE, was back, though it was only noticeable when pumped. It shouldn’t take long to get it pulled back out.

After this amount of time, it looks like the scar shrinkage/stiffening is going to come back if I stop pumping. No big deal, I have the equipment and the time, it’s just that I got sooo close to “back to normal.” I came across some surface scar reduction stuff a year ago that I’ll follow up on later.

Right now the old familiar stinging sensation is back from the cracks. Back at the beginning it hurt a *lot* more; I’ve learned to ignore it.

Two days of pumping with heat and a couple of short extender sessions, and the external and internal scars are pulled out to normal, no stinging or pain. It took more than a week last time. So, not perfect yet, but getting there.

I’m out of the cocoa butter/hyaluronic acid glop. I was going to mix up some more, but the wife moved the cocoa butter from where it was in the refrigerator, and damned if I can find it. She has that thing packed so tight I keep expecting to have to body-slam the door shut.

Three days ago the ED level was still close to 100%. Two days ago I took one of my (probably overstrength) homemade boron supplements. Yesterday I woke up with about 75% wood. I put on a light tension band and edged for half an hour. Today I woke up with about 75% again, but was able to edge with no assistance at all. I may pop another boron tonight. I still haven’t found the round tuits to disassemble all the capsules, cut the mix with something, and reload the capsules.

I’m still somewhat leery of the heating pad. I haven’t had any injury from it, but it gets pretty hot. I ordered a countdown timer from eBay; plug it between the power cord and the heating pad, push a button for 30, 60, or 90 minutes, and it will cut power to the pad. No digital display or fiddling with up/down program buttons. What came in was a 3-outlet power strip. (really? who needs a 3-outlet power strip?!) Emailing the vendor got an “out of office for 3 weeks” auto-responder. I hope I’m not going to have a problem there.

Seven days since the endocrinologist took blood for the labs, nothing from them yet.

Got a message from the vitamin D test lab; they received the sample yesterday. And my finger still hurts a bit.

The endocrinologist called at 0720 this morning with the lab results. According to her tests my testosterone level was “slightly low” and I don’t really need TRT, but she would call a prescription in if I wanted. Yes, I wanted. I’ll be getting injectable testosterone of some sort. No problem, I gave myself allergy shots for a decade.

I didn’t think to ask for a copy of the lab results; I’ll call her office later and have someone mail me a copy.

As for the “slightly low” thing; from what I’ve been reading there are no “generally accepted” or “official” numbers for testosterone level; in fact, the earlier lab sheet has a note to that effect. The doc was talking a hundred miles an hour and has a slight accent; she said my number as 175 vs. 242(?). The first lab said I was 47.5 vs. 244. I knew testosterone levels fluctuated during the day, but I didn’t know they did it *that* much.

This morning’s email said the Cerascreen lab result for vitamin D was ready. 25.8 ng/ml, for their calculated optimum (based on height, weight, and age, since that’s all the information they asked for) of 34.2.

Their standards are:

< 15 “critically low”
15-29 “long-term vitamin D deficiency”
30-80 “healthy vitamin D level”
81-150 “excessive vitamin D level”
> 150 “potential vitamin D poisoning”

I quit taking vitamin D and most other supplements on 10/26, except for 1000 IU on the morning of 11/01, probably out of habit. I took the blood sample in the afternoon of 11/04, so I doubt it had much effect on the results.

My wife had a doctor visit yesterday and since he wanted to take some blood, she asked if he’d run a vitamin D test. He said OK. So I have the second kit that I bought for her, that I can use to see how my usual 1000IU/day affects things.

By the way, Coumadin is a blood thinner prescribed for some heart patients. It’s a niche market; the factories make it by the ton and sell it under the name “Warfarin” for use as rat poison. While reading up on D3, I found it, too, is marketed as rat poison. “I’m such a badass I take rat poison every morning!” Of course, the relative dose size as a dietary supplement is quite small by comparison to that use.

The recommended amount of vitamin D was reduced a while back because few people were hitting the window. We live indoors these days. The best source of D3 is the sun and in the bargain you get NO when D3 is generated from cholesterol in this way.

There’s a good upside to taking vitamin D3 and adding in K2, the interaction is mostly around calcium. K1 is found in plant foods, mostly, which is why vegans are often told to eat natto which is a source of K2 (to prevent loss of bone density). From the animal side, cheese and liver are also high in K2 and liver is high in vitamin D3. Liver is one of the best vitamin supplements out there.

Some people are scared of liver because it’s also high in vitamin A. This came to light when some antarctic explorers ate polar bear liver and one died* . Polar bears are carnivores and vitamin A bioaccumulates as you reach the peak of the food web. Herbivore liver should be fine and vitamin A toxicity has only been proven beyond this using plant sources rather than retinol found in animal sources.

Hm. I replied to your 09:23 message and it came back up, albeit with the long wait typical of the last couple of days, but it’s not showing up now, even after a couple of refreshes.

I’ve been taking K2 recently, but after more reading, I’m not sure I need it.

With all this stuff, if you can get it in your food, that’s the best way because it comes with the complementary parts built in. Is your diet improving now?