34m issues on TRT - Hoping for some advice

Pharma / TRT
1

Hey guys,

I’m new to this whole thing, and to make a long story short, I probably made some bad decisions with jumping on too much test too quickly. I recognize that, so my focus is to get dialed in, even if it may be a long road. I don’t mean that to sound super serious because I’m certainly not in any kind of emergency, but just wanted to acknowledge the obvious mistakes up front.

I’m a 34 year old male. I have always been pretty overweight. I found myself about 8 months ago at the heaviest I’d ever been, stressed to the gills, really just in bad shape. I spoke with a friend of mine and he suggested I start some test and hcg. Said it changed his life.

So I did. I started what I realize now is a pretty significant dose for someone in my position, but really nothing crazy for a lot of people- 250mg/week pinned 2x per week. I also started HCG at 500iu 1x per week the day before my Wednesday dose. In addition, I started 2mg a week of retatrutide to help with the weight loss.

At first, I felt better than I had ever felt, certainly at least since I was 18-20 years old. Libido cranked back up. I started exercising regularly, slow at first but consistently improving. Shortly thereafter, I picked up weight lifting again and really dove in. I dialed in my macros, tracked everything religiously, and did my best to make sure sleep was on point, though that’s been a lifelong struggle of mine.

Fast forward about 4-5 months and I start getting these pretty intense bouts of anxiety out of nowhere. I’d be laying in bed, absolutely nothing stressful taking place and like a wave of stress hormones would wash over my whole body starting in my chest. It would come in waves and then dissipate, with each residual wave becoming less intense. When this started, it sparked some health anxiety in me and I started to spin out about what could be causing it. Then, I noticed that it was worse in the days following an HCG injection.

So I stopped taking the hcg. I’d been off of it for a month. The anxiety waves all but disappeared, but then I started getting the sides that we all angle away from- the shrinking balls. It became pretty fuckin uncomfortable, and I just straight up do not want to exist this way.

After some time, had passed, I figured I’d give hcg another shot. I did some research and decided to split my dose and do it the day before each test injection rather than all at once. The first attempt at this was Tuesday (two days ago). This afternoon, lo and behold, I got the beginnings of some anxiety that feels very familiar.

When I was off the hcg, I felt really fuckin good still. I’m still working out. I’m still eating well. I’m still on the retatrutide. I have shed about 65 pounds since starting it. Aside from this crippling anxiety, I feel amazing on the test and hcg. But I can’t live that way, and I can’t live with the shrinking and retracting balls without hcg.

So now I’m at a crossroads and I’m looking for advice and hoping to come up with some solutions and get this shit in check so I can continue getting healthy, losing weight, putting on muscle. I need this in my life more than anything else. I have never been more motivated for anything.

Here are a couple of thoughts I have. Maybe someone help me decide or tell me I am the stupidest man alive and put me in the right direction-

I can try enclomiphene to combat the ball shrinkage and loss of libido. I can try a low dose of aromasin to see if lowering my e2 will allow me to use the HCG without the anxiety. What I suspect is happening is that the HCG is spiking my e2 and causing that hormone imbalance. I am probably using too much test, which aromatizes and leads to greater e2 values. Given that I am pretty high BF%, overweight, and on 250mg test, It’s not outside the realm of possibility to think that the aromatization coupled with the hcg is the culprit here. My SHBG is also on the low side, which, again, can lead to the high e2. I suspect I have those three compounding factors to contend with.

To conclude- here are the results of bloodwork I had taken shortly before stopping the hcg about a month ago. I’m a little pissed off because I paid a good chunk of money for some really indepth labs, but some of the results read “insufficient sample” or “result to follow.” I’m actively in contact with the lab to address that. So here’s what I have-

Free test (direct) 33.9 high - ref 8.7 -25.1

Total test (will follow bullshit)

LH and FSH both low <0.3 for both. LH ref 1.7-8.6 FSH ref 1.5-12.4 – from what I understand it’s kind of to be expected with exogenous test, but it may also be impacted by too much test.

Prolactin is high at 34.5 ref 3.9 - 22.7

DHEA sulfate right in the middle of ref range

Estradiol (sensitive) Will follow bullshit of course

GGT 21 within range

Insulin toward the top but within range 22.5 ref range 2.6-24.9

Ferritin low 20 ref 30-400 - this one is weird because usually this comes from too much donation but I have not donated blood since starting.

SHBG - this is in range, but on the very low end. 18.5 ref 16.5 - 55.9

There are some other things that I can provide if they’re helpful. LDL is slightly high. HDL-C is slightly low. These are about right for me as it’s probably a result of the extra weight. They are so close to good. Best I’ve seen them in years.

Carbon dioxide is low 17 ref 20-29

Anyway, I apologize for such a lengthy post, but I wanted to be really clear and honest as I’m not sure where to go from here. Any advice is helpful. I realize that how I started this was dumb. Feel free to let me know, just also make sure to provide some constructive criticism with it lol.

2

yeah im not reading all that.

your estrogen is too high.
HCG will increase your estrogen, so will Test.

So drop your test down to 150/wk, run that for a few weeks to let concentration stabilize, and then continue your HCG 500mcg split dose.

This is terrible reasoning but at least you’re getting some benefit from it.

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3

You’re iron deficient, possibly anaemic. I’d get that sorted.

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4

You may even find that if you drop you weekly test to 150mg. You may not even need the HCG. Don’t change more than one thing at time (getting the ferritin sorted out being the exception)
Lower your Test and give it time.
Play with the HCG (If needed) and give it time. etc.
And keep up on your weight loss journey and gym efforts.
Lossing weight can and will continue to help with a lot of things!

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5

Yeah man. I’m certainly not defending the actions. It is what it is.

I appreciate your input. I think in the back of my head, I knew that was probably the answer.

6

Honestly, it didn’t stick out to me as something that needed to be immediately addressed, but I can see now that it probably should, and also can be addressed pretty easily.

Do you have any recommendations for how much iron? I’m going to start looking online to see what I can find.

7

Thanks man. I appreciate your input. I think this is the only reasonable solution.

Other than that, I could try low dose AI, but I’m not willing to make more mistakes on top of this. I’ll be immediately lowering the dose to 150/week starting tomorrow on my normal days.

I ordered some iron supplements to start that.

Do you think it would be helpful to increase my dosing frequency, or is that something I should change on its own? Like go down to 150/wk, then after a month or so, increase the frequency. One person suggested dosing ED. I could do that.

Thanks again, man.

8

If it were Me?
I would lower the dose to 75mg takin twice weekly. 150mg total
Skip the HCG and the AI. As one lends to the other.
Retake bloods in 6 wks and repost here.
Best of luck to you.

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9

@Friscokid @Andrewgen_Receptors

Agree with these guys. Lower dose to 150mg and stay that course for at least 6 weeks. It takes awhile for these symptoms to resolve, you can’t change things to quickly or it’s like dog chasing tail.

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10

Thanks man. I appreciate your input as well as @Friscokid.

I finally got some movement on the lab today. I’m going to continue what I’m doing just through my lab appointment on Monday. I want to get a sense of where my e2 is in this current climate. After I get the blood taken, then I switch to the 150mg, drop the hcg and don’t start the AI.

6 weeks after that, I’ll get the blood taken again. Maybe it’s dumb to want to know what the labs are now on the items that didn’t result, but I want to know, and it’s the difference of a single dose, so whatever.
I also got some iron supplements to address the ferritin issue, which, not surprisingly, can cause some of my issues. I also got P5P to see about lowering the prolactin. It will be nice to see the befores and afters for those + the change to test.

Thanks everyone.

11

here is a funny thing. HCG caused EXACTLY the same symptoms of anxiety in me. I took an AI and 6h later things calmed down. i was like its e2 for sure right? I can’t pinpoint it, but this problem is fixed now. I do 3x1000IU HCG/week + FSH +HMG(variating weeks). FSH is at 3x50IU. I got 0 anxiety. my e2 levels dropped slightly with weight loss 60->50pg/ml and TRT adjustment. (Tprop 25mg/daily) I also take pregnenolone 100mg+400mg mag glyc

12

Damn this is kind of interesting. That’s like 6x more hcg than I was taking. What’s the rationale for a dose that high?

I can’t say I’ve even finding FSH or HMG. What are the details of that? Did you start it as a result of the anxiety reaction to hcg? Or was that a result of the test prop crashing your FSH and LH? From what I can tell, taking exogenous test is just going to do that and it’s why PCT is so important if you ever come off, but I guess that’s more relevant to cycling rather than just being on trt for life.

13

libido/mood is better on a high dose hcg. i’m on trt no coming off.
fsh/hmg is for fertility + (also raises sperm amount significantly if you care) the anxiety reduction was probably related to TRT protocol change + pregnenolone+magnesium. i can DM you sources I use (is dm here a thing?)

14

Yo, I was wondering the same thing. Was going to dm you yesterday, but I don’t think that’s available here unfortunately. I’d be down to share my email here. What are your thoughts on that? V interested to hear more.

15

i just shoot it here, my main to hcg/fsh source has been cosmicpct(find on sst or yandex etc), is an indian seller. I use exclusively eutrig(samarth), some people report good results with zyhcg but tests are mixed on that one. you can’t beat 10k IU for 14usd really.
reliablerxpharmacy is another option, double the price, and if you go that route use only zyhcg. but again, according to janoshik and such zy is hit/miss.

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Thanks bro. I really appreciate it. Looks like I need a password to enter the site. You think going on SST and contacting that way is the best route?

EDIT - Spoke too soon. I was able to figure it out. Thanks so much man. I appreciate it.

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