Need help - cant get it right

[evolvd]

Hi guys,

Its been a long time since i have been on here. I need some help and now that this is the place to get it.

I have been on testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) for 18+ months and i have never been able to get it right. I have small spurts of feeling great and times when i hit the bottom. I have been to multiple docs and endos, and i have not had any luck.

Basically, i have always had low test. I know now because of the symptoms i looked over when i was younger. I have been training for 10+ years and have competed in bodybuilding, so with that came a lot of use (but not abuse) of steriods. I always followed strict protocol, and did extensive post cycle therapy (pct), but i guess somewhere along the way it fell apart for me. Basically i dont make test anymore and have been on testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) since.

I have tried all of the gels and creams, HCG, Clomid, Nolvadex and combinations, with no luck. The only thing that worked for me was injecting test e. when i would commence test treatment i would feel great: mood, energy, clear headed, high libido, great errections etc. But within a few months the libido would get shot and i would go back to the docs and go round and round.

I commenced my testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) treatment after coming off for 8 weeks and trying clomid at my endos request. I did 8 weeks of 100mg of clomid ED and ended up with TT of 1.9 and 2.4. It was a bad time with very bad depression and lots of negative sides that went along with it. I then started my testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) treatment of 250mg per week of test e, 0.25mg of arimidex twice a week and 100mg dhea. Everything was great for around 3- 4months months, i then had everything start to get sucked out of me. I had a new baby with my wife and was very stressed and tired over the period, so i was convinced that it was those external factors that made me so flat. What i didnt realise was i was slipping away until it was to late. For the first time in my life i was experiencing anxiety, depression, ZERO libido and ED that comed with that. It put a passive strain on my marriage and all areas of my life. By the time i went to my doc, this is the blood work that i got :

dhea 3.4 (3.0 - 10.5)
prog 3.3 (1.2 - 4.8)
prolactin 268 (45 - 375)
igf-1 11.2 (15.0 - 39.9)
TSH .89 (.50 - 4.00)
sens oestradiol 67 (50 - 150 pmol/l)
LH <1 (1.0 - 10.0)
FSH <1 (1.0 - 10.0)
Test total 33.8 (8.0 - 30 nmol/l)
SHBG 5 (17 - 66) assayed on the Siemens ADVIA Centaur
FAI 676 (22.3 - 103)
Free Test 1321 (170 - 500 pmol/l)

I was not doing so good at all and there wasnt much help from anyone. So i started reading and educating myself. so i chaned a few things and tried it out on myself. I kept a diary of how i felt, morning/night wood, dosages etc. Basically, i split my dosage of test e to 125mg every 5 days, increased my adex to .25 EOD for a week, then .5mg E3D, .5mg EOD, 1mg E3D, then 1mg EOD

I got my blood work done right at 125mg test e E5D and and 1mg arimidex E3D because i could feel myself getting better.

DHEA-S went up to 7.4
E2 went down to 39pmol/l
FT went down to 1100pmol/l
shbg went up to 9
TT went down to 30.9nmol/l

Things were going good and i had a sex life back after almost 6 months of nothing. My wife got her period and i was trying to save my arimidex because it is extremely hard to get where i am and very expensive, i thought that maybe the high dose of adex had pushed my E2 into a good range and now .5mg EOD would keep me ther. For 4 days i could not notice a difference, then it all went away again. I ended up having a huge ED issue that caused a huge problem with my wife (blaming herself) and got some serious anxiety. I jumped the adex straight back up to 1mg ED and after 7 days have noticed nothing, maybe even a bigger reduction in libido and no sign of night/morning wood. i have now lowered it back down to 1mg E3D and have still noticed nothing.

Im totally confused and dont know what im doing wrong......Can anyone help me??

 

[Aussie Dave]

I think your test dose at the beginning was way too high and now it is still too high. A lot of the top docs are now recommending just 60mg-80mg test per week with no Aromatase inhibitor (AI). I reckon AI's do more harm than good. You should not need to use one if you lower your test dose. Try taking 50mg test enanthate E4D and 100iu Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) ED. You should feel a lot better on this protocol. Don't take any adex at all. Take some calcium d-glucarate to speed the removal of excess estrogen from the body.
Hope this helps you out.

 

[evolvd]

thanks for your reply. Im not worried about reducing the test, that's easy. I just want to be at a good range. Im worried about not using an Aromatase inhibitor (AI) and also using hcg. My estro will be high and with such low shbg, that wont be so good at all. Ive used very low amounts of test in transdermal creams and gels before, and had my TT at 13 and FT at around 500, but i never felt any good and my shbg was always low. I cant remember the last time i saw it in the double digits, even when being off testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) for over 6 months.

Most things ive read lately suggest that if shbg is low, then E2 needs to be low too, would you agree with that?

 

[methos]

I agree about the SHBG and E2 balance. I also get frequent blood work and log my results. I feel the best when my E2 is in the 20's and SHBG is around there as well. You have much lower SHBG than I have ever had. I started testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) with SHBG over 50... My battles have always been with estrogen so far.

Good luck.

 

[David1963]

It might be because you put everything into one post (you have been on testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) for over 18 months afterall) but still, it seems like you've tried a lot of things in that period of time. Perhaps waiting longer between protocol changes might help you find the right combination. If you're in the US, IMT Staff or DET OAK might be able to help you sort it out.

Good Luck, and keep us posted.

 

[evolvd]

Thanks for the replies fellas,

I'm going with what you're saying methos, and trying to get to a 1:1 ratio of SHBG and E2. I think when your SHBG is very low, you can afford to go low with the E2 because of more bio availability of estrogen as SHBG attaches to estro just like it does with test (from what I know, if im wrong, please tell me)

The problem is I thought I had it right, got there, then changed it, now I can't get it back. You're right in saying stay longer with each protocol change and track it from there david1963. I just wanted to see if anyone here has a similar issue or can advise me on where to go from here.

I'm in Aus, so it makes things 10 X harder, because we are way behind on testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) and docs basically don't know shit....

 

[cristian_iron]

hello evolvd I have seen your post and it seems that you know alot about cycles. im a 32 years old 198lbs and 14% bf. i want to make a cycle that make me gain lean muscle, i know a lot has to do with my diet. what do u think a bout this


EQ 200mg a week x 10 weeks at the same time im going to run anavar 50 mg and testabolon 400 is a mix of test enanthate 100mg, test cypionte 100mg, test isocaproate 100 and test becanoate 100mg .
also week 8 1500iu x 3 of hcg and week 9 1500iu x 3 also week 11 till finish clomid at 50mg.. what do u think about it

 

[NateDEEzy]

since this got brought up, I thought I'd comment. You might consider adding hCG as your LH and FSH are in the tank, which makes sense since you are using exogenous testosterone. However, I don't know if there are possible other negative effects that can come from shutting these hormones down. I don't know if this would help, but it might be something to try.

Also, it might just be mental, as crazy as that sounds. There is a book called The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra, which changed my life for a very long time after I read it. Unfortunately, due to circumstances in my life I kind of fell off, and I wasn't able to overcome. Never the less, this book deeply changed my life in a way that I can't explain- to give you an example, I almost starting crying after a man at the gym held a door open for me cuz I felt so much love in the gesture(sounds crazy, I know) but it truly is a life changing book, if you are open to it and give it a fair shot- might be something to look in to.