Another long post:
Most doctors are completely clueless when it comes to Testosterone Replace Therapy (TRT). Every lab has their own "normal" range but around 300 is a typical lower-end of average for labs. Problem is, a guy can go to his physician with all the symptoms of low-T, get a blood test that comes back 180 and be prescribed TRT, usually a gel. After a period of time the guy goes back to his doctor and gets his T-levels tested. Lets say it comes back 340. He still has all the symptoms and doesn't feel one bit better than he did when he started TRT but because his T level is in the "average" range, the doctor is satisfied. Meanwhile, the poor guy goes on being treated (very expensive...even with insurance) with little to no benefit. This is a very common tale and although the numbers are different, that guy was me as well.
I did Androgel for four years with some improvement but nowhere near what I wanted. I even got my T levels up to 800 with only a very modest benefit. One of the problems is that my doc wasn't testing free T. Also, fat tissues convert Testosterone to Estrogen so the fatter you are the less benefit you get from TRT and I'm VERY fat.
I reached a point where my insurance quit paying and while my doctor fought them for 3+ weeks, I got no TRT whatsoever. I will say that I have never felt that bad in my life. It was literally like suffering a major depressive episode. I finally got so desperate that I called my doctor on a Friday afternoon and asked if I could just get a shot. They squeezed me in and gave me 350mg of T. I felt fairly good for about a week but the problem is, 350mg is a standard dosage that is expected to last for a month!!! Testosterone has a half-life of about eight days. This means that after about a week I had about 175ml of T, at 2 weeks I had about 88ml, at 3 weeks I had about 44ml and by the time my next shot was due I had about 22ml left in my system. Needless to say, I felt like crap after the first week and was half-dead by the fourth week. In my opinion, this is medical malpractice but it's the standard course of treatement for injections.
I got to doing some online research and found that the cutting edge of TRT advocates weekly injections. This ensures a much more stable supply of T than monthly injections. Going to the doctor weekly is a hassle so most advocate self-injections, with 100mg weekly being the norm. I talked to my doctor about this and he wanted nothing to do with it. I was getting desperately low on T again and there was a 90+ page thread on TRT on a website I've frequented for over a decade. There were several guys there who had good experiences with an online company. I never thought I would do online prescriptions but I was desperate and signed up. They prescribed 200mg of T weekly by self-injection, 2 doses of Anastrozole weekly to reduce conversion of T to Estrogen and 25 units of HCG twice a week to combat testicular atrophy (a common side-effect of TRT). The package included all the medications as well as all the syringes needed for a 10-week course of treatment. I was told I would see some improvement in about 2 weeks with improvements ramping up over the full 10 week period. I am now in the seventh week and although I'm lagging behind their predictions a bit, I'm feeling better than I've felt in years. I don't have the energy and libido of a 17 year old like some people say they experience on TRT but I do have what I think is probably normal energy and libido for a 45 year old. Now, I weigh 400 lbs and I'm hopeful that the TRT therapy will help me exercise more and lose some of the fat because it's taking larger doses for me to get the same benefit as a normal sized guy on smaller doses.
Total cost is $200/month and that is out of pocket. Androgel is $400/month if you pay yourself and with my insurance (when they actually covered it) it was still $75/month. It sucks to pay that much but what price can you put on literally getting your life back?
Anyone that things they are suffering from low T should get checked out. I'm sorry to say that unless you are extremely lucky, your doctor probably won't have a clue how to really treat you so you have to do the research and advocate for yourself. There are stand-alone treatment centers popping up in major cities and they are using the weekly injection with other medications route for treatment. You go to them for the injections and it's about $400/month. Until mainstream medicine catches up, it's going to be very expensive to get effective TRT.
Here is a link that explains the symptoms of Low T VERY well:
http://www.lowtcenter.com/symptoms