The mentality of blaming everything on e2 looks like will take longer to break…
It appears this mentality of from the steroid users???
1 Like
You’ve seen them, and failed to manage that.
The fact is, no one can say definitively what level of E2 might be bad for us, but we know where to point for low levels causing harm. Absence of a study doesn’t actually rove that it isn’t, and blanket negation of studies because you don’t like “Observational” studies is silly and pig-headed. I would imagine that an E2 of 2000 would be bad, and a Test level that would bring it into ratio would also be bad for you. No one has a study for that. We do have studies posted by various members showing high E2 to have negative health consequences. Is it the actual number? Probably not. My money is on the ratio being the issue for the men in those studies. I seriously doubt that there are many guys on here that need any form of E2 control, and I include daily injections as a form of control. But no one has the ability to conclusively state that NO ONE needs it. Who knows what weird condition could be aggravated by it?
For the record. I have never had ED, and don’t know much about it other than extremely high BP can give you a permanent case of it over time.
There isn’t much of that mentality on here, actually. There are guys that jump up and down a lot about it though.
No need, grab some exogenous estrogen and go for it.
There are men that actually need to do just that who do not aromatize enough. It’s very rare, but it happens.
@hardartery send me one or two. I’m significantly better prepared now for study analysis than I was previously.
Stating that the absence of a study doesn’t prove it, is one thing. The question is: WHERE are you getting information that has convinced you that you need to be concerned with ‘higher levels’? What is it precisely that you learned that made you even consider that there is potentially some amount that needs to be addressed? You state you have no evidence, which is fine. But if there WERE issues with higher levels of E2 causing any harm, would we not have seen them by now? Would this not be measurable? Would this not be demonstrable?
It’s like me saying that I believe that unicorns are dangerous. I’ve never seen a unicorn. There is nothing that demonstrates that they even exist. There is no literature or documentation that I should even be concerned about it, yet I am. You would tell me I’m nuts. You would ask me why I am afraid of something that I have LITERALLY no reason to be because there is nothing that demonstrates that I should be.
Again, here is the inherent problem with your theory: take any of these men with low T and ‘high’ E2. Jack up their testosterone. The higher levels of testosterone raise E2 even higher. Suddenly their issues vanish. Everything across the board improves. They have even MORE E2 than they did before (when apparently it was ‘high’ and now it’s even ‘higher’). It’s been done thousands of times at this point with the exact same end result. I can’t think of anything that has been proven to me more significantly than this one simple concept.
You do NOT have to worry WHATSOEVER about E2 levels. I don’t care how high it gets. It will remain in a ratio based on your testosterone levels. If you have total T of 1600, your E2 will be 100 (perhaps more). Total T levels of 1600 were NORMAL just a little over a decade ago. That’s how much they dropped. No doc back then would tell you to drop your dose if you had 1600. You can’t have more E2 than testosterone since testosterone creates E2. You would have to be taking high doses of exogenous estradiol to accomplish this and clearly none of us are doing this.
Your free T levels typically need to be above 30 ng/dL to get all the benefits of testosterone and have enough of it convert to estradiol. All we are concerned with is the free testosterone levels. Once that is accomplished you need to give the body TIME to adjust and make use of it (several weeks to see a change and then several months to see the eventual outcome). This is all you need to do.
You are absolutely minimizing any of your benefits by worrying about higher levels of testosterone (which were once normal and are needed more than ever today due to EDCs), higher levels of E2, or DHT. We no longer measure the last two.
If a particular number scares you, stop measuring it.
I don’t know how else to explain this. If you would see what I see ever single day this would be common sense to you.
If you want to block estradiol (and block its benefits), go ahead. But don’t give that bad advice to the noobs that don’t know any better. Getting T levels up and improving health is of concern. Being afraid of E2 is just crazy. It’s absolutely insanely crazy. “I’m taking my AI but I have low libido”. Of course! You’re blocking the damn thing that GIVES you libido! It GIVES you better erections! Crash your estrogen and you have no libido or erections. Increase estradiol and you get MORE libido and erections.
Stop blocking the thing that gives you the things you’re looking for with TRT because it’s nuts.
In almost every single case I see, the issue is testosterone resistance where higher levels are required to exert an effect. In almost all of those cases, it remained unsolved because the patient or doc was focused on E2 and trying to control it. Had they simply ignored E2, like the rest of us do, and focused on increasing free T until symptoms resolved, they would get things accomplished significantly faster.
1 Like
Wow this escalated quickly, lol.
1 Like
Nobody is grandstanding. Seriously? A comment was made and I responded. Again you keep acting like I say “my way or the highway”. I never said that. You should go through everything we have in our group in terms of studies and go read the hundreds of articles and literature
On estrogen out there.
The basic is that if you feel good at a free t level. The estrogen created along with that free t is what the body wants and needs. Nobody is telling anyone they need 100. They are saying guys with 100 have zero problems years past.
Estrogen is blamed whether it’s at 50 or 30 or more.
i was not referring to you. You are fairly even keeled. I read a lot of stuff, as I know do you, and you know I’m not one to point the finger at E2 for every itchy nipple
1 Like
I think the only way we can settle the E2 debate now is to arrange a street brawl or wrestling match.
Yup . I thought you were no worries.
Wow. This thread certainly went to shit from such a simple question
I haven’t had a chance to read every post so maybe this was already answered. I’m asking YOU if there’s such a thing as too much, not the other way around.
You’ve answered that too low is an issue (which we all know) and that it can be supplemented (I wasn’t sure, but suspected that to be the case), but nothing regarding if there is such a thing as too much.
My guess is there is such a thing as too much, and especially when the ratio gets too out of whack, i.e. not enough T to balance out that much E, but I don’t know. That’s why I was asking.
Gotcha. The thing you need to understand is that only a very tiny percentage of testosterone gets converted into estrogen. We’re talking 3-4%. So when guys say, “Would too much be like 200!?” you have to wonder how much testosterone they would need to take to get levels that high. I don’t know any. There are several guys in our group with free T in the 50-60 range and E2 at 120. These guys are libido machines with boners made from titanium… it’s nuts. These are guys that used to take an AI so they are freaking out over the difference the higher levels of E2 make. Everyone has cut it out. We don’t know of a level that is ‘too high’ because all we are seeing is benefits. You want to optimize all hormones. You don’t just raise T and suppress E2. That is a recipe for disaster. The number of guys that complain about libido and erections but are taking an AI is nuts. They wean themselves off, let their bodies adjust over many weeks, and then they feel better and are HEALTHIER than before.
Here are some videos I’ve done that can assist (in case you haven’t seen them):
Me alone:
Me with Keith Nichols and Scott Howell:
(my voice came out really strange on the second one and we don’t know why)
You keep talking about not lowering E2 like we’re advocating we should or something, which just isn’t the case. This isn’t one of the forums that are still advocating that. I was just curious if there was a point of diminishing returns or not.
My E2 is over 70 and free T around 40. Just curious if I would feel better even higher on both or not.
I feel better than I did before I started but don’t feel as good as I did towards the end of using injections (150mg/week) but I don’t have any blood work from then to compare to. I’ve been debating either increasing or decreasing my dose (on 150mg/day of cream) to try to figure out if either way would help but haven’t decided which way to go yet, if any.
Before I answer, what is your exact protocol? 150mg of cream once a day? Are you taking anything else at all?
100mg in the morning
50mg at night
And nothing else at all. No vitamin, nothing
I have another thread with more info on my latest labs. I feel thyroid might be becoming an issue as tsh keeps going up. Started at 2 a year ago and it’s almost at 3 now
Funny… I JUST replied to a facebook message request from someone’s wife with the same protocol… any relation? Are you the one getting various results from month to month with the cream you are using? Or is it two cases that are similar but not related?
Complete coincidence as far as I know. I’ll check the group just to be sure she didn’t get bored at work and start researching, haha
My results haven’t really varied month to month like that… it’s been pretty consistent after the first 2 weeks or so on cream. I just don’t feel as good as I did towards the end of doing injections (it took 7 weeks to finally feel good on those)
Just to confirm… her first name doesn’t start with an M does it?
Nope
I can tell you Dr Nichols starts men off on 100mg twice daily. He rarely sees any need to lower it unless the patient is a hyper responder. Is there anything stopping you from trying 100mg twice daily?
To answer the previous question, if you are in good health so can increase the dose if you still feel like you have unresolved symptoms or don’t feel as dialed in as you used to. My guess is the 100mg twice daily would resolve that.
Also, we are seeing many compounding pharmacies that are making inconsistent creams from month to month. Ensure that the cream is 200mg/gram, using micronized testosterone with a versabase/lipoderm cream. If you find you are getting varied results from month to month it could be the cream itself that is not being compounded well enough. Your T levels are high enough to have healthy levels of estradiol. Right now your concern should be to dial in your dose better. Even with a free T as high as 40 we are still seeing guys that need a touch more. It happens. Where does your Free T3 sit for thyroid last you checked?