hcg

[testytim]

Hi everyone long time member. Been on trt for over 10 yrs i am 64 years old. i do about 40mgs of test every 4 days. My numbers come in at about 450 on injection day..At these numbers i do not have to have blood draws every 3 months that got old. i convert big time hematocrit. So been feeling not myself for sometime.A friend of mine suggested i try HCG . i never did hcg..so i said what the hell give it a try..As everything i have read is hcg really doesnt do much for how you feel. Anyway tried it. been doing hcg for about 3 weeks now. I feel so much better on it then not. energy sex drive everything seems to be better..It all sounds great not questioning that i just wondering why?????? Am i missing something else in my trt.




thenks guys Tim R

[kelkel]

Glad it helped. HCG mimics LH and to some extent FSH, both of which cease production when you initiate exogenous testosterone . So, basically your LH receptors (throughout your body) were starved for it. Not sure where you were reading but the majority of experts in the field will tell you that you'll feel better on it, have better libido and an enhanced sense of well-being.

What is your protocol with it?

[testytim]

Thank you for responses..going to be honest here..this confuses the hell out if me..On my syringe i do 20 units on a 100 unit syringe every 4 days with my test. Yes basically like i said been on t for 10 years been up and down the latter,,Really got sick of dealing with blood draws..took my dose down to 35mgs every 4 days never felt really any different.. High or low.

[Youthful55guy]

Hi everyone long time member. Been on trt for over 10 yrs i am 64 years old. i do about 40mgs of test every 4 days. My numbers come in at about 450 on injection day..At these numbers i do not have to have blood draws every 3 months that got old. i convert big time hematocrit. So been feeling not myself for sometime.A friend of mine suggested i try HCG. i never did hcg..so i said what the hell give it a try..As everything i have read is hcg really doesnt do much for how you feel. Anyway tried it. been doing hcg for about 3 weeks now. I feel so much better on it then not. energy sex drive everything seems to be better..It all sounds great not questioning that i just wondering why?????? Am i missing something else in my trt.

By blood draws, I'm assuming you mean blood donation or therapeutic phlebotomy. There is good evidence that erythropoiesis is driven more by DHT than by T. So, I suspect that you tend to convert T to DHT at a high rate because 40mg E4D is a very low dose (equates to about 70 mg per week). Assuming this is either T-cyp or T-eth.

I would have DHT labs run with your next set of labs to confirm. Assuming that DHT is high, about your only course of action is Finasteride. However, keep in mind that Finasteride is also on the forbidden drug list for donating blood. You have to discontinue for at least 4 weeks prior to the donation. I suspect that if you can keep your DHT levels within range, that you should be able to increase your T dose and you should feel better. You'll need to do some experimenting and follow-up labs, but I suspect that if you increase you frequency to 40 E3D and take 5 mg of finasteride per day, your T levels will increase to closer to 700 ng/dL on injection day and your DHT will be within range. You may even be able to decrease the finasteride dose to 2.5 mg per day (1/2 tablet), but only labs will tell.

I also suggest you monitor E because increasing T to 40mg E3D will increase E too. Most likely it will be near the upper end of the range, but not needing control. However, when you layer in finasteride, which is a terminal path for T metabolism, you will drive up T further and that will further increase E. Bottom line is that you'll need to monitor both DHT and E when using finasteride and take appropriate action to control both.

As for your original question, HCG is optional, but I do recommend it. It's probably not going to do much for making you feel better, but it will keep your testicles active. Hoverer, if you've been on TRT for 10 years without HCG, there is the possibility that there may be some permanent loss of function and size. I think a trial is in order if you are so inclined. I suggest starting at about 250 to 300 IU E3D at the same time as your T and go from there.

[testytim]

Well youthful55. Man i am not going to take a chance on killing my dick. I know i a 64 BUT . I am married to a woman 10 years younger then me .Total milf..We are still having sex 4-6 times a week no bullshit. Just not going to take that chance..I will keep hammering away on hcg and see how i feel going forward..On the trt side of it i went at hard to get it right. It got so frustrating dealing with Drs this is where i ended up.One year i had to have 7 phlebotomies it was a nightmare..With that i created a new set of issues.

[kelkel]

On 40 mgs T every 3 days along with 5 mgs Fina I'd bet money DHT will be below scale.

[Youthful55guy]

On 40 mgs T every 3 days along with 5 mgs Fina I'd bet money DHT will be below scale.

Can you give us any more information on this? I'm just now starting to experiment with finasteride to see if I can increase my T dose and simultaneously eliminate the need for regular blood donations. Unlike the OP, I am able to control my hemoglobin levels with a blood donation (not phlebotomy) every 8-10 weeks. Quick, easy and painless. However I do have to take a couple hours from work to do it because the donation center is a 90 mile round trip. I'd love to make it optional (with an appropriate finasteride withdrawal).

So, my target is a T dose of about 140 mg per week (0.3 mL of 200 mg/mL T-cyp E3D) as a standard dose. What you would you estimate to be a good starting dose of finasteride to keep DHT within range?

My current standard dose is 0.22 mL E3D (103 mg/week), and this usually keeps my TT levels around 800 ng/dL, but DHT is almost always above range. I've done six DHT tests over the last year or so and they range from 103-247 ng/dL (normal:30-85). My goal is to up TT closet to 1000-1500 while lowering DHT to within range. I want to do this for 2 reasons: 1) I simply feel better with faster recovery with higher TT, and 2) I'd like to drop stanozolol (2.5 mg 2X per day) from my protocol and let SHBG drift up and then saturate it with T so that I get enough spilling over to Free T. I want to drop stanozolol because I'd rather not be a felon to get the meds I need.

[kelkel]

I did a thread on the effect of Fina on my dht while on various levels of T a while back. I'll see if I can find it. If not I'd have to go through old BW again to try and figure it out. Not sure I could at this point unless i noted the T dose on the BW. We'll see. I haven't even pulled DHT panels recently as I know they'll be sub-normal.

Like you, and I've said this here many times, most guys even on normal TRT doses of test will have elevated DHT levels I base this on my own BW and many others that I've seen over the years. Plus in conversation with my Uro. From what I read in the past Fina is tested (and effective) up to around 600 mgs of test if I recall correctly. I personally have not gone over 400 in several years since starting Fina and have relied on other items that don't convert to dht.

In your case, since you're not initiating Fina for BPH I'd start as low as possible and gauge results with BW if you have the patience. If I were to guess, maybe 2 to 2.5 mgs.

Note: It would be interesting to monitor your psa pre fina and later once initiated to see how they go.

[Youthful55guy]

I did a thread on the effect of Fina on my dht while on various levels of T a while back. I'll see if I can find it. If not I'd have to go through old BW again to try and figure it out. Not sure I could at this point unless i noted the T dose on the BW. We'll see. I haven't even pulled DHT panels recently as I know they'll be sub-normal.

Like you, and I've said this here many times, most guys even on normal TRT doses of test will have elevated DHT levels I base this on my own BW and many others that I've seen over the years. Plus in conversation with my Uro. From what I read in the past Fina is tested (and effective) up to around 600 mgs of test if I recall correctly. I personally have not gone over 400 in several years since starting Fina and have relied on other items that don't convert to dht.

In your case, since you're not initiating Fina for BPH I'd start as low as possible and gauge results with BW if you have the patience. If I were to guess, maybe 2 to 2.5 mgs.

Note: It would be interesting to monitor your psa pre fina and later once initiated to see how they go.

Love to read the thread if you can find it.

My PSA hasn't budged at all since I started measuring it about 14 years ago. It's always around 0.7 to 0.8 with the sensitive assay. TRT has had no effect on my PSA levels. I've been on TRT for about 7 years and have had 12 tests done over that 7 year period with almost no variation in the results. I doubt that lowering DHT will have any affect on my already low PSA.

[testytim]

testytim, it sounds like if the hcg is working for you, then I would continue using it. I don't think there is any harm at your dose (but I'm no doctor). It seems like the consensus is to monitor E and DHT, but if you are feeling good, enjoy! Living bloodwork to bloodwork sucks but it is clearly a first world problem!

Youthful55guy, I'm not trying to threadjack, but damn, that PSA score makes me jealous! Mine was 1.9 then jumped to 3.8 over the course of a couple of months on HRT, but I will post details on that elsewhere.

Mine went up 2 points in 6 months as well.

[Youthful55guy]

On 40 mgs T every 3 days along with 5 mgs Fina I'd bet money DHT will be below scale.

I now agree with that assessment. I just received my first labs after doing a trial of finasteride.

Recall (from another string) that during this first trial, I got a bug up my ass and want to see how I felt on a much higher dose of T. I ended up with daily injections of 35 mg T-cyp (equates to 245 mg/week). More that the upper end of TRT, but still under what most guys do on an anabolic cycle. This dose is about 2.6X my prescribed dose of 44 mg (0.22 mL) E3D. I maintained this for 4 weeks while taking 1 mg Finasteride per day and 0.5 mg anastrozole per week (broken up into daily doses with the eye dropper method).

Typically, my DHT without finasteride comes back between 100 and 250 ng/dL (normal range 30-85), which is way above range. Taking huge doses of Saw palmetto and Pygeum barley makes a dent in the labs. So now, I increase my T dose by 260% and take 1 mg of finasteride per day and my DHT comes back at 65, which is just slightly above mid-range. Yes, the stuff is highly effective at lowering DHT!

On the down side, my dose of anastrozole was not nearly enough. Typically, on my standard protocol, I run at the upper end of the E2 range (8-35 pg/mL), when I take 0.5 mg anastrozole per week, my E2 will be around 22. My new labs with this high T dose and 0.5 mg anastrozole per week (plus finasteride) came back at 70.4 pg/mL, which is too high. I'm going to double my to at least 1.0 mg/week anastrozole for the last week of this experiment, but I'm not going to redo the labs.

I plan on dropping back to my normal TRT dose and do a calculated slow withdrawal of finasteride and anastrozole over the following weeks (haven't figured out the schedule yet. Then in about 4 weeks after my last dose of Finasteride I'm going to donate blood which will allow me to evaluate the effect of lowering my DHT to within range on my hemoglobin.

After I donate, I plan to do another experiment, but probably at a lower T dose, perhaps 200 mg/week, which is arguably the upper end of what most consider a TRT dose. My goal is to try to eventually eliminate the need to donate blood and simultaneously increase my T dose for more of an anabolic effect (plus I feel better), but it has to be sustainable with regard to DHT, E2, and hemoglobin side-effects.