Hcg

[tobbio]

does HCG get injected into the same area as you would inject your steroids for PCT?

[spywizard]

HCG is injected sub q or IM.. most will do sub q...

[spywizard]

oh, and you run HCG during the cycle.. not during pct..

[tobbio]

r u sure? there was a good PCT thread and it was used for PCT, what is sub q or IM

[Njord]

oh, and you run HCG during the cycle.. not during pct..

If you follow Anthony Roberts PCT, you run hcg during PCT.

[Njord]

r u sure? there was a good PCT thread and it was used for PCT, what is sub q or IM

Sub q means subcutaneous, or "below the cutaneous layer of skin". IM is intra-muscular, or "in the muscle".
Hcg is best done sub-q with a slin pin. Pinch some skin near the belly button and inject there.

[jackman22]

oh, and you run HCG during the cycle.. not during pct..

Every single thread on pct includes hcg that i have seen

[cookiemonstR]

Every single thread on pct includes hcg that i have seen

Ya i see that some too, its not right from what i understand, most people are saying it actually delays recovery by taking it after your cycle, do some reading on it if you want to know exactly why, i can't say off the top of my head.

[jackman22]

Ya i see that some too, its not right from what i understand, most people are saying it actually delays recovery by taking it after your cycle, do some reading on it if you want to know exactly why, i can't say off the top of my head.

Not saying your wrong but have you read anthony roberts thread on pct? he says its a must. If you have any articles or threads contradicting that i would love to see them! always willing to learn more.

[jackman22]

to read whole article go here. http://forums.steroid.com/showthread.php?t=209758 i just started at the hcg part

HCG is a peptide hormone manufactured by the embryo in the early stages of pregnancy and later by the placenta to help control a pregnant woman’s hormones (can anything really be said to control a pregnant woman’s hormones except ice-cream and chocolate?). Obviously, as you can guess from the name, it is a substance that stimulates the gonads (hence: gonadotropin). It does this by initiating gene transcription that is identical to that of Luetenizing Hormone, thereby causing the Leydig Cells to produce testosterone . Sounds great right? We can stimulate LH and FSH production with our Nolvadex , and then directly stimulate the Leydig Cells as well, to produce tons of testosterone by different routes! Well...it’s not all that simple.

Unfortunately, while HCG increases Testosterone, it increases estrogen as well(12). As you probably know, estrogen acts directly on the Leydig cells to effect changes in the activities of enzymes important for testosterone synthesis (13) and may actually be considered an important part of that negative feedback loop I mentioned earlier. In addition, an increase in circulating levels of LH have been shown to induce down-regulation of LH-receptors in both rodent studies (14), as well as in human studies (15); since HCG mimics LH, you can expect it to do the same. This LH downregulation can cause an increase in steroidogenic cholesterol (the cholesterol earmarked by your body for conversion into testosterone). (16). Thus, after the initial HCG induced surge in testosterone is over, if you have used enough to downregulate your LH-receptors and increase estrogen too much, then more steroidogenic cholesterol is available. This is telling me that less is being converted to testosterone. In fact, rodent models suggest that if you take a dose large enough to cause a sharp increase of plasma testosterone, you will actually desensitize your Leydig cells to your next shot, and will possibly not experience any rise in testosterone from the second dose at all, or may only experience a very slight one at best (17.). Since this is due to LH-Receptor downregulation, and that occurs in human models too, it is pretty fair to assume that if your first dose of HCG is too large, your second won’t be very effective. Unfortunately, this lack of an increase in testosterone doesn’t necessarily mean that the HCG may be unable to increase circulating levels of Estrogen (18) And remember that increase in Estrogen will (most likely) cause your body ultimately to produce less testosterone. Low LH post-cycle is not the primary cause of slow recovery, because LH generally rises to levels above baseline after a cycle much sooner than testosterone production does. This is probably because the pituitary is working very hard to get your atrophied Leydig cells to start producing testosterone again. HCG should also bring back testicular volume; I feel the need to mention this because it’s important to me and I suspect most men as well.
It would also appear that HCG works very well when it’s used on men who have low levels of LH to begin with (as you would be after a cycle), as many studies on pre-pubertal boys and Hypogonadotropic Hypogonadal men would suggest (19)

This suggests that a pre-exposure to normal LH levels or gonadatropins in general is necessary for HCG-induced Leydig Cell desensitization. This, of course is not a problem for us, as we’ll be using it when LH/Gonadatropin levels are very low anyway …we just need to stop using it before we regain normal function, or it will work against us eventually. (19) (20). Luckily, the temporary Anabolic steroid induced hypogonadism that is experienced after a cycle basically allows us to respond to HCG like anyone with low LH levels (21), and thus, as I told you, a lot of the possible inhibitory effect of HCG is not going to be relevant because there was no prior “priming” by circulating gonadotrophins. This is great news for us, because we are going to be using HCG during PCT, when we need to get back some HPTA function, and not when we have levels of gonadatropins high enough to cause HCG-induced desensitization.

But are we still risking some inhibition and possibly delaying our recovery by using HCG? Probably not…you see, some studies in humans have shown that HCG does not actually have a direct effect on inhibiting LH release in men (22)(23), but rather (probably) works to inhibit LH secretion indirectly, simply by stimulating the production of testosterone (thus activating the negative feedback loop). Another factor involved is the induction of testicular aromatase, which raises estrogen levels, again causing inhibition. Unfortunately, yet another process, the downregulation of the Leydig Cell LH receptor itself, seems to also play a role in high dose HCG testicular desensitization. This is also done by HCG actually blocking the conversion of 17 alpha-hydroxyprogesterone (17 OHP) to testosterone (24). Nolvadex actually stops this blocking-action of HCG from taking place (25). Most likely, because of Nolvadex’s direct antiestrogenic effect and LH-upregulating effect on the Pituitary, suppression of gonadotropins via HCG is (25) almost totally stopped with concurrent administration of Nolvadex! So if we Use Nolvadex and we are only using HCG when we are low in gonadatropins, we won’t be inhibited by it at all! Right?

Well…maybe…but there’s still the issue of estrogen caused by that HCG-stimulated surge in testosterone. Well…we can use low doses (300iu or so) to avoid some of that major spike in estrogen, and thus cause far less inhibition from the HCG (26). Of course, I’d want to use a bit more HCG per injection (500iu), if I could, to get my body functioning fully more quickly, and lose less of my gains. Maybe we can get away with taking some Vitamin E with our HCG, since it increases the responsiveness of plasma testosterone levels to HCG, making them significantly higher during vitamin E administration than without it (27). So we can get a better
response with our HCG by taking Vitamin E (I recommend 1,000iu/day), but that doesn’t get rid of the problem that we have, which is the estrogen increase the HCG will cause.

Lets solve that pesky estrogen problem now….

Lets add in an Aromatase Inhibitor! Which one, though? Well, since we are already using Nolvadex, we can’t use Letrozole or Arimidex , as the Nolvadex will actually greatly decrease the blood plasma levels of them (28)!

So we have to use Aromasin (exemestane) as our AI, because it’s an aromatase inactivator, meaning it makes estrogen receptors useless, and instead of just inhibiting production (as an anti-aromatase would do) it cuts off production totally. Aromasin can also cause androgenic sides (29)(30)(31), which may help to elevate your mood while you are on PCT. This final drug in my recommended PCT can effectively remove up to about 85%+ of estrogen from your body (32). Most importantly, using Aromasin together with Nolvadex doesn’t reduce exemestane’s effectiveness (33). So now, I think the problem of ANY inhibition possible with HCG is solved, and we can use that 500iu/day dose that I wanted to use previously.

With this PCT, there will be a rapid increase in LH, FSH, and testosterone, as well as almost a complete block on all the factors that could be causing your natural hormones to be delayed in returning to baseline. For this reason, I feel that the second your cycle is over is when you should start this PCT (a week after your last shot, or the day after your last pill is fine). Remember, waiting for some of the extra androgens you’ve been taking to leave your body is nonsensical, as we want to start recovery as soon as possible to retain maximum gains. There is no evidence to suggest waiting any length of time after your cycle is over will increase PCT effectiveness…it simply prolongs the time you aren’t doing anything positive to regain your natural hormones. And how long do we run this for? Well…we need to stop the HCG relatively soon for reasons discussed earlier. But the Nolvadex, and Aromasin can be used for awhile longer. Ideally, we’d be getting weekly blood work, but we could also get it done monthly, and just running this PCT until we see our natural hormones restored…but weekly bloodwork isn’t really an option for most of us. Failing the option of monitoring recovery with blood-work, I’m going to give you my best thoughts on the time you should be running your PCT. It’s important to note I haven’t discussed nutrition or other compounds that may be beneficial…this is because in this article, I am primarily concerned with the restoration of hormonal function, nothing else. And with no further delays, here are my recommendations for PCT:

Week Nolvadex HCG Aromasin Vitamin E
1 20mgs/day 500iu/day 20-25mgs/day 1000iu/day
2 20mgs/day 500iu/day 20-25mgs/day 1000iu/day
3 20mgs/day 500iu/day 20-25mgs/day 1000iu/day
4 20mgs/day 20-25mgs/day
5 20mgs/day 20-25mgs/day
6 20mgs/day

[tobbio]

so can i use my steroid needles for this? the dosage is in IU's and i dont know how much ML is to IU, do i inject into the fat under the skin or try go beyond that?