@systemlord @highpull
Was taking T injections for 16 weeks started at 50mg twice weekly but found the most symptom relief from 200 mg weekly. Now I want to attempt to restart HPTA to see if I can have fix my testosterone levels naturally. It was discovered that I have a severe zinc deficiency, and from my doctor zinc deficiency can impact the ley dig cells in the testes and cause hypogonadsim. I am 24 and my T levels were 382 ng/dL when I started injections. Doctor thinks if I fix zinc deficiency my levels will go back closer to 600 where they were 2 years ago according to previous labs.
Doctor prescribed 50mg Clomid everyday, is this dosage to high? Common PCT after steroid cycles seem to recommend 50/50/25/25 but after searching through the forums I see more commonly recommended is 25 mg EOD.
What is the consensus here on dosage? And do you agree that zinc deficiency can impact testosterone levels as it did in my case?
Dosage recommendations for men are from 25mg every other day to 50mg daily. Some, due to the half life of clomiphene, use an initial, first day dose up to 300mg.
As for the zinc deficiency, I do not know, but at your age, I think it is reasonable to try.
I started taking 50mg daily 4 days ago, should I stick with this? I have read of LH desensitization from high Clomid doses. Also I was feeling great on 175 mg weekly T cyp, but being 24 I wanted to exhaust all options first after finding the deficiency. Since starting the Clomid I have noticed weird periods where my sex drive is abnormally high but I also have noted that my anxiety/mood swings are creeping back which is something that TRT had completely fixed for me. Maybe placebo from the readings I have done on Clomid.
It’s a standard protocol. You could take a five or six day break after 25 days. You could drop the dose if side effects are unmanageable. I’d discuss it with my doctor. You’re looking at using it for at least three months. Some have trouble with side effects, but for most, if there are any at all, they are mild.
@systemlord @highpull @ncsugrad2002 @dextermorgan
ok 3 weeks since my last injection and have been using Clomid for the last 12 days… my sex drive is dead and my penis is lifeless and not sensitive or full at all instead basically lacking blood flow and shriveled. When on TRT everything was perfect down there… the only reason I decided to come off is because i am only 24 and wanted to try everything to fix it naturally. My natural levels were 382 TT and I had only been experiencing low T symptoms for around 6 months. Prior to that my TT naturally was 700-800 based on yearly labs. It was discovered I had a zinc and vitamin D deficiency so I wanted to eat better and see if my sudden low T was due to a this.
Since stopping trt and starting Clomid here are the symptoms
- No sex drive/life less penis
- Trouble waking up in morning and feeling unrefreshed
While on TRT everything was much more sensitive down there and working properly. Sex drive was insanely high once I found my appropriate dosage of 200mg weekly. Nothing on trt seemed to work until I switched to 200mg weekly. I had tried 50mg twice weekly, 100mg weekly and 150 mg weekly previously. But nothing really gave me that crazy sex drive until I went to 200mg weekly.
I metabolize free T quickly and need higher Total T to get free T higher and also I aromatize little. At 712 TT my e2 was 22… I feel best when my e2 is higher than 35.
On 150 mg weekly my labs were TT 884, FT 182 (46-226), and e2 of 42. Things were good but not great so I increased to 200mg weekly and felt way better. I got content and figured I could transition to a restart and do this naturally being so young but after 3 weeks since my last injection and almost 2 weeks of Clomid I’m back to my old self feeling like shit.
Questions:
- Should I give this more time? And see what happens.
- Start TRT again and move on with my life
- If I start TRT again how long will it take to start feeling better. I just started a new job with a different fire department and this lack of energy is not helping
It’s only been 12 days, give it more time if you really want to restore your natural T. The thing is if you don’t address what caused your low-T, your testosterone will return to baseline once you stop clomid. This is what happens the majority of the time.
This is the easy way out, but may be the only way because I haven’t seen hardly anyone retain hormone levels they had on clomid, often recovery is somewhere between low-T and how you felt on TRT. I will say this, when guys attempt to restore their natural T, compliance is better once they return to TRT.
Levels become stable at 6 weeks, so around this time you should start to see improvements and more time is needed to achieve maximum results. If your the guy who thinks you are going to feel like million bucks in the first few months on TRT, it’s time to adjust your expectations that it will take longer.
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Personally I wish I would have started TRT sooner. I applaud you for having the balls to stop and give it a try and since you have started you may as well give it enough time to really see what the outcome would be. Yes it’s going to suck for a little while but you’ll get through it. I personally would have tried Tamoxifen over Clomid based on the experiences I’ve read from people here. It’s probably not too late to switch if Clomid isn’t agreeing with you.
If you restarted TRT now I’d think you would still be a month away from feeling back to your previous self so you may as well ride out the restart.
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Looks like I’m in it to win it now… I’ll keep everyone updated on the results. Just curious @dextermorgan what was your experience with Wellbutrin like? I’m a heavy nicotine user and I know that nicotine impairs sexual function over the long run so I was considering using it to stop using nicotine. And then discontinue the Wellbutrin after I have stopped using nicotine, and then allow my dopamine sensitivity to return to baseline after being off nicotine and the Wellbutrin.
We’re you using Wellbutrin prior to trt? What were the effects on you. Thanks
Yes I was on 300mg Wellbutrin XR for around 5 years. It worked well the first year or two and then didn’t really seem to have much effect. I got off of it about a year ago with zero issues.
My dad used it (Zyban) to quit smoking and it was successful. Zyban is just Wellbutrin 150mg and I’ve heard it’s cheaper to get Wellbutrin instead of Zyban.
Does not sound as though you are experiencing side effects, it’s just not working, yet. Still staying with this.
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I’m going to give it a fair shot and really try to quit using nicotine. Some things I have read show some people get a little increase of libido too so that would be a bonus while I’m attempting to restart my HPTA. My doctor prescribed me generic Wellbutrin XL 150mg to quit smoking I just haven’t had the balls to start yet. But I know that nicotine use seriously restricts blood flow and is in general unhealthy and causes neurotransmitter deficits and decrease “pleasure” in normal things. Prob due to dopamine or something. Thanks for the input @dextermorgan
@highpull no real side effects yet; just not kicked in I guess. I’m going to stay the course. I have started suppplementing with a good multi vitamin, zinc/mag, b complex with vitamin C, and 2000 Iu of D3 daily to restore my vitamin deficiencys. Hopefully this and a healthier lifestyle will allow me to regain my natural T levels and live a happy life. I’ll keep updating once weekly to this thread on progress and labs.
The 150mg likely won’t be enough for libido. I didn’t really notice much the first 3 months that I was on 150mg before going to 300mg which was a major difference in feeling and definitely helped libido.
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Yes, that’s what I think. Hopefully it will, and you can move on from there. If not, at least you’ll have one option crossed off the list. Good luck.
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