Anyone with experience with HUCOG brand HCG?

[Youthful55guy]

A little background. For reasons too long to go into here, my doc would not renew my script for HCG. It's a complicated story and I hope to straighten it out in a face to face appointment in a month or so. I felt like no sweat, I have a dependable alternate source for FertiGyn brand, which I have been very satisfied with and is a less expensive than the scripted stuff. I saw that I was running low and reordered through what was a very dependable vendor. They have been having a lot of difficulty lately and were getting slower and slower to fill orders. Finally, they failed altogether on my HCG. OK, I can eat the lost money, but I need the HCG.

I find an alternate source but it's a different brand. I'm thinking OK, I've heard of other guys using this brand with success so I'll give it a try. I was expecting lyophilized (powdered) HCG like I've been getting with the FertiGyn product and I mix it up fresh when I need it. Instead, I get a vial of 5000 IU HCG in 1 mL of saline. I've been told over and over that the stuff has a very short shelf life, so how can they be shipping premixed HCG? the box says that the manufacturing date is 11/16 and the Exp date is 10/18. How can this be?

So, I'm wondering if there's anyone with experience with HUCOG brand pre-mixed HCG? Opinions welcome too.

[almostgone]

Haven't used the premixed Hucog, only the kind requiring reconstitution, but do know of a few guys that have purchased and used it, 55Guy.
I prefer the lyophilized wafer, but can't really say that the premixed is inferior.

[Youthful55guy]

Haven't used the premixed Hucog, only the kind requiring reconstitution, but do know of a few guys that have purchased and used it, 55Guy.
I prefer the lyophilized wafer, but can't really say that the premixed is inferior.

Please clarify. You have used HCOG brand (Bharat Serums and Vaccines Limited) and it was lyophilized? I need to do some research on this company and see what they actually make. I'm beginning to wonder if this is counterfeit. I just can't understand how they can make an aqueous solution of HCG in November of 2016, ship it to me unrefrigerated July 2017, and expect it to have any HCG activity.

[almostgone]

Please clarify. You have used HCOG brand (Bharat Serums and Vaccines Limited) and it was lyophilized? I need to do some research on this company and see what they actually make. I'm beginning to wonder if this is counterfeit. I just can't understand how they can make an aqueous solution of HCG in November of 2016, ship it to me unrefrigerated July 2017, and expect it to have any HCG activity.

Yes sir, it was a little while back, but I still have a expired unreconstituted 10,000 iu vial in the fridge in the foil pack with the amp of sodium chloride and it was made by Bharat Serums and Vaccines Limited.
When Hucog came out with the ready to use HCG I believe it was referred to as HucogHP, the HP stood for "highly purified".
I was skeptical, as you are, when they introduced the " HP" version and from then on snagged Pregnyl when I could or Chinese generic HCG that I knew was good.

[Youthful55guy]

Yes sir, it was a little while back, but I still have a expired unreconstituted 10,000 iu vial in the fridge in the foil pack with the amp of sodium chloride and it was made by Bharat Serums and Vaccines Limited.
When Hucog came out with the ready to use HCG I believe it was referred to as HucogHP, the HP stood for "highly purified".
I was skeptical, as you are, when they introduced the " HP" version and from then on snagged Pregnyl when I could or Chinese generic HCG that I knew was good.

Very helpful Thanks! Yes, it is the HP. I need to do some more research. Unfortunately, my backup vendor was out of Pregnyl. I'm going to do some hunting around for another vendor.

[ScotchGuard02]

A little background. For reasons too long to go into here, my doc would not renew my script for HCG. It's a complicated story and I hope to straighten it out in a face to face appointment in a month or so. I felt like no sweat, I have a dependable alternate source for FertiGyn brand, which I have been very satisfied with and is a less expensive than the scripted stuff. I saw that I was running low and reordered through what was a very dependable vendor. They have been having a lot of difficulty lately and were getting slower and slower to fill orders. Finally, they failed altogether on my HCG. OK, I can eat the lost money, but I need the HCG.

I find an alternate source but it's a different brand. I'm thinking OK, I've heard of other guys using this brand with success so I'll give it a try. I was expecting lyophilized (powdered) HCG like I've been getting with the FertiGyn product and I mix it up fresh when I need it. Instead, I get a vial of 5000 IU HCG in 1 mL of saline. I've been told over and over that the stuff has a very short shelf life, so how can they be shipping premixed HCG? the box says that the manufacturing date is 11/16 and the Exp date is 10/18. How can this be?

So, I'm wondering if there's anyone with experience with HUCOG brand pre-mixed HCG? Opinions welcome too.

I think you're thinking of HGH. HGH is a long chained amino and will break down easily. You can't shake it and needs to be refrigerated. HCG is extracted from pregnant women's urine. It's much hardier than HCG. Just keep in a cool place and it'll stay good for a while.

[Youthful55guy]

I think you're thinking of HGH. HGH is a long chained amino and will break down easily. You can't shake it and needs to be refrigerated. HCG is extracted from pregnant women's urine. It's much hardier than HCG. Just keep in a cool place and it'll stay good for a while.

It's HCG. Even HCG has a limited shelf life. There is no way that I know of that they can get it to be stable in a aqueous form from 11/16 to 10/18 per package labeling. Also, per the insert, it states that it needs to be stored at conditions less than 8 C (46 F). It was shipped to me 3 weeks ago in a cardboard box from China. I sincerely doubt that it was anywhere near 46 F at any time in transit. Basically, I got screwed and plan to cut my losses and learn from it. NEVER purchase HUCOG again, even the lyophilized type. If they try to pawn off crap like this with one product, it makes me wonder how much you can trust any of their products. I have found a new vendor that has Pregnyl branded HCG and have some on order. Hopefully, this is just a temporary situation. I also plan to have a face to face with my Doc in another month and hopefully I can get her to renew my script for HCG.

FYI, part of the original complex problem that I eluded to in my original post is that the compounded pharmacy from I had been purchasing my scripted HCG for years was selling me pre-mixed compounded HCG shipped in refrigerated containers. It was good stuff but pricey. They saw that and are now switching to branded Pregnyl and having the customer mix himself. Wise move, but it invalidated my original script because it's a different drug and that confused the heck out of my doc and going back and forth between her and her assistant who know little to nothing about hormones just added to the confusion. I hope to sort this out with a face to face.

[almostgone]

It's HCG. Even HCG has a limited shelf life. There is no way that I know of that they can get it to be stable in a aqueous form from 11/16 to 10/18 per package labeling. Also, per the insert, it states that it needs to be stored at conditions less than 8 C (46 F). It was shipped to me 3 weeks ago in a cardboard box from China. I sincerely doubt that it was anywhere near 46 F at any time in transit. Basically, I got screwed and plan to cut my losses and learn from it. NEVER purchase HUCOG again, even the lyophilized type. If they try to pawn off crap like this with one product, it makes me wonder how much you can trust any of their products. I have found a new vendor that has Pregnyl branded HCG and have some on order. Hopefully, this is just a temporary situation. I also plan to have a face to face with my Doc in another month and hopefully I can get her to renew my script for HCG.

FYI, part of the original complex problem that I eluded to in my original post is that the compounded pharmacy from I had been purchasing my scripted HCG for years was selling me pre-mixed compounded HCG shipped in refrigerated containers. It was good stuff but pricey. They saw that and are now switching to branded Pregnyl and having the customer mix himself. Wise move, but it invalidated my original script because it's a different drug and that confused the heck out of my doc and going back and forth between her and her assistant who know little to nothing about hormones just added to the confusion. I hope to sort this out with a face to face.

That sounds like you have a chance at getting that resolved, at least. That would be sweet if you could just snag Pregnyl at your pharmacy @ a reasonable price.

[Youthful55guy]

That sounds like you have a chance at getting that resolved, at least. That would be sweet if you could just snag Pregnyl at your pharmacy @ a reasonable price.

It's actually about double what I pay on the "alternate market", but it's legal and I know I won't get ripped off like I did with the HUCOG. That was about $130 down the drain. I also got ripped off before that from my original vendor for $300 for product undelivered (my original FertiGyn brand). They had been extremely dependable for the past few years but suddenly not. I hope vendor #3 comes through!

[ryobi1]

I find an alternate source but it's a different brand. I'm thinking OK, I've heard of other guys using this brand with success so I'll give it a try. I was expecting lyophilized (powdered) HCG like I've been getting with the FertiGyn product and I mix it up fresh when I need it. Instead, I get a vial of 5000 IU HCG in 1 mL of saline. I've been told over and over that the stuff has a very short shelf life, so how can they be shipping premixed HCG? the box says that the manufacturing date is 11/16 and the Exp date is 10/18. How can this be?

So, I'm wondering if there's anyone with experience with HUCOG brand pre-mixed HCG? Opinions welcome too.

my question would be, why dont we mix HCG with saline if the life expectency is 2 years?
I thought bacteriostatic water offered the longest shelf life. I toss the sodium chloride.
I was gonna say that I figured it was meant to be used in a short time frame, but then read expiry date.
I'm with you, I think it would be fake....

[Youthful55guy]

FYI, when I originally started using the FertiGyn brand of lyophilized HCG I wanted to be sure that it was legitimate, so I made up some sort of dilution and tested it with a urine pregnancy test kit for HCG and it was positive and I was convinced it was the real stuff. Unfortunately, I did not keep the calculation I had scratched out on a piece of paper and can't remember how I did it.

So, today I spent an hour or so researching the sensitivity of the OTC urine test kits and then did some new dilution calculations and test method rationale thinking. Here's what I came up with.

From the various sources of information, it appears that the range of sensitivity for OTC urine HCG tests is 20 to 100 IU/L (mIU/mL), with most in the range of 25-40 IU/L (mIU/mL). This equates to 0.025 to 0.040 IU/mL.

I mix up my HCG at 1000 IU/mL, so 0.25 mL should contain 250 IU HCG. Therefore, I need to dilute 0.25 mL of my standard mix with 10 L (10,000 mL) to get dilution to the lowest level of the test range & 0.4 mL to get to the higher end of the range.

The lowest amount I can accurately measure is about 0.05 mL. If I dilute 0.05 mL of my HCG solution (~50 IU) with 1 L (10,000 mL) water, then the resulting solution should be about 50 IU/L, which is about the middle of the range for sensitivity.

PROPOSED TEST METHOD
Purchase a pregnancy urine test kit with 25 mIU/mL accuracy.

Dilute 0.1 mL of my stock mixed HCG solution to 1 L with my own urine (avoids any chance of throwing off the test by using pure water with no electrolytes). Downside is that I'll have to save it a couple times to get enough. This should result in a solution with 100 IU/L (mIU/mL) of HCG, which is 4X the sensitivity of the test.

If the above is positive, use the second test strip to test at 50 IU/L to give added confidence to the HCG potency (~2X sensitivity of the test)

If the above is negative, use the second test strip to test at 250 IU/L to determine if there is any appreciable HCG in the mix (~10X sensitivity of the test)


FYI, something else I discovered in my research is that the urine test kit is made from a monoclonal antibody to the beta subunit of HCG to avoid cross-reactivity with LH. This could be problematic in that the HCG could have degraded in solution by separation of the alpha and beta subunits. What this potentially means is that the only thing this test confirms is that there once was HCG in the original HUCOG pre-mixed vial, and it degraded, but the beta sub unit still registers on the test.

I'd be interested in hearing what folks think about this idea, or if others have tried something similar. I figure, for a couple bucks and a few minutes of my time it's worth at least exploring the idea.

[Youthful55guy]

RESULTS
I'm pregnant!

I ended up purchasing the First Response Brand test which claims to be the most sensitive test on the market at 6.3 mIU/mL (i.e., IU/L). I collected a liter of urine and then added 0.05 mL of my stock HCG solution of HUCOG (1000 IU/mL). This should have resulted in a solution with 50 mIU/mL (about 8X the claimed test sensitivity). The test came back positive for HCG (or at least the beta subunit per above discussion).

I then repeated the test, adding 0.05 mL more stock HCG to the 1 liter of urine for a total dilution of 100 mIU/mL. The test again came back positive with the second line in the test slightly darker than in the first test.

CONCLUSION
I can conclude from this test that the HUCOG HCG that I purchased did indeed contain HCG, so perhaps my criticism of the product was a bit premature. How they can get it stable in solution for such a long time is a mystery to me. What I cannot confirm is the activity of the HCG since the urine test kit only tests for the beta subunit of the molecule. I will continue using the product as if it is "potent" and monitor my testicular size as time goes on. I have about a 15 weeks supply of this stuff, and I know my testicles begin to show atrophy after about a month without HCG, so this should give me plenty of time to evaluate it based on personal observations.

[kelkel]

it invalidated my original script because it's a different drug and that confused the heck out of my doc and going back and forth between her and her assistant who know little to nothing about hormones just added to the confusion. I hope to sort this out with a face to face.

What's the issue with your doc? What's doesn't she understand?

[Youthful55guy]

What's the issue with your doc? What's doesn't she understand?

I never communicated directly with her, just her assistant. I doubt that her assistant understood any of this. Also, I'm probably her only patient for which she has prescribed HCG, so I think her experience base is minimal. The original script of HCG came from an HRT specialist that did not take my insurance. I had to go through them to purchase my HCG and they tacked on a medication management fee. I got tired of paying through the nose for doctor visits not covered by my insurance and inflated prices for both my HCG and T, so after about 3 years I asked my doc if she would take over medication management and she agreed. She was aware of what I was doing and was monitoring me with additional labs beyond that which my HRT specialist demanded. Again, her labs were covered by insurance and my HRT guy's labs were not, and he would only accept labs from a particular laboratory, so I ended up paying a lot of money for labs I didn't need.

Anyway, when the pharmacy changed from pre-mixed compounded HCG to "mix your own" branded Pregnyl, it just threw her off because she's never dealt with HCG before. I'm hoping a face-toface will straighten this out. In the interim, I want to find alternate sources for all of my TRT medications in case I have problems in the future filling a script. Also, I'm currently using about double the amount that the doc prescribed, so I need to have an alternate and dependable source.

[ryobi1]

did you try this method with the HUCOG?

[Youthful55guy]

did you try this method with the HUCOG?

Those results were for the HUCOG, hence my conclusion that I may have been too harsh in my earlier criticism of the product. Keep in mind that the test does not prove LH activity, it only proves that there is beta subunit of the molecule floating around in the solution. I need to do more research on the validity of this approach.

I found an FDA monograph of Pregnyl on the internet and it clearly states that reconstituted solution is stable for 60 days, but it does not discuss the kinetics of degradation. I'm assuming that it is a breakdown of the alpha and beta subunits.

[ryobi1]

would all hcg be subject to the same stability?
or does HUCOG have a particular preservative they are using?
I mean,during shipping the reconstituted solution does not have the
gentlest of a journey, in shipping you would think the ride would
play havoc with the stability of it,
I think your experiment is admirable, thanks for taking the time,
and straining your brain to do the experiment, or even think of think,
i was exhausted just reading about your calculations...

[Youthful55guy]

The solution is mainly injection saline. It lists a bunch of excipients, but I'm not sure how they could contribute to molecular stability over such a long period of time in an aqueous solution. After spending way too much time searching the literature, I did manage to fine one recent (2016) publication that the addition of some of the excipients, particularly sucrose and methionine, do help to extend the shelf life of HCG solutions. Unfortunately, the article is not indexed in PubMed and is not available full text, so all we have is an English abstract of what appears to be a non-English paper published in a relatively unknown journal. Here's the reference and abstract:

Reference
Matiukha, I., Slyvchuk, Y., Syrvatka, V., Gevkan, I., Shtapenko, O., and Milovanova, G. (2016). STORAGE OF ACTIVITY OF THE HUMAN CHORIONIC GONADOTROPIN HORMONE IN SOLUTION AT ADDITION OF ORGANIC COMPOUNDS TO THE PHARMACOLOGICAL COMPOSITION. EUREKA: Life Sciences, 28-34.

Abstract
The more stable among the tested samples were samples with saccharose in the concentration of 50-75 mg per cm3. While adding of L-lysine to samples the most stable activity was observed in the experimental series of samples with the content of lysine of 10 mg per cm3. While storing gonadotropin with L-glycine fluctuations of hormone activity in all series of samples were observed. Adding of 0.2 mg per cm3 of L-glycine had a more expressed stabilizing effect. Adding of 0.2 mg per cm3 of L-methionine produced relativelyhigh and stable activity of gonadotropinduring the 6 weeksstorage. Adding of 0.25 mg / cm3 of L-glycine and 75.50 mg / cm3 of saccharose to experimental samples during 2 weeks at 40 ° C provided 69.8% and 60.7% saving activity of hCG respectively. Activity of gonadotropin in a series of samples with the addition of L-glycine and mannitol was significant-ly lower and at the end of the study. The highest activity of gonadotro-pin was detected while adding fillers - 10 mg / cm3 L-lysine and 75 mg / m3 saccharose and mannitol - to recipes as a stabilizer.