Balancing mood, hair, acne, estrogen

Pharma / TRT
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Trying to keep it short, I tried 250mg Test-E per week with HCG and did get some effects in the nipple, acne, after several weeks and a glimpse of hair thinning, mood was good.

I tried 125 Test-E with 250mg Deca per week but actually had the same side effects after several weeks, acne on arms and back got worse with time, no noticeable change in mood.

I got a hair cut and didn’t notice any additional hair thinning but travelled shortly after and got some different gear so I tried 150mg Test-E and 150mg increased to 300mg Deca per week, increased over a few weeks. It didn’t take long to notice hair thinning.

I then took 300mg nandrolone + HCG per week, upped it to 400mg as I had some to use up, hair grew fast, not sure if the thinning has decreased, I can mainly see it when brushing my hair, will get another hair cut tomorrow and it should be clearer, but while not terrible, mood isn’t as good as with test. Nandrolone only is known for mood issues and decreases in dopamine while test and dht increase dopamine. Now I sometimes have a bit of anxiety which taking test cured. My HCG hasn’t been perfect the last month or so, so fixing that now that I’m home might help a bit. My libido is high but things take a bit longer to complete, not really an issue, just might end up with one arm bigger than the other. Virtually no acne taking nandrolone only.

I want to take about 350mg gear but might take 250mg for a while.

Here’s the debate in my mind, I can go with a test base and take hair loss meds like finasteride to decrease DHT, the test itself should increase dopamine even without DHT then if I wanted to I could add a low dose of nandrolone for joints. I know finasteride can have side effects on mood and sexual function, just like nandrolone only, but I would take that risk.

The other option is use a nandrolone base, fix my HCG, make sure I don’t miss cabergoline doses and add something like 50mg test per week for a slight mood boost, hoping it is enough for a mood boost, with the HCG, but not enough to cause acne and then monitoring the estrogen.

Now my hair thinning is very minimal, nobody notices yet apart from me, so just shaving it off and adopting the image isn’t really something I want to go for, and just getting off the gear to save my hair isn’t really something I want to do either, without any gear I have anxiety. I’m also aware that things like proviron and masteron can improve mood and sexual function issues of nandrolone, but they don’t appear to be hair safe.

Currently, I am leaning towards a test base, with finasteride, hoping it’s enough for good mood and that finasteride can decrease hair loss, acne and potential prostate enlargement too, and I could add minoxidil topically or even topical androgen blockers, but that may be overkill at this point.

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Is this entire post about your hair? I’d rather just live with low test levels than worry about taking all the shit you mentioned.

You are all over the place and don’t seem to have any protocol in place. Do you have any blood work to post so you know what you’re dealing with?
Is this doctor prescribed testosterone/deca?

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It tracks.

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It’s about hair and mood mostly. Mood and confidence changes are the main reason why I started taking testosterone. Preferring low T is like preferring to be sad and anxious all the time. If I had a protocol in place, I wouldn’t have made the post.

Anyway, it seems like the standard fin/dut/min protocol is the way to go, especially since nandrolone itself has a high binding affinity to the androgen receptors, almost as much as DHT.

My conflict was the whole idea of nandrolone being relatively hair safe while equally anabolic and research across several forums including this one with many reports and experiments showing that sexual side effects are very minimal when a small amount like 50mg of testosterone is included.

If the post was just about hair then I could either just take nandrolone or take testosterone with finasteride or dutasteride. But the thing is that both nandrolone and finasteride or dutasteride can both worsen mood and decrease dopamine levels in the brain. Cabergoline is also taken with nandrolone to stimulate dopamine receptors and potentially counter that issue. So, I thought somebody here might have more insight.

The estrogen is easy to track, acne is likely caused by the same androgens that cause hair thinning. So the main thing is balancing the androgens for hair health as well as mental health.

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Finesteride and nandrolone are no go together.
You may be aware of that, but I’m getting conflicting thoughts in your posts, so that it probably on my end.

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Yes I am aware that nandrolone with finasteride would reduce the conversion to DHN, and that nandrolone has a binding affinity of 92% compared to DHT, so it is not a great idea. I think I will avoid nandrolone with finasteride even though a small amount might be fine, but I should have made that clearer.

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I really advise against taking finasteride. It will crush your DHT levels, and DHT is super important for sense of well-being and libido. If you’re genetically predisposed to alopecia, you’re going to experience balding probably even at lower DHT levels. I think most people would prefer to feel good and have a healthy libido than a head of hair. If losing hair gets to a certain point, just start buzz cutting. Women are much more attracted to men with a buzz cut than a comb over or hair just around the head.
I personally like nandrolone for its joint lubricating effects; it helps my intense weight lifting be less painful and better recovery. I take 75mg a week along with 120mg Test.
I’m thinking about adding 25mg a day proviron, to increase my DHT levels.

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That’s also why I like nandrolone, but both nandrolone and finasteride have the same issue with mood and libido and quite a lot of people find they have an increased libido on finasteride from increased testosterone and potentially due to increased estrogen. Finasteride only decreases systemic DHT by 70% and scalp DHT by 41%. Considering I’d be taking higher amounts of testosterone the DHT might only be 40-50% less than normal levels. Also, topical finasteride wouldn’t even go systemic but wouldn’t protect the prostate much at all.

There is even another route without decreasing DHT at all, which is using androgen blockers, they’re more experimental but people have had a lot of success with them, they essentially bind to the androgen receptors in the scalp, blocking DHT and other androgens. I’ve been on nandrolone only for about 6 weeks except for a poorly implemented HCG and my libido has remained high, the ONLY downside is decreased mood/more anxiety, which might be possible to regain with 50mg test or even low dose proviron.

Like it’s possible that 200mg nandrolone + 50mg test + HCG + Cabergoline could maintain good mood, libido, sexual function, hair health and low or no acne.

It’s also possible that it’s not enough for good mood and still too much to maintain hair. And even then I could add an androgen blocker and up the test, but I guess there isn’t much information on using nandrolone for hair health, especially taking mental health into account. Perhaps I’m in very experimental territory.

I’ve seen several reports of high dose nandrolone, even up to 700mg with lowish dose of test like 50-100mg and sexual function is maintained. I’ve also seen other cases where increasing nandrolone even while taking testosterone makes people more emotionally sensitive in a dose dependent manner. I’ve seen reports of people whose mental health worsened with finasteride and they switched to nandrolone and still maintained their hair, but not much more information about that.

I’ve seen at least 1 report of someone taking 500mg test with just finasteride and maintaining hair and sexual function and then there is at least 1 very notable case of someone on testosterone only using just androgen blockers to maintain hair, and it works, even with photos of time off from the androgen blockers resulting in loss and then time back on again, with no finasteride or nandrolone.

There are so many options, I’ve been researching hair loss treatments for the last 2 months or so and there are so many options and they are very effective. But I guess I was hoping for a bit more feedback of people with experience in the matter.

I may try nandrolone with low test for a few weeks or months and monitor for hair and mood getting worse or better and then adjust from there.

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I might be mistaken, but I believe the studies suggest topical finasteride reduces systematic DHT levels by approximately 42% and oral finasteride by approximately 70%. This is why they’re seeing a lot of men experience finasteride syndrome with topical finasteride too. The studies suggest that some men are really sensitive to even small changes to DHT levels while other men do just fine even with significant fluctuations.

Anyhow, you make some good points.

I’d add that for some people 2% Ketoconazole Shampoo is quite effective with maintaining scalp hair follicle health (reducing alopecia).

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I have a friend that had prescription deca and said his hair fell out by the handful in about two weeks so he stopped. I don’t know the dosage that he was using.

Had to edit my atrocity of a statement. Apologies to all who tried to decipher it…fml

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Maybe it was a high dose, which does have a high binding affinity to the androgen receptors. However, pretty much all treatments cause initial shedding as they quickly shift the hair from a resting state to a growing state so the weakest hairs fall out, the ones that would have fallen out in the coming weeks anyway. The shedding stage can last for several weeks.

For now I have decided on my treatment option to try, which is minoxidil plus a topical androgen blocker, people even on 2g of gear have found this to be effective and it won’t decrease DHT levels. Estrogen will be monitored as normal. If acne appears, the androgen blocker should also work for that, in theory. The only slight concern would be the prostate, but with a topical androgen blocker I can use test with deca together which should be much less risky than just using test alone or even very high doses of nandrolone alone.

Well if the treatment doesn’t work for me then I’ll have to go test only and add finasteride, even if only topically.