Question about fertility while on TRT

**T-boner** · 10-17-2017, 10:29 AM

I feel like I am ready for TRT but my wife is bugging for another baby. Does TRT stop fertility or just reduce it. If it just reduces fertility then by how much?
Also, since HGC mimics LH and keeps natural testosterone production going, would fertility be maintained if I ran HGC?

I would just go ahead and conceive and then get TRT but the problem is I need a vasectomy reversal and it can take a year or more to conceive after the reversal. I don't want to wait that long for TRT. Right now the only time I feel good is when on cycle. The months in between I feel like garbage.

**kelkel** · 10-17-2017, 10:36 AM

TRT is suppressive of both LH and FSH from the pituitary therefore it impacts fertility. It can impact it greatly as BW normally shows LH/FSH levels bottomed out or close to it when on TRT. Yes, HCG can maintain it. Read this article on it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4378070/

**T-boner** · 10-17-2017, 10:56 AM

Thanks for the help!

**Marcus G** · 10-17-2017, 01:06 PM

I suggest you use hmg if you can get it to help with fertility...

**Youthful55guy** · 10-17-2017, 08:10 PM

Originally Posted by T-boner

I feel like I am ready for TRT but my wife is bugging for another baby. Does TRT stop fertility or just reduce it. If it just reduces fertility then by how much?
Also, since HGC mimics LH and keeps natural testosterone production going, would fertility be maintained if I ran HGC?

I would just go ahead and conceive and then get TRT but the problem is I need a vasectomy reversal and it can take a year or more to conceive after the reversal. I don't want to wait that long for TRT. Right now the only time I feel good is when on cycle. The months in between I feel like garbage.

First the bad news. Yes, TRT when done properly will bring LH and FSH (and hence sperm count) to near zero.

Now the good news. I've heard of several guys conceiving children with doses as little as 500 IU HCG per week. Usually in 3X divided doses of 150-200 IU MWF. The following article is a very interesting study that showed in 6 healthy young men receiving suppressive doses of T-cyp or T-eth (200 mg/week), that there is a dose-response to HCG in bringing Intratesticular Testosterone (ITT) back to normal. ITT is a marker of fertility because sperm cells need higher levels of testosterone than in the peripheral circulation to mature properly. In this study, they got the following results:

• TRT w/ no HCG = 94% decrease in ITT
• TRT w/125 IU E2D (438 IU/wk) = 25% decrease in ITT
• TRT w/ 250 IU E2D (875 IU/wk) = 7% decrease in ITT
• TRT w/ 500IY E2D (1,750 IU/wk) = 26% Increase in ITT

When you plot the data out in a graph, the magic dose to bring ITT back to baseline levels was approximately 1000 IU per week.

The other thing to consider is that HCG has both LH and FSH like activity. So, when properly administered, not only does HCG bring ITT levels back to normal for sperm maturation, it directly stimulates the Sertoli cells in the testicles to begin meiosis to produce new sperm cells.

Regarding HMG, I don't recommend going there. It is EXTREMELY expensive (as if HCG isn't expensive enough) and has a comparatively short half-life compared to HCG (minutes vs days). HMG is basically FSH that has been purified from the urine of post-menopausal women. To my knowledge, it has not yet been genetically engineered.

Hope this helps!

**T-boner** · 10-17-2017, 08:27 PM

Excellent information! Thank you

**Youthful55guy** · 10-17-2017, 08:44 PM

Oops! Forgot the link to the article: https://academic.oup.com/jcem/articl...0/jc.2004-0802. From that web page you can download a PDF of the full article.

Here's another one that is an interesting read:
Ramasamy, R., J. M. Armstrong and L. I. Lipshultz (2015). "Preserving fertility in the hypogonadal patient: an update." Asian journal of andrology 17(2): 197.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...t%3A+an+update