Injectable AAS / IM, SubQ / 250-750mg per week
Sustanon 250 (blend avg)
Sustanon 250 was a packaging idea rather than a new molecule: four testosterone esters that already existed, weighed into one ampoule so a fast one covers the first days and a slow one covers the third week. It has been in clinical use since at least the early 1970s and has never been sold in the United States.
In plain words
Sustanon 250 was a packaging idea rather than a new molecule: four testosterone esters, the same hormone carrying four different-sized chemical tails, dissolved together in peanut oil so that a fast one covers the first days and a slow one covers the third week. It has been in clinical use since about 1969 and has never been sold in the United States, where testosterone and its esters have been Schedule III controlled substances since 1990. Measurements in men with low testosterone show what one ampoule actually does: levels climb far above the normal male range within a day or two, then decay back to the untreated starting point by about three weeks, so an average across that interval hides a very uneven ride. The published evidence is thinner than the long history suggests: a systematic review found hardly any studies comparing injectable testosterone preparations head to head, and no retrievable source even reports a half-life for the heaviest of the four esters. Two things the label itself makes plain: the 250 in the name is the weight of the esters, of which 176 mg is testosterone, and because the carrier is peanut oil the product is contraindicated in people allergic to peanut or soya.
At a glance
| Half-life | 4.5 days |
|---|---|
| Tmax | 1 days |
| Route(s) | IM, SubQ |
| Published dosing range | 250-750mg per week |
Reference data from the DosePlot canon -- not a protocol recommendation.
Serum curve
Single 500 mg dose by IM, rendered from the same engine that powers the interactive chart. Relative levels, not lab values.
What does the evidence show?
Two things are labeled separately here because they answer different questions. The tier is how a study was built. The distance chips are whether that study touched this molecule, by this route, in a population resembling the reader. A randomized trial of a different molecule keeps its tier and still says nothing about this compound.
| Finding | Tier | Distance from use | Study |
|---|---|---|---|
| A single 250 mg intramuscular dose drives serum testosterone to a supraphysiological peak, mean 71 nmol/L at 24 to 48 hours in nine hypogonadal men, followed by exponential decay to baseline over two to three weeks. Across the labeled three-week interval the calculated mean level was 27.7 nmol/L. That average hides the shape of the curve: the peak is far above the male reference range and the trough is back at the untreated baseline. | clinical | not recorded | Cantrill JA, Dewis P, Large DM, Newman M, Anderson DC. Which testosterone replacement therapy?Clinical Endocrinology (Oxford) 21(2):97-107, 1984 |
| The four esters leave the injection site at different rates, and the published half-life figures run about 1 day for propionate, 2.5 days for phenylpropionate and 3.1 days for isocaproate. That ladder follows the length of the acid tail. These are single literature values, quoted in the chemistry literature and traced there to a 2015 doping-control study whose own public record does not print them, so read them as approximate. No retrievable source gives a half-life for the decanoate, which is 100 mg of the 250 mg ampoule. | clinical | not recorded | Turza A, Popescu V, Mare L, Borodi G. Structural aspects and intermolecular energy for some short testosterone esters.Materials (Basel) 15(20):7245, 2022 |
| The detection window published for this blend is a group-level figure rather than a separate number for each ester. A 2022 study gave nine men two intramuscular injections of Sustanon 250 and followed them by dried blood spot sampling: the esters were found in every subject for at least five days, and for up to 14 days in three of the four. Those figures come from two injections rather than the single ampoule the label describes. | clinical | not recorded | Solheim SA, Levernaes MCS, Morkeberg J, Juul A, Upners EN, Nordsborg NB, Dehnes Y. Stability and detectability of testosterone esters in dried blood spots after intramuscular injections.Drug Testing and Analysis 14(11-12):1926-1937, 2022 |
| How fast an oil-depot ester releases is governed by its side chain and by how the injection is given. The randomized evidence for that comes from a different steroid in the same vehicle. Twenty-three healthy men were randomized to nandrolone esters in arachis oil: the phenylpropionate gave higher and earlier peaks than the decanoate, and after decanoate injection the highest bioavailability and peak levels came from a 1 mL gluteal injection rather than 4 mL or the deltoid. | rct | not recorded | Minto CF, Howe C, Wishart S, Conway AJ, Handelsman DJ. Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of nandrolone esters in oil vehicle: effects of ester, injection site and injection volume.Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics 281(1):93-102, 1997 |
| The vehicle is refined arachis (peanut) oil, and the product label contraindicates it in patients allergic to peanut or soya. A two-page correspondence report published in 2020 addresses the safety of intramuscular testosterone in arachis oil for boys with peanut allergy who needed pubertal induction. The indexed record carries no abstract for that letter, so the number of boys and the strength of its finding cannot be read from the citation, and the tension with the label sits unresolved in the published literature. | clinical | not recorded | Harvey S, O'Connell SM, Hourihane JO. Safety of intramuscular testosterone in arachis oil for boys with peanut allergy requiring pubertal induction.Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology 124(1):94-95, 2020 |
| There is very little head-to-head evidence placing this blend against any other injectable testosterone. A systematic review of the three most-used testosterone preparations in hypogonadal men and transgender men found that hardly any comparative studies have been carried out, and that current recommendations rest primarily on non-randomized and observational data. | clinical | not recorded | Madsen MC, den Heijer M, Pees C, Biermasz NR, Bakker LEH. Testosterone in men with hypogonadism and transgender males: a systematic review comparing three different preparations.Endocrine Connections 11(8):e220112, 2022 |
| Non-medical use almost universally abandons the labeled three-week interval, splitting a weekly total across two or more injections. Reports describe steadier mood and libido on the split schedule. The practice discards the single-injection convenience that was the formulation's reason for existing. | anecdotal | not recorded | community reports aggregated from reddit, MESO-Rx, and similar forumsno study |
| Injection-site stinging and next-day soreness are reported more often with this blend than with a single long ester, and are commonly attributed to the propionate fraction and to the high benzyl alcohol content of the solution. No controlled comparison of injection-site discomfort between these preparations has been published. | anecdotal | not recorded | community reports aggregated from reddit, MESO-Rx, and similar forumsno study |
How did it get here?
- preclinical1935
- Testosterone is isolated from bull testes by Laqueur's group in Amsterdam and chemically synthesized the same year, independently, by Butenandt and by Ruzicka. The free hormone is short-lived, and esterification at the 17-beta position becomes the standard way to slow its release from an oil depot. A longer acid tail buys longer duration; the trade is a slower onset.
- first-human1937-1960s
- Single-ester depots move into clinical use, from the short propionate to heavier esters. The clinical gap is plain. A propionate works within a day and is gone within a few; a heavy ester takes days to arrive and then lingers for weeks. Neither one covers both ends.
- clinical-adoption1969
- Organon brings Sustanon 250 to market. The New Zealand data sheet still in force records 31 December 1969 as the date of first approval, and that single register field is the whole basis for the 1969 date; the earliest medical literature naming the product is a 1972 clinical report in a Soviet journal, so the launch year is best read as approximate. The design puts 30 mg of propionate, 60 mg of phenylpropionate, 60 mg of isocaproate and 100 mg of decanoate into one 1 mL ampoule, labeled for a single injection every three weeks.
- clinical-adoption1984
- Cantrill and colleagues measure what the ampoule actually does in hypogonadal men: a peak near 71 nmol/L within two days, then exponential decay to baseline by week three. Their conclusion is that subcutaneous implants, not injections, give the more physiological profile.
- grey-market1970s-2000s
- The blend becomes a fixture of non-medical androgen use while never reaching the United States, where no drug label lists the brand or testosterone isocaproate at all. The Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990 then puts testosterone into Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, esters included, where it remains. American supply runs through import and underground manufacture, alongside Omnadren 250 from Poland, a four-ester near-copy that used caproate in place of decanoate. A four-part blend is also harder to verify by assay than a single ester: a batch can be short on one component while the total mass still reads correct.
- grey-market2015
- Doping-control researchers follow intact testosterone esters in blood by mass spectrometry. Six participants each receive a single intramuscular injection of either the Sustanon blend or 1000 mg of testosterone undecanoate, and are sampled over 60 days. The published finding is that detection time depends on which ester was given; the paper's public record prints no per-ester half-life or detection window. The same group had already published a plasma screening method for testosterone esters in 2013, and a dried blood spot method for steroid esters followed in 2014.
How is it made?
Production happens in three stages.
1. Making the testosterone. As with every commercial testosterone product, the hormone is semi-synthesized from plant sterols rather than extracted from animals. Phytosterols from soy, or diosgenin from wild yam, are cut down to a common steroid skeleton and converted to testosterone through a short, well-established sequence.
2. Making four esters, separately. Each ester is its own reaction. Testosterone is joined at its 17-beta position to one of four acids: propionic (a three-carbon tail), phenylpropionic (a three-carbon chain capped with a benzene ring), isocaproic (a branched six-carbon tail) and decanoic (a straight ten-carbon tail). Each product is purified and assayed on its own. Only then are the four weighed into a single batch. Sustanon is a blending step, not a co-reaction, which is why the label prints four separate amounts instead of one.
3. Filling the ampoule. The four esters are dissolved together in refined arachis (peanut) oil with benzyl alcohol at 10 per cent, sterile-filtered, and sealed into 1 mL glass ampoules. Batch release under GMP rules tests identity, sterility and endotoxins, and assays each of the four esters against its own specification.
That last point is where a blend differs from a single-ester vial. There are four potency specifications to meet rather than one, and a batch can carry the correct total mass in the wrong proportions and still look right on a scale. Outside regulated manufacturing, the sterile fill and the four-way assay are precisely the steps that get skipped.
Worth knowing
The 250 in the name is a mass of ester, not of hormone. Each of the four esters carries a different chemical tail, and the tails are dead weight once the molecule is in the bloodstream. The manufacturer prints the real figure in its own product information: the total amount of testosterone per 1 mL is 176 mg. About 74 mg of every ampoule is tail.
Medsafe. Sustanon 250 (250 mg testosterone esters solution for injection): New Zealand data sheet.New Zealand Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Authority, data sheet revised 14 January 2026
Dissolving 250 mg of four steroid esters in a single millilitre of oil takes help. Sustanon carries 100 mg of benzyl alcohol per millilitre, 10 per cent of the solution. That excipient, not the testosterone, is why the label bars the product outright in premature babies and neonates, and contraindicates it in children under 3 years of age.
Medsafe. Sustanon 250 (250 mg testosterone esters solution for injection): New Zealand data sheet.New Zealand Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Authority, data sheet revised 14 January 2026
An intact ester found in blood is direct proof of an injection, because the body never builds one. The catch is that blood esterases hydrolyze that evidence, which is what makes the esters awkward to detect in an ordinary sample. Drying a drop of blood onto a card inactivates those enzymes: all four Sustanon esters can be measured from dried blood spots, and a frozen card holds them for more than 18 months.
Solheim SA, Levernaes MCS, Morkeberg J, Juul A, Upners EN, Nordsborg NB, Dehnes Y. Stability and detectability of testosterone esters in dried blood spots after intramuscular injections.Drug Testing and Analysis 14(11-12):1926-1937, 2022
Written and reviewed by Evan Marlow, developer of DosePlot · Updated 2026-08-27
Not medical advice. DosePlot is an informational tool, not a healthcare provider, and using it creates no provider-patient relationship. Do not start, stop, or change any protocol without the approval of a licensed healthcare professional.
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