
Originally Posted by
KAZUYA MISHIMA
there is reason to believe that post-cycle gyno is actually the RESULT of ATD; So i would avoid it, especially during PCT.
I.) THE DATA
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PLease first view the attached graph. It's the graphical summary of 6 members who kindly posted their EXACT SD-cycle as well as their PCT-protocol.
(Damn, how can I put this image to be visible inside the thread? Someone help me please)
-All 6 subjects are our forum members (phantom21; pumpedgator; Epihall; D-Termine; SnakeVette80; Jay_D).
-In the graph you see how long they took SD (yellow bars), how much and how long they took RXT (blue), Nolva (red) or 6-OXO (green). On the right side you see the averaged number of weeks that passed after the end of PCT after that each subject reported onset of gyno (if someone said: "5-6 weeks", then I wrote: 5.5 weeks as the average).
There are additionally 5 forum members from the ************* forum (baby_a; Rastar; Mass_69; Jared; reef) who also reported delayed gyno after SD and PCT. Unfortunately they haven't provided enough information in order to incorporate their data into my graphical analysis.
The first of those did a PCT with RXT only and reported gyno "several weeks" after PCT;
Nr.2 did also a RXT-standalone PCT and reported gyno "several months later".
Nr.3 got gyno 4 months after a SD-cycle; however he interponed a "MOHN / 4-AD-cycle" before he did PCT (RXT only).
Nr.4 reported onset of gyno "immediately" after finishing PCT with RXT and "LX" (LeanExtreme).
Finally, Nr.5 (reef) reported the probably most intriguing thing I have read so far: He did 2 SD-cycles: After the first he did an "old-school" Nolva-only PCT without any problems. Some time later he did his 2nd SD-cycle. This time he took RXT only for PCT because he ran out of Nolva. Guess what? The guy got gyno 4 weeks after he finished his RXT-PCT.
Here I will shortly summarize the theories that have been proposed so far about the origin and the mechanisms of delayed gyno after SD by several members from this or the ************* forum. There were too MANY members, to mention them all; but it was a pleasure to see guys like BigCat, w-llewellyn and Dr.D (that's actually NOT me, this is one of the masterminds from designer supplements, who is posting at AM) chiming in and commenting on the issue.
II.THE THEORIES AND ARGUMENTS
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1.) Delayed Gyno is some direct pro-estrogenic effect from SD.
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COMMENT: This has been discarded because a) SD is supposed to aromatize very weakly. If it would have some "secret" pro-estrogenic action, its very short half-life (estimated 8 h) would prevent any DELAYED action.
2.) Some steroids, among them SD are supposed to cause a rebound of testosteron production after several weeks / months of recovery after a cycle. Some guys called this the "SD-echo". The overshooting test is responsible for consecutive convcersion to estrogen via aromatase and finally leads to gyno.
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COMMENT: There is probably something like a "testosteron-echo". Several people have reported such observations, but no one of them got actually gyno! The increased testosteron protects you from getting gyno even if your estrogen is elevated by providing a beneficial test-to estrogen-ratio.
3.) There is no "delayed gyno from SD" phenomenon at all. From thousends of people who did a SD-cycle there are relatively few who reported this issue. Some people are genetically prone to get gyno even after slight hormonal imbalances. Such imbalances can be caused by ANY steroid and are not specific for SD or the PCT. After all, there might be a "gyno-hysteria", with paple falsely reporting "gyno" even when they feel their nipples itch a bit, which seems to occur quite often when taking steroids.
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COMMENT: Well that argument is hard to beat, because we don't have the numbers. I have gathered 11 people who reported delayed gyno just by looking on two forums. It can be assumed that there a quite a few more, whom we don't know because they just never come to these forums. A realistical estimation would be to say: We have appr. 10 reported gyno-cases on 1000 people who used SD (that would be a rate of <1%). Well in medicine a rate of 1% is HIGH!!! Huge pharmaceutical companies get in HUGE trouble even if 10 people from 1 million get some serious adverse effects from a drug(remember the Lipobay scandal or the COX-2 scandal?). So, an adverse effect that is in the range of 1% is not a seldom or rare effect.
Even if half of the people who reported gyno don't have real gyno, there are more than enough cases to make this a considerable ISSUE!
4. Improperly off-tapered PCT led to estrogen rebound, that causes the gyno after some time.
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COMMENT: Well, as we see in the graph, we have virtually all combinations of down-tapering, up-tapering, constant dosing etc. So even if theoretically correct, proper downtapering during PCT seems to not protect entirely against delayed gyno.
5.) The use of Aromatase-Inhibitors after a steroid-cycle is the key for delayed gyno. It has been hypothesized that AIs lead to a huge up-regulation either of estrogen-receptors or the aromatase-enzyme, or both. When testosterone is slowly recovering after a cycle and has not yet reached full capacity-levels, the explosively ramping up of estrogen-production (aromatse upped) will lead to massive estrogenic action at peripheral tissues (additionally by highly sensitized tissue-receptors). This leads to a SIGNIFICANT dysbalance of the testosteron-to-estrogen-ratio wich is the main signal for breast tissue to grow. At that moment gyno-development starts, and after some some weeks you can not only feel it but also see it!
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COMMENT: This is my favoured theory so far. It is very logical in itself. However, we don't have experimental evidence for that, so it still remains a theory. What speaks dor this teory is that litterally ALL cases I found on BB.com as well as on AM-forum did their PCT with an AI alone or in combination with Nolva. Their might be one single exception to this (there is a guy called "Dmitry" or alike whose posts I didn't entirelly understood. He seems to have used only Nolva for PCT, but that is not clear). Even if there would be one case, there are 11 cases that stands against. So, possibly AIs are not the ENTIRE explanation but they SEEM to be the major RISK-FACTOR to develop delayed gyno after SD.
However, the overall risk to get delayed gyno after sd is about 1%. From this 1% 0.9% can - possibly-be accounted for by AIs.
6. (UPDATE) The combination of a STRONG shutdown of testosteron-production (induced by a STRONG androgenic substance) with a STRONG estrogenic hypersensitation (induced by an AI) seems to be crucial in order to push the ratio of testosteron-to-estrogen-(receptor-action) beyond a critical threshold for developing gyno.
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COMMENT: Several forum members have pointed to the observation that apparently all delayed-gyno cases have been reported from users who had an AI during PCT + SD during ON cycle. To date no reports have appeard on delayd gyno after other designer steroids like Pheraplex (PP) or one of the E...Max derivates. This is in fact an intriguing point. It has been suggested that SD may have stronger androgenic side effects then PP /Emax. Moreover, there was a sidenote from BigCat that delayed gyno has also been occasionally observed in people who were on "traditional" steroids (e.g. testosteron), which also have STRONG androgenic action. Taken together, The synergistical interplay of these said factors can be summed up as follows:
the stronger the estrogenic hyperactivity (induced by AI) AND the stronger the testosteron-hypoactivity is, the higher is the risk to develop delayed gyno. (It's again the RATIO)
This is in fact almost the same as was proposed in theory Nr.5, with the exception that the amount of testosteron-shutdown is more appreciated now.
So, my precluding thoughts are:
If you plan to do a cycly with a steroid that has strong androgenic action and if you are ANXIOUS to get gyno or if you ever had (pubertal) gyno or if you have a highly sensitized estrogenic system by one or more previous steroid cycles, than you should at least THINK about using or not using AIs for your PCT because Ais seems to add to the risk to get gyno.
EDIT: Bloute just remembered me to mention the DHEA-problem:
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The intake of DHEA to support PCT is a standard recommendation in the Superdol and PCT threads. However, BifCat pointed to the fact that during PCT, the intake of an additional steroid or pro-steroid might slow down the recovery of the testosterone-production. If that holds true, than the addition of DHEA will even further impair the testosteron-to-estrogen-ratio during and after PCT and by that further increase the risk to get delayed gyno. That was a very good pont. Unfortunately we don't have enough data. I know that 2 of the 11 subjects I mentioned above did take DHEA. Perhaps these guys could post that information here.