My name is Dan, I am 24 y/o and live in the UK. When I was 23 i was diagnosed with secondary hypogonadism which is was caused by anorexia during my pubescent years due to the lack of fats in my diet and my constant extremely low weight. I fully recovered from the anorexia 2 years ago but it was after this i found out the issues it had left me with.
I started TRT this time last year in the form of Tostran Gel but this did jack all for me and in May of this year on started on Nebido, this has helped but its very up and down and I am running out at the halfway point between my 10 weekly injections.
I have been doing lots of reading up on the idea of a Clomid restart and given that I am only 24 and only been on proper TRT for 6 months or so, I think I have a good chance of kick starting my natural production again especially now I am heavily in to the bodybuilding lifestyle and diet etc.
Now I hope that the UK health service will allow me to try this and prescribe me the script but UK TRT is very different to US TRT because our “experts” know nothing about it and its very hard for us to ask to try things because of the cost to the NHS etc.
If the worst comes to worst and she says no then I will try it on my own and get my own Clomid from my own sources, not what I want but they will leave me no choice. As for the protocol this is what I had in mind;
12 weeks @ 25mg ED
12 weeks @ 25mg EOD
12 weeks @ 25mg 3 x week
Then stop completely, I will also try and get tests after each phase.
I have read that its best to try at 25mg first to see if I get a response and if not then up it to 50mg.
What are peoples thoughts on this, is this ok to run or should I change the time scales. I dont want to try HCG with it, I want to try and restart with as little medical intervention as possible. The only thing I may run is an AI if estrogen increases as well.
You might want to try a large dose day 1. Maybe 100mg? You probably want to do a week or so at 50mg, then drop down to 25mg for the rest of the month before testing. If all looks good, you can start reducing the dose and testing again after a few weeks.
HCG is nice option for a week or two before PCT with clomid. You do could do 500IU every day for week or two to get you berries in decent shape before the PCT.
This is what I might try soon. I’ve tried PCT at lower doses of Nolva and Torem with poor results. I also didn’t do higher doses of HCG to start the PCT.
The idea of starting at a higher dose is a good one and something I will employ.
I am still very dubious about injecting myself hence the reason wanting to try without HCG. I think what I will do is run the clomid as described and if after the first 6-8 weeks I haven’t seen any improvements then I might let that lot of clomid work its way out of my system and then start again but with HCG.
One other question; If I have to do this on my own behind my Endo and GP’s back I will have to work it around the next 2-3 injections of nebido, I don’t want to refuse the injections because if I do they may know something is up and then refuse to let me have them any more and I don’t want that just incase this restart doesn’t work.
So I was planning on starting the clomid after my next injection which is on the 10th of December, I will then have 10 clear weeks to know if the clomid is working. Do you see any issue with me doing this i.e Running clomid just after I have had a 4g injection of T?? If it helps, the T is running out after about 6 weeks so if my T is still up there after 10 weeks I will know the clomid is doing its job, in that case I will skip the next injection and just come up with some excuse not to have it. I will just say that I have decided to try letting my system start naturally again for a few months, this way they should let me jump back on Nebido should I need to.
There’s no way you’re going to restart yourself with Clomid right after a Nebido injection. You might get a little T production going, but your body will be living on the Nebido. Have you asked your doctor about trying to restart ?
I will be seeing my Endo on Friday so hopefully she will be up for letting me try it and I will just be able to go full bore with the clomid, postpone the injections and let me jump back on the injections if it fails.
If she doesn’t let me and I have to do it on my own I will the clomid after my next injection anyway to see if I maintain a decent level of T over the 10 weeks (T has been dropping back to starting levels after 6-8 weeks so far). If I do then I will know the Clomid is working and also that my Leydig cells are responding. Once I know this much I will have a clearer Idea of what to do next.
As mentioned, it would be a waste of time to try doing a restart while on Nebido because of negative feedback on the HPTA (shutdown) from the Nebido.
A restart should continue for some time after the Nebido has left your body. The average half life of Nebido intramuscular injection is about 3 months according to the product literature, meaning that after 3 months half of the Nebido will still be in your body, 6 months after injection you will still have about 1/4 of the Nebido in your system, after 9 months 1/8 of the original dose, and so on. This means that although you could probably start getting some of your own T produced using Clomid, say, 3 months after the last injection, you will probably have to continue using Clomid until at least a year after your last injection for the restart to be a good one. If you don’t continue the Clomid until the Nebido is mostly out of your body, the remaining Nebido will just shut your T production down again as soon as you stop the Clomid.
It is your absolute right to decide not to get the Nebido injections and there is no reason I can see why a doctor would be angry about that. You don’t need to give a reason but if you want to you can just say you want to see how you do without the drug for a year or so. There is nothing at all wrong with that. Why do you think the doctors would penalize you for it in the future?
There is no reason to start with a higher dose of Clomid than 25 mg. Higher doses aren’t more effective and have a larger risk of side effects.
Missed the nebido part. That’s going to be a sucky restart. Could run HCG while the nebido clears. Should keep the boys ready for a restart. Not much use for a SERM until T levels drop a bit.
I have not used clomid, but thought it had a 5-7 day half life. If you wanted to run at 25mgs ED for a number of weeks or months, it would seem you could get to those blood levels faster by front loading a bit.
Urgh, why does the Endocrine system have to be so bloody complex and complicated!
Well thank you both for your input, It has been great.
So by the sounds of it what I need to do is not get my next injection, run a lowish dose of clomid for up to a year in the hope that it begins to stimulate some T production and I feel OK, which it should do given the studies in the past on using Clomid for TRT. After a year all of the Nebido should be out of my system and I can try for a restart.
On that note, would i need to stop taking clomid for a little while and then start the restart from fresh or could I just begin to taper off the dose i was using for the past year??
Oh Seekonk, to answer your question about stopping Nebido; The NHS are real buggers and if I were to stop I couldn’t just go back to my GP and say put me back on it, he would have to make a case for me going back on it, the get me referred back to my Endo, I may have to wait for up to 8 months for an appointment and then I would have to argue the toss with my Endo. Its a long hard arduous process to say the least!