E2 a little high, dropping T dose. Wait for hcg?

[plainview]

I recently had some bloodwork done on my current dosage of 120mg Test cyp a week split every 3.5 days.
These labs were taken 32 hours after inject, so should reflect a peak.

Total T 941 348-1197
Free T 38.77 5-21
% Free 4.12 1.5-4.20
Estradiol sensitive 34.1 8-35

I have taken 250iu hcg 2x a week when I was on 100mg of T and found it to be very beneficial, but when I went to 120mg a week I dropped the hcg to get a good idea where that dose put me. I'm probably gonna drop dose back down and add hcg for various reasons. My question is, with my E2 levels where they are, I don't want them any higher, should I wait a certain period after I drop my dose to add the hcg to avoid e2 levels going to high? I'm very eager to add hcg back into my protocol. As always I appreciate any input.

[Youthful55guy]

I recently had some bloodwork done on my current dosage of 120mg Test cyp a week split every 3.5 days.
These labs were taken 32 hours after inject, so should reflect a peak.

Total T 941 348-1197
Free T 38.77 5-21
% Free 4.12 1.5-4.20
Estradiol sensitive 34.1 8-35

I have taken 250iu hcg 2x a week when I was on 100mg of T and found it to be very beneficial, but when I went to 120mg a week I dropped the hcg to get a good idea where that dose put me. I'm probably gonna drop dose back down and add hcg for various reasons. My question is, with my E2 levels where they are, I don't want them any higher, should I wait a certain period after I drop my dose to add the hcg to avoid e2 levels going to high? I'm very eager to add hcg back into my protocol. As always I appreciate any input.

Your E2 levels are not horribly bad considering it's probably close to a peak level. Your Free T is a bit high. I would simply revert back to your prior protocol and your hormones should settle to close to a new norm in a couple weeks. It generally takes about 4-6 weeks to come to a fully stable new balance, but I suspect that after a week, two at the most, you will be 80% there.

BTW, your prior protocol is very close to mine except I split the dose into E3D injections. It just works better for me. I strongly support twice a week dosing of around 100 mg as a starting dose and HCG in the 500 to 1000 IU range.

Oh, speaking of HCG, there is a study I ran across that shows that doses near to 500 IU per week do not significantly elevate T levels in healthy volunteers receiving relatively large doses of T to experimentally suppress LH production. You have to go up to about 900 IU per week (split E2D) to begin to see a significant effect. That's not to say that even at 500IU there isn't a bump in T, it just wasn't significant with the low numbers participating in the study (N=6). For our purposes, the HCG is not to stimulate T production anyway, but rather to restore testicular size and synthesis of upstream steroids (like pregnenolone and DHEA) and in some cases fertility (at higher doses).

[plainview]

Your E2 levels are not horribly bad considering it's probably close to a peak level. Your Free T is a bit high. I would simply revert back to your prior protocol and your hormones should settle to close to a new norm in a couple weeks. It generally takes about 4-6 weeks to come to a fully stable new balance, but I suspect that after a week, two at the most, you will be 80% there.

BTW, your prior protocol is very close to mine except I split the dose into E3D injections. It just works better for me. I strongly support twice a week dosing of around 100 mg as a starting dose and HCG in the 500 to 1000 IU range.

Oh, speaking of HCG, there is a study I ran across that shows that doses near to 500 IU per week do not significantly elevate T levels in healthy volunteers receiving relatively large doses of T to experimentally suppress LH production. You have to go up to about 900 IU per week (split E2D) to begin to see a significant effect. That's not to say that even at 500IU there isn't a bump in T, it just wasn't significant with the low numbers participating in the study (N=6). For our purposes, the HCG is not to stimulate T production anyway, but rather to restore testicular size and synthesis of upstream steroids (like pregnenolone and DHEA) and in some cases fertility (at higher doses).

Thanks for the reply and info. I actually do split my dose and take 60mg every 3.5 days. Have almost always done that except for when my Dr. first started me on trt and wanted to give me 100mg every 2 weeks lol, we've come a long way. So you would say wait at least a couple weeks before starting the hcg agian?

Also about my free T being high at peak, I wondered about this and was kind of surprised and I'll tell you why. At 100mg + hcg my bloodwork (different testing methods and tested about 8 hours before injections) looked like this

Total T 732 250-1100
Free T 145.7 46-224
Bioavailable T 306 110-575
SHBG 22 10-50
Albumin serum 4.6 3.6-5.1

E2 19 0-52 I do not believe this to be a sensitive test but it does have a range for males and it's what my Dr has always run.

So because I dose every 3.5 days and my peaks and troughs should not be so dramatic. Why is free t on this test in the middle and the other so high? Obvious lab timing plays a role but this seems almost drastic and not necessarily dose related. Do I metabolize quickly because of low SHBG? I'm going to have the same test today, the same time as before so we'll see what it looks like. The numbers above are why I increased my dose to 120mg to get free and bio up into upper 3rd of range and I didn't know if I peaked at 24hrs or 72hrs. This was before I had any type of assessment for peak though.

[kelkel]

Oh, speaking of HCG, there is a study I ran across that shows that doses near to 500 IU per week do not significantly elevate T levels in healthy volunteers receiving relatively large doses of T to experimentally suppress LH production. You have to go up to about 900 IU per week (split E2D) to begin to see a significant effect. That's not to say that even at 500IU there isn't a bump in T, it just wasn't significant with the low numbers participating in the study (N=6). For our purposes, the HCG is not to stimulate T production anyway, but rather to restore testicular size and synthesis of upstream steroids (like pregnenolone and DHEA) and in some cases fertility (at higher doses).

Would you pm me that link if you can find it please?

[Youthful55guy]

Would you pm me that link if you can find it please?

It's the HCG study we've discussed in the past. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15713727

Coviello, A.D., Matsumoto, A.M., Bremner, W.J., Herbst, K.L., Amory, J.K., Anawalt, B.D., Sutton, P.R., Wright, W.W., Brown, T.R., Yan, X., et al. (2005). Low-dose human chorionic gonadotropin maintains intratesticular testosterone in normal men with testosterone-induced gonadotropin suppression. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 90, 2595-2602.

The information is buried on the 4th bage in Figure 2. You have to examine it carefully and pull out your calculator to interpret the data (e.g. convert to ng/dL and convert to a weekly total dosage), but it does show the effect of HCG on T production in healthy males with suppressed LH due to T suplementation. In a nutshell, 125 IU HCG E2D (438 IU/wk) did not significantly affect T production in 6 healthy young male volunteers receiving 200 mg T-Eth per week. However both 250 IU E2D (875 IU/wk) and 500 IU E2D (1,750 IU/wk) were effective in increasing serum T levels. In both groups, there was an equivalent boost of about 10 nmol/L (~290 ng/dL).

The rest of the article talks about Intratesticular Testosterone (ITT) as a marker of preserving fertility, but this bonus data is gold for us. It's the only published data I can find showing the actual impact of HCG on T production in guys receiving TRT (all be it, relatively high dosing).

[kelkel]

Ok, thanks. I assumed you were referring to a different animal.