Hey all, so my doc has me on 200mg every week split into 2 doses every 3.5 days. I was also prescribed .25mg arimidex every week(one dose a week) that I take after my first shot. I was on .5mg once a week but that shot my estrodiol levels way down. My question is, is this normal? Wouldn’t the arimidex have worn off by the time i take my second shot thus not being effective enough to suppress any estrogen spikes? Or am I not understand how long/effective arimidex is?
Thanks in advance!
Throw the arimidex in the trash. You’ll thank me later.
My doc had me try that after stopping the .5mg every week, after a month my estrodiol shot up to 50pg/mL which indicated that I need a very small dose of arimidex(or lower test in the future, idk I’m still figuring it out as I go).
If you only need .25 per week you probably don’t need it at all. That sounds like the protocol I was on to keep e-2 at 22-25. I dropped it and I’m consistently at 30-35 but feel much on 200 mg a week of rest.
I think we posted at similar times but I had mentioned that my estrodiol went up to 50pg/mL after stopping AI and it made me feel terrible with some added ED problems which was unfortunate lol
Your doc is going about this all wrong, first it sounds like drugs you were prescribed right away to control estrogen, but adjusting your dosage changes your testosterone which affects your estrogen, so if you want to decrease estrogen, adjust your dosage or inject more frequently until sides are gone.
The half life of anastrozole is 2 days and reaches a stable state in 10 days. Starting the AI was a bit premature in my opinion. You might have to inject small doses daily or every other day to minimize estrogen spikes if decreasing the dosage on your twice weekly protocol doesn’t fix your ED problems.
I have to inject every other day to fix my erection issues.
Yeah he put me on 200mg with .5mg starting off which, after reading up on it a bit, seems a bit excessive. I’ll definitely be lowering my dose in the near future because I feel as though I can probably do away with the AI if I can find the right dose. I’ll consider taking even more frequent injections as well.
But do you think anastrozole reaches a stable state no matter the frequency of taking the pill as long as I take it on a weekly basis? Or does it reach a stable state taking it more frequently(every 3.5 days or something)
For about 6 years, I was on 160mg per week, split into 2 doses per week, with .25mg anastrozole @24 hours after each injection. Almost 7 weeks ago, I switched to 200mg per week, with EOD injections, and I dropped the anastrozole completely.
Drop the anastrozole poison. Your body will thank you.
Oh wow, despite increased test you were able to just drop it completely? That makes a lot of sense because the body is being fed test at more natural rate rather than an unnatural twice a week, thus eliminating estrogen spikes. Thanks for the input.
Also, do you feel a ton better now that you’re doing EOD w/o anastrozole than you did before when you were doing e3.5 with AI?
That doesn’t indicate anything other than what’s on a piece of paper. It doesn’t matter. In the vast majority of cases your body will figure it out. That doesn’t mean levels will magically decline significantly, but levels like these aren’t a concern either. Mine has been in the 70’s without any issues. Some are closer to 100 with no issues.
I really think you will feel better without it long term.
Yeah I agree with you and that makes sense, but I was definitely feeling pretty bad(emotional/ED mainly) so I needed to do something about it. More and more I’m starting to think EOD injections without AI or lowering the dose, again without AI, is the solution.
I replied earlier but don’t think I tagged you, in addition to my reply I guess my question is will I be okay with just taking AI once a week to get up to a stable state or should I request that I be given .125mg instead to take twice a week following my injections?
Why not try 3x week with no AI for around 2 months. Give your body time to find balance. If you still have symptoms check bloods and change your dose or frequency. I used AI for awhile and always crashed my E. It’s not pleasant. Generally a moderate dose, with the correct frequency will do the trick. And 50pg/ml E2 isn’t really high. I’m at that now and all good.
Yeah seems like the correct route is increase test dose frequency, do you normally do MWF? or Mon Wed Fri Sun Tue Thur Sat…and so on.
After the 5th week I’ve been feeling better almost every day. I think my BP is coming down, and some residual brain fog is clearing.
What I was told, was that my “E2 symptoms” weren’t really caused by high E2, but were due to my sensitivity to hormone fluctuations. EOD injections have less fluctuations, therefore less symptoms. I just don’t have any noticeable symptoms that I had before.
Make it easier, and more consistent, and just do EOD. Three times a week just doesn’t give the same consistency, because instead of constantly having one day in between injections, you have once a week that you have two days in between, which leads to more of a drop in levels. You want consistency, and leave it alone for 6-8 weeks.
It may or may not get worse at the beginning, before it gets better.
For me, I seemed to have more tiredness in the evenings, which is starting to subside now, after 6 weeks in.
Ugh, that’s the thing about adjusting doses and what not, it’s pretty much an art haha and sometimes your numbers could be perfect but like you said it could be because of dosage timings. After this thread I think I will be updating my dose to a more frequent time rather than 3.5 days. Very frustrating trying to find the right protocol but I’ll get it down.
You levels aren’t elevated yet, at 6 weeks levels will be higher so it makes no sense to take the AI when levels are low. Your symptoms are from hormonal fluctuations and/or hormonal spikes and not necessarily high hormone levels.
I’m not sure I understand the context of your response. Let’s say, hypothetically, I stick with the .25mg I’m asking if one pill a week is effective in gradually increasing anastrozole levels in the body or does the pill need to be split up into .125mg and taken more than once a week since the anastrozole leaves the body so quickly that it wouldn’t have enough time to even build up in the body. Does that make sense or am I talkin crazy haha
Edit: That makes sense, along with what Gossamer stated as well regarding the hormonal fluctuations.
Edit 2: I’m also asking my doc for the last 2 blood test results so i can see where my SHBG levels are at, I’ll respond with those as well because that will also give us some more information on how my body reacts to injection frequencies.