First Cycle (Test E 12 Weeks) PCT Confusion- Nolva or Clomid or Both?

[600oridie]

Greetings:

This is my first cycle. I've (meticulously) turned through threads and threads of competing information regarding the use of Nolvadex and Clomid or picking one or the other for Post Cycle Therapy. I would like to put this to rest in my head so that I can stop worrying about it, and I would like to hear from senior members on the matter.

My cycle:

Test E 500mg/week for weeks 1-12.
Dianabol 40mg/day weeks 4-8.


I have enough Nolvadex and Clomid to use both, including good supply of aromasin, however, articles from T-Nation, here, etc. all find themselves disagreeing in some way, and that leads to my confusion on the matter.

My current choices for PCT:

1. Nolvadex 40/20/20/20

2. Clomid 50/25/25/25

3. Nolvadex 40/20/20/20
Clomid 50/25/25/25

I am leaning toward choice #3 as recent threads and research point toward their synergistic effects on estrogen suppression, and LH/FSH release.

Again, I would like to confirm that this is the right idea, right dosage, and up to date with what folks are currently doing. All of the large stickies for novices are from 2013 and backward, which makes me reluctant to take the advice from ~5 years ago.

Thank you, and I look forward to the responses.

 

[scorob777]

Choice #3 is the best one, but those are pretty low doses of clomid and nolva. You will want to make sure you wait long enough between last pin and starting them for the enanthate ester to mostly clear out. I'd recommend three weeks, so 13, 14, and 15 off start nolva and clomid 16.

You should also be taking 500 IU/wk HCG during 1 to 15 to keep your nuts idling along instead of starting to atrophy, that will help as much as taking the right PCT drugs.

How much aromasin are you taking? With the way you put dbol at 4 to 8, and enanthate taking about six weeks to get close to peak levels, during weeks 6, 7, and 8 you are going to have a much higher aromatizing load than 1 to5, and again for 9 to 12. Taking your dbol that way is going to interfere with getting mid-cycle bloods about week #7 to figure out if your AI dosage is enough.

 

[tbonexl]

Agree with tankmanbob. Drop the dbol. Doesn't belong in a first cycle. The way you want to run it will have your estrogen all over the place! What that means is gyno, water retention, high blood pressure, insomnia, and erectile dysfunction.

 

[freqfly]

Please delete

 

[freqfly]

Dbol doesn't belong in the midst of a cycle; it is used to kick start a cycle while the test kicks in; that being said this is your first cycle, drop the dbol. See how your body responds to Test first, get familiar with the effects, side effects, etc. If you run multiple compounds on your first go, you'll have 0 clue as to what is doing what.
And this is what I would do:

HCG 500iu/wk on cycle

Nolvadex 40/40/20/20 &
Clomid 50/50/25/25

 

[600oridie]

Choice #3 is the best one, but those are pretty low doses of clomid and nolva. You will want to make sure you wait long enough between last pin and starting them for the enanthate ester to mostly clear out. I'd recommend three weeks, so 13, 14, and 15 off start nolva and clomid 16.

You should also be taking 500 IU/wk HCG during 1 to 15 to keep your nuts idling along instead of starting to atrophy, that will help as much as taking the right PCT drugs.

How much aromasin are you taking? With the way you put dbol at 4 to 8, and enanthate taking about six weeks to get close to peak levels, during weeks 6, 7, and 8 you are going to have a much higher aromatizing load than 1 to5, and again for 9 to 12. Taking your dbol that way is going to interfere with getting mid-cycle bloods about week #7 to figure out if your AI dosage is enough.

Did not get bloods, could not afford at the time. I know reference levels, and will be getting bloods 4-6 weeks after PCT. AI dosage is fine, (12.5 mg 3x/week) keeps me feeling fine.

As far as the dosages, what would you recommend?

 

[600oridie]

Thank you for the advice. That PCT checks out with the research, not sure why people gripe about dosage when 25mg clomid/day for 4-6 weeks in males ://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16422830 is enough to induce 250% in serum test. 40/40/20/20 is the standard to Nolvadex, so again that also checks out.

 

[600oridie]

Hey just want to tell you that yeah you're definitely right, I didn't sleep too well for the duration of the dbol, however I took aromasin 12.5 mg EOD and no gyno, no high blood pressure, no ED; water retention is a side effect of dianabol as it increases glycogenolysis, and water follows glucose into cells through receptor mediated diffusion, or simple osmosis, so overall cell volume increases leading to water retention. I'm aware of the biochemistry. What you may be referring to is bloat characterized by abdominal swelling.

 

[scorob777]

Here's a chart to explain what I'm talking about.

View attachment 567296

The yellow line is your Test E, 500 mg/wk half life 10 days. The blue line is your dbol, 40 mg/day half life 8 hours. The black is the two added together.

Both test and dbol aromatize, so the black line is showing your aromatizing load - what you need to take AI to manage. You can see that taking the dbol in the middle of your cycle will cause huge variations in the aromatizing load, so you will have no clue what to take for AI. And since this is your first cycle you will squander your opportunity to take mid cycle bloods and figure out how to properly dose your AI. Bad idea.

Dbol is usually used to kick start a cycle. If you shifted that blue curve back to the start you would see it fills the gap while the Test E builds up in your blood.

Best thing you could do right now is forget about the dbol for this cycle, get an AI and start taking it 0.25 mg EOD adex or 12.5 mg EOD aromasin (or better 6.25 mg/day if you can split up the cap/pill). Get the mid-cycle bloods at about week #7. And follow the advice on the PCT above.

If you do those things you'll have a great cycle, you will learn how to run future cycles, and you will retain most of what you gain.

 

[600oridie]

Here's a chart to explain what I'm talking about.

View attachment 567296

The yellow line is your Test E, 500 mg/wk half life 10 days. The blue line is your dbol, 40 mg/day half life 8 hours. The black is the two added together.

Both test and dbol aromatize, so the black line is showing your aromatizing load - what you need to take AI to manage. You can see that taking the dbol in the middle of your cycle will cause huge variations in the aromatizing load, so you will have no clue what to take for AI. And since this is your first cycle you will squander your opportunity to take mid cycle bloods and figure out how to properly dose your AI. Bad idea.

Dbol is usually used to kick start a cycle. If you shifted that blue curve back to the start you would see it fills the gap while the Test E builds up in your blood.

Best thing you could do right now is forget about the dbol for this cycle, get an AI and start taking it 0.25 mg EOD adex or 12.5 mg EOD aromasin (or better 6.25 mg/day if you can split up the cap/pill). Get the mid-cycle bloods at about week #7. And follow the advice on the PCT above.

If you do those things you'll have a great cycle, you will learn how to run future cycles, and you will retain most of what you gain.

I understand the release curves. My question further, you mentioned that 40/40/20/20 Nolva, and 50/50/25/25 Clomid are low doses, when those numbers seem to be the numerical standard I am seeing everywhere. I would like to make this PCT work, so if you tell me what you would personally run for PCT and why, I would be grateful.

 

[scorob777]

What I meant by that is these are fairly low doses, and four weeks is a short time period:

>>>>My current choices for PCT:

1. Nolvadex 40/20/20/20

2. Clomid 50/25/25/25

3. Nolvadex 40/20/20/20
Clomid 50/25/25/25<<<<

So for me the emphasis would be on making sure the Test E was mostly clear from my blood before starting, and tinkering with the length to exit when mostly cleared. It wouldn't matter quite as much if there was a extra week of 50/40 clomid/nolva in there, meaning five weeks, but four weeks is short.

Here's the plot

View attachment 567297

You can see if you were to follow the standard advice of wait two weeks after last shot you would start PCT with blood levels 29 (compared to 14 normal production, which is 10mg/day test base) and would exit four weeks later blood levels 4.2 still 30% suppressed. For that type plan low dosage clomid and nolva might not work out.

This is all about two goals, keeping as much muscle as possible and increasing odds of recovery as much as possible. So if it was me I would wait three weeks after last shot, blood levels 17.9 (still more than natural so I shouldn't lose anything) and run PCT five weeks, exiting level 1.6 still ~11% suppressed. To do that I'd run clomid 50/50/25/25/25 and nolva 40/40/20/20/20.

That should keep as much muscle as possible (will depend more on your diet and working out), and give max chance of success.

 

[600oridie]

Interesting.

I am leaning toward a longer PCT, since there is good support for 5-6 week PCT. Would delaying PCT have any other effects than decreasing serum test?

I have read negative things about clomid dosed >25mg, and that for most 4-6 weeks of Nolvadex only seems to cover it.

What’s your experience with using Nolva only for PCT?

 

[scorob777]

None.

Sounds like you are well tuned in to doing research, and making an informed decision. It's good to see.