Originally Posted by
GearHeaded
awesome topic Holdmybeer
heres some of my off the cuff thoughts. too burnt out and lazy to provide much reference or research right now, but I've got notes I can go back to refer to.
- Unless you 'HAVE TO' take an AI , your better off not. and really, in most cases there is rarely a reason to ever have to because you can simply set you cycles up in a way to not ever need an AI. as Charger explained in post 2 for example. also being 85% of AAS available to us don't even convert to estrogen in the first place. so just set your cycles up in ways and dosages that you never need an AI.
- so some "have to" cases, even though rare and still can be mitigated. a contest bodybuilder coming into a show need to purposely crash his estrogen because he's one of few guys that hold estrogenic water retention even when estrogen is in check.. or someone who is so so estrogen sensitive on even lower doses of test that they need to keep estrogen in low normal range.
now some guys simply chose to go ahead and not mess with things or 'get fancy' and they just run a low dose of an AI and keep estrogen in lower normal ranges for their TRT or their cycles. thats a personal choice.
but some more thoughts..
- AI's have health consequences that are directly related to the use of the drug itself , and not related to the lowering of blood serum levels of estrogen. these need to be explored further and more research is coming out. one effect being talked about is how they effect your brain chemistry.
- SERMs like nolva on the other hand don't seem to have near the negative side effects and are considered safer.
SERMs will NOT lower your blood serum levels of estrogen. Nolva is itself an "estrogen" and will bind to estrogen receptors in the breast tissue for example, but not illicit any of the negative feminizing effects and block the stronger estradiol from binding.
lowering your blood serum levels of estrogen is not always a good thing. your brain has estrogen receptors. you need estrogen to function both mentally as well as libido . its NOT testosterone that controls your libido, its estrogen. your vascular system, skeletal system and muscle all have estrogen receptors as well ... heck one main reason you have balls to produce testosterone is so your body can convert/aromatize it and make estrogen. . so lowering your blood serum by "un-naturally'' blocking the aromatization process may not be the best thing for your well being.
estrogen plays a huge role in brain function .. the reason guys get mentally whacked on high doses of Tren while taking AI's ?? because they have no estrogen for the brain and only high high doses of androgens (tren is super androgenic). this high androgen, low estrogen brain chemistry is going to cause a lot of the side effects that you hear about with Tren.. anger, short fuse, thoughts of murder, crazy dreams, insomnia, etc. etc..
you NEED the estrogen when your androgens are that high to counter out the brain chemistry from all the androgens. you'll go crazy otherwise :)
I could go on, now I'm just rambling though