Clomid/Nolva

volksball

New member
I just finished a Fina/Prop Cycle and have 21 50mg Clomids and alot 20mg Nolvas. I was planning on using 100mg of Clomid perday along with 10mg (half tab) of Nolva for the first week, then lower the clomid to 50mg per day keeping the Nolva the same for the second week.

A couple questions:

Is that dosage good enough? Should I use 20mg of Nolva while using clomid?

and...

When should I start taking the Clomid/Nolva? I finished the cycle today.
 
That's very interesting. Technically, since Clomid and Nolvadex basically are the same thing, doing them together SHOULD have no added benefit.

I just always tell guys that if they are doing Nolvadex during their cycle, there is no need to D/C it just to start Clomid. Also, a study in fertility in women is not necessary one we can extrapolate to our situation.

Also, it has not been shown that Clomid "lessens pituitary response to LHRH". The study frequently posted was so flawed as to be of no use in this regard.

If enough people--who are very much experienced in Anabolic Androgenic Steroids (AAS) usage--report they felt better on a combo, then perhaps there is something at work here we just don't know about yet.
 
Yes, that study is stupid since you can't compare two drugs like that.

They noticed a significant difference between Clomid and Nolvadex in their effect on LH response to GHRH...

That may or may not be important since we know that LH/test increase induced by Clomid can be sustained for a long time.

Similar effect of Clomid on pituitary response to LHRH was noticed in some other studies also:



Pituitary responsiveness to LHRH and TRH in men: effect of bromocriptine and clomiphene treatment.

Ronnberg L, Ylikorkala O.

The effect of the concomitant use of bromocriptine and clomiphene on pituitary function was tested in 8 healthy men, who ingested either 100 mg of clomiphene, 5 mg of bromocriptine or 100 mg of clomiphene +5 mg of bromocriptine daily for 7 days. Plasma concentrations of FSH and LH increased similarly during clomiphene and clomiphene + bromocriptine intake. Bromocriptine decreased the plasma levels of prolactin (Prl) and this decrease was unaffected by clomiphene.The latter blunted the plasma LH response to LHRH whilst bromocriptine blunted the Prl response to TRH, but Clomiphene and bromocriptine together had no additive effects on gonadotrophin and Prl secretion. It thus seems likely that this combination offers no advantage over clomiphene alone in the treatment of normoprolactinaemic infertile men



Pituitary response to exogenous LHRH in superovulated women.

Messinis IE, Templeton AA.

Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Aberdeen, Foresterhill, UK.

The response of the pituitary to exogenous LHRH was investigated in 9 normally ovulating women during the late follicular phase of a spontaneous (control) cycle, a cycle during treatment with clomiphene and a cycle during treatment with 'pure' FSH. During clomiphene treatment, basal FSH concentrations increased significantly up to Day 6 of the cycle and then decreased progressively while basal LH values showed a continuous rise. During treatment with FSH, basal LH concentrations decreased significantly. The response of both FSH and LH to LHRH showed a significant and quantitatively similar decrease during clomiphene or FSH administration as compared to the spontaneous cycles. It is suggested that basal secretion of FSH and LH is regulated by two separate mechanisms, and that an ovarian inhibitory factor(s) attenuates the response of both FSH and LH to exogenous LHRH and possibly the endogenous LH surge in superovulated cycles.



Clin Endocrinol (Oxf) 1976 Mar;5(2):175-80 Related Articles, Links


Modulation of pituitary responsiveness to exogenous LHRH by an oestrogenic and an anti-oestrogenic compound in the normal male.

Dhont M, de Gezelle H, Vandekerckhove D.

The effect of clomiphene (100 mg daily for 10 days) and ethinyl oestradiol (100 mug daily for 10 days) on the gonadotrophin response to synthetic LHRH has been investigated in two groups of five normal males. A third group of five men served as control group. LHRH, 25 mug, was injected intravenously on days 0, 4, 7 and 10 and the response of serum LH and FSH was monitored by radioimmunoassay. In contrast to the wide inter-individual variation of the response pattern, the intra-individual variation of the response to LHRH in the control group was small.Clomiphene induced a significant elevation of the baseline levels of LH and FSH after a few days of treatment; the pituitary responsiveness to LHRH, however, was significantly reduced. Oestrogen treatment resulted in a uniform suppression of both basal gonadotrophin levels and pituitary responsiveness. The decreased gonadotrophin response to LHRH during clomiphene treatment is thought to be caused by a relative and temporary pituitary depletion of the releasable gonadotrophin content. Although the suppression of LH and FSH response during oestrogen treatment may point to a direct inhibitory effect of oestrogen on pituitary gonadotrophin release, an indirect hypothalamic pathway, through suppression of endogenous LHRH, cannot be ruled out.



J Clin Endocrinol Metab 1976 Mar;42(3):593-4 Related Articles, Links


Effect of clomiphene on basal and LRH-induced gonadotropin secretion in postmenopausal women.

Hashimoto T, Miyai K, Izumi K, Kumahara Y.

LRH tests were performed in 11 postmenopausal women before and after the administration of 200 mg of clomiphene citrate daily by mouth for 7 consecutive days. The basal levels and the maximum increments of serum LH (deltaLH) and the area under the response curve from basal level (deltaarea) after LRH administration, significantly (P less than 0.005) decreased after consecutive administration of this compound. Serum FSH levels were significantly (P less than 0.025) decreased but deltaFSH and deltaarea in LRH test were statistically unchanged. These results suggest that clomiphene citrate in postmenopausal women inhibits the pituitary gonadotropin response to exogenous LRH by its estrogenic effects.
 
Hayes et al., Aromatase Inhibition in the Human Male Reveals a Hypothalamic Site of Estrogen Feedback, JCEM Vol. 85, No. 9 3027-3035

http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/86/1/53

From the discussion:

...The increase in LH pulse amplitude, observed after aromatase inhibition, could potentially reflect an increase in the amplitude of GnRH pulses stimulating the pituitary, and/or enhanced pituitary sensitivity to the same amount of endogenous GnRH. Previous studies have attempted to distinguish between these two mechanisms by examining pituitary responsiveness to pharmacological doses of exogenous GnRH before and during antiestrogen therapy (11, 31, 32). These studies paradoxically demonstrated that clomiphene blunted pituitary responsiveness to exogenous GnRH despite increasing both mean LH levels and the amplitude of spontaneous LH pulses (11, 31, 32). The mechanism proposed for this divergence between spontaneous pulse height and acute pituitary responsiveness to exogenous GnRH was that clomiphene was having tissue-specific mixed agonist/antagonist effects. The authors concluded that clomiphene was acting as an estrogen antagonist at the hypothalamus, resulting in an increase in endogenous GnRH secretion, but as an estrogen agonist at the pituitary, causing decreased responsiveness to exogenous GnRH (11).

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Some studies showing that Nolvadex increases pituitary responsiveness to LHRH:

Andrologia 1985 Jul-Aug;17(4):369-78 Effect of lower versus higher doses of tamoxifen on pituitary-gonadal function and sperm indices in oligozoospermic men.
Dony JM, Smals AG, Rolland R, Fauser BC, Thomas CM.

Administration of the antiestrogen tamoxifen for one month to 12 patients with idiopathic oligozoospermia significantly increased the mean basal testosterone (T) level and the responses of luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) to constant luteinizing hormone releasing hormone (LHRH) infusion but did not significantly influence the mean oestradiol (E2) levels or the E2 over testosterone ratio...

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Fertil Steril 1978 Mar;29(3):320-7 Hormonal effects of an antiestrogen, tamoxifen, in normal and oligospermic men.
Vermeulen A, Comhaire F.

The administration of tamoxifen, 20 mg/day for 10 days, to normal males produced a moderate increase in luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), testosterone, and estradiol levels, comparable to the effect of 150 mg of clomiphene citrate (Clomid). However, whereas Clomid produced a decrease in the LH response to LH-releasing hormone (LHRH), no such effect was seen after the administration of tamoxifen. In fact, prolonged treatment (6 weeks) with tamoxifen significantly increased the LH response to LHRH...
 
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Wow! That was quite a volley of articles you posted. Really well done, man. Thank you.

I just don't understand why a "blunted response" at the pituitary is important when Clomid had been shown, consistently, to increase LH production (and thus elevate T as well). This "blunting" is frequently used as an arguement to use Nolvadxe over Clomid. Granted, we will find many more studies on Clomid's effects with respect to LH production than Nolvadxe, by virtue of the former's employment as a fertility agent.

Also, we must keep in mind that testing the effects of these drugs at the pituitary with respect to constant LHRH infusion is a different matter entirely than their effect in a living biological system.
 
You can try it & see if you can get better results vs. Clomid alone.
The dosages are OK, most people use standard 3 week Clomid protocol like this one:

http://www.steroidology.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=354


BTW,
clomid = enclomiphene + zuclomiphene
nolvadex = enclomiphene

Nandi12 posted a study which indicates that both compounds isomerize readily into racemic mixtures which is the reason there's little difference between the two, although enclomiphene is considered a pure antiestrogen:

Nandi12:

"I'm paraphrasing the following from Goodman and Gilman's The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics, 8th ed., pp.1395-96:

In the human body, both isomers can be metabolized into phenolic compounds that have 100-fold greater affinities for the estrogen receptor. These compounds have the ability to isomerize readily into racemic mixtures via the action of an isomerase enzyme. What this means is that metabolites can change configuration back and forth between estrogenic and antiestrogenic isomers. So tamoxifen, which starts out as a pure antiestrogen, is metabolized into both highly estrogenic and highly antiestrogenic compounds, ending up acting much like clomid in some tissues. It still ends up having a higher antiestrogenic to estrogenic ratio, and hence is better for treating gyno and breast cancer."
 
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