Bloodwork After 3 Weeks TRT, Issues with E2 Crash

Pharma TRT
1

Age 46
15% body fat
Did several cycles in my early 20s

Went to a trt clinic August 22nd, Total testosterone was 206 ng/dl. Bloodwork was performed in the trt clinic.

Based on results the doctor recommended:
160mg per week of test cypionate divided into two .4 doses
200iu of hcg twice per week
.5 arimidex twice per week.

By the third dose of arimidex a week later, I felt awful, severe ED, headaches, low motivation, brain fog etc. so the AI crashed my E2. Stopped the AI and its been slow getting back to the way I felt before the E2 crash. I do feel better but still not 100%.

I was planning on full bloodwork in a few weeks to see where everything is at but with the way I’ve been feeling I got my total T and E2 tested last week, just received the results.

Total Testosterone 950 ng/dl ( range 264 - 916)
Free testosterone 35.7 pg/ml (range 6.8 -21.5)
Estradiol (sensitive) 35.8 pg/ml (range 8 - 35)

My e2 has come back but I still don’t feel like I did before the e2 crash. Slight brain fog, mediocre libido that is no where near as bad as a few weeks ago but i still feel “off”. I know low e2 and high e2 symptoms can often overlap, question is am I now experiencing high e2 symptoms even though the low e2 symptoms have persisted only slowly improving?

I had gyno surgery 18 years ago so one of the signs of too much e2 I won’t experience so this leaves me guessing. I don’t feel emotional, no short temper or anxiety, no water weight gain, if anything i feel numb.

In the gym my strength is steadily increasing, the cardinine is definitely helping me to push but having cycled test before, I’m not feeling like I should. I’m normally positive, live by the beach, have a great life with minimal stress, usually have a powerful libido that borders on horndog status.

What puzzles me is even though my e2 levels have returned, the effects I’m feeling are still as though its crashed. In two weeks I’ll get more thorough bloodwork done along with switching from the trt clinic to a doc with extensive experience with AAS. In the meantime, does anyone have an idea what may be going on? All I can think of is trying to lower the dose of test while staying off the AI.

2

It took over a month for me to get back to normal after crashing E2. Your E2 is 35 that’s not high. Wait 2 months before changing anything. Even if you wouldn’t have crashed E2 you still likely wouldn’t feel optimal at this point. Wait 8 weeks and then reassess. Starting TRT with hcg can complicate things. Get E2 out of your head or you’ll blame every little thing on it and be constantly changing things when in all likelihood your body just needs time to adjust. It takes me at least 8 weeks for my body to normalize on any protocol change.

3

You are dealing with the damage caused by low E2 and are now experiencing high E2 symptoms, so you are correct is stating low or high E2 symptoms can overlap. FT convert to E2 so you may need to lower your dosage, some are just sensitive to estrogen and need it closer to 20-25.

Trying to determine the cause of your symptoms when they are overlapping is not easy, I gave up a long time ago trying to determine if I was experiencing high or low E2…

There is also a lag in the time you experience said symptoms, you run labs and see a value, but you are feeling what your levels were days ago and not the current value. You’ll feel the current value days later.

This is what makes dosing anastrozole so difficult.

4

How can you tell its high E2 symptoms? The guy just started TRT and crashed his E2 by the second week. Even if he wouldn’t have crashed it he would likely be having the same issues. It makes zero sense telling him it’s high E2 when there hasn’t been enough time to know what it is. If he just waits a month he may be totally fine.

Getting all this E2 is high /low shit in his head at this early is going to have him paranoid and not give himself enough time to see if a protocol even works.

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5

I agree that I need to continue to wait for things to recover. Fortunately from reading up on things on here I didn’t make the mistake of overcompensating and making things worse. I know it takes time for the trt regimen to fully kick, just sucks feeling this way.

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6

Im on trt for life so Im not going to quit, Ill ride through peaks and valleys until I can get things dialed in. I can manage until then. As for the E2 in my head, yeah the past few weeks it’s been the central focus but after reading so much on the subject I’m learning there are many other things at play. Dopamine/ Serotonin seem to also play a role in ED.

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