I’ve been taking test cyp @20mg/day IM for the last 6 weeks.
I’ve been having symptoms of high estrogen which I’d describe as edema, easily tears eyed watching movies, emotional, low stress threshold, and a mediocre libido. Also finishing sex very quickly and with a weak climax…
I’m thinking my best option is to lower my dose. Or would I be better off trying to wait it out?
What I’m confused about is all the talk of letting estrogen rise but I’m sure these symptoms aren’t in my head. Why can’t I tolerate slightly elevated E2?
Thanks man. I’m just having a hard time understanding how the body will suddenly rid itself of extra water and adapt.
I’m going to give it more time. I acknowledge it may not even be estrogen causing my issues. Maybe it’s my t is too high for me or something else entirely…
So dam confusing and difficult to stay the course when you need relief yesterday.
Just a few hours on my feet and I feel like an old woman who needs to put her feet up! I’m use to going hard on my feet all day long with no issues.
Edema is primarily caused by the a direct action of testosterone on the sodium reabsorption in the kidneys (renin agiotensin system). For me it was temporary and went away after a couple of weeks.
Emotional aspect might be related to E2. I lowered my dose and got rid of these symptoms.
I’m not under the care of a doctor. I considered that possibly my FT is too high for my body.
In previous labs it’s always been fairly high and I’d speculate it is now as well.
But are there real people who have felt better by lowering their ft?
I’m not doubting it, I just like to hear first hand experience.
Also bear in mind, this is a lifelong commitment, not a short term fix. Blasting your body now with excessive testosterone is only going to increase your chances of problems in later life.
I had my freeT at the upper reference range and felt strange, including high E2.
After reducing the dose my freeT as at the mean of my age (about 10 ng/dl) and I feel fine again. But thats only my personal experience. I dont see any point in raising T too high, but would like to raise it to a ‘natural’ level.
But you will certainly get different opinions on this forum. Many will say that you only feel super good if you are at the upper limit or above.
Thanks for the feedback.
I agree that may be what I need to do. Long before this there was a time in my life where I was taking 250mg/week Injected once a week and had a raging libido.
But now I’m struggling with 140mg/week injected daily…
I’ve been wanting that libido back but the sides are getting in my way. I feel heavier, tired, and look bloated. I’m constantly dripping sweat from my arm pits and even though I can perform sexually, it’s not something I’m craving like in the past.
Is there anyone who has lowered their dose and found they had better libido?
I am going to jump in here and stir things up.As you can see by your next to zero LH and FSH, your body is not being asked to make any testosterone; but you already knew that. As far as your elevated Estradiol goes, you are deep in “oh shit” land. When I had Estradiol numbers like yours, I cried at commercials on television, and I was bloated like I never knew, oh and I was really bitchy about everything. Maybe my first hand experience will show some light on your problem. Throughout the past 13 years I have learned a lot of stuff; some of it the hard way but I will share when asked and/or needed. The first you need to do is to get your Estradiol numbers down. I use anastrozole as it has been predictable in every case I know of and the liquid stuff works just fine, is is more calibrate-able then trying to crush tablets. No one has yet mentioned the Aromitase enzyme turning your precious Testosterone into Estradiol. An ideal number for most men is Estradiol in the low 20’s which will give you a REALLY high T level with what you are on now.
The Aromitase enzyme is found in many fat cells in the body, and the weight around the middle a person carries, the higher the total Estradiol will be without and a way to keep it in check, bloating, crappy sex, fogged brain, (yes in a man Estradiol will do that to him) and a litany of other crap as well. The good thing is after you start getting your Estradiol down your T levels will naturally start to rise even higher.
So the question becomes, “How much Adex (anastrozole) do I take?” This is the challenging part, Adex is kind of like fertilizer, if you use too much it will kill your plant and for some men 0.25 Mg’s per week is enough some guys need 2 Mg’s or more per week. My doctor decided 1.5 Mg’s of Adex per week was working for me so that is my current dosage. After you get your Estradiol under control we can discuss HCG. HCG does a few really cool things, and one of them is the production of pregnenolone a very important hormone to have circulation in your body. If you want more info, PM me.
Thanks for the reply. I really appreciate the personal insight.
I agree my e2 at this level is no good for me. Someone else maybe, but for me it doesn’t feel right. My ankles are swollen, I feel in a fog, and several other issues.
However, I will not take an ai yet… I’ve crashed my estrogen more than once and last time it took almost 6 months to return.
That was much worse than what I have going on now. I always felt amazing for a few days after that initial ai dose. But it has always been downhill from there.
I’m contemplating reducing my dose from 140mg/week injected daily (20mg per day) down to 120mg/week.
Don’t change anything until after 8 weeks (so week 9). How pissed would you be if you actually found the perfect protocol and you switched right before it was about to flip the good switch to on.
I recently went from EOD sub-q to daily IM. I felt great on daily sub-q, not great on EOD sub-q so decided to try daily IM. At week 6 I still felt like crap. Worse than EOD and was thinking IM isn’t for me. The crazy thing is I know from all 15 previous protocol changes I did that they all took 8 weeks before I felt even slightly better. So I waited it out and sure enough on daily IM I feel better than I could have imagined and I was so close to changing right before I got there. Had I done that I’d be bitching on here how daily IM isn’t for me.
The thing with Adex is you can control it very closely to not have any problems. I know of a man who wanted his E down and nothing else down either…
He was quite sensitive to Adex and his happy place dose was 1/4 Mg. every five days. He got his morning wood back and stayed happy.
What the above man did was this: 0.25 Mg every 7 days for two months, he then went to 0.25 Mg every 6 days for two months, and found his happy spot was 0.25 Mg’s every five days as mentioned above. Adex is powerful stuff, but a tiny bit goes a long way.
For those who may know about the life cycle of an enzyme quit reading now, however for those that don’t please continue on. An enzyme’s life span in the body is approximately 2 hours, and during those 2 hours the enzyme is possible to cycle up to 10,000 times. This is why it is critical to stop the aromitase enzyme in it’s tracks. I have been at this stuff since 2007, and have seen guys get greedy with the Adex and they felt like they had arthritis and a limp unit. They got off of the Adex and three or so days later they returned to normal.
The fact that there are liquids available makes it super easy to dial in a perfect dosage, and if you pass up the sweet spot somewhere within the 3 days later, you will be back to normal as mentioned above. I will guess you did not use Adex or Letrozole, because you say it took forever to get back to your normal. If you are interested in more info, email toopatient2 at yahoo.com
@KNB
How did you come up with estrogen in the low 20’s being ideal for most men? You forgot to answer that so I figured I’d ask again. After reading your understanding of enzymes I’m looking forward to what you have to say.
I was in fact using adex at a very low dose when I crashed my estrogen. Once I found out my estrogen was crashed, I immediately discontinued the adex. However, my estrogen did in fact stay crashed for many months.
I’m not sure of the details of how that was possible but I confirmed it through regular blood tests. I kept my t dose the same and my TT was consistently above 1000 yet my estrogen hovered around 10.
I want to avoid that in the future, but I’m starting to believe I do need to keep my e2 lower than what it currently is at.
I’m going to stay the course as @dextermorgan kindly recommended. If I’m still feeling emotional or excessive edema then I’ll try dropping my T dose down a little.
One variable I failed to mention earlier is that I’ve been regularly drinking 3-4 units of alcohol per night.
For some reason I seem to crave alcohol much more when either my E2 rises or when my FT is too high or both. I’m not sure why that is, but when I’m in “the zone” I hardly desire a drink.
Possibly the drinking is raising my E2 a little or contributing to my symptoms.
I know that’s on me to address and I will, but it’s definitely more challenging when I’m not feeling the best so numbing myself a little at the end of the day bring some relief but certainly at some cost…
Years ago, there was a Doctor who was well respected and was considered the Guru of Men’s health, I believe his name was John Cristler, D.O.
I have been trying the last couple of days to see if I can get a hit with variations of his name using Google but I have had no luck.I believe he was in Colorado.
There were members’ here who would fly to get seen him, and there results were spectacular. If you want take the time and dig through threads 10 or so years old.
I do realize that every man (or woman) has a sweet spot where their Estradiol range is functional for them, and it may be higher or lower in the 20’s. The main point of all of this is, what is your ratio of T to E, that is the question. But living by ratio alone will not solve the problem either. If a man can maintain a ratio of 40-to-1 or higher there will generally be good results.
