A nurse at Defy told me this, wondering if it can be fact checked.
Clarification: Both a Testosterone ester and HCG will increase total T, but the question is will HCG free up more T than a testosterone ester assuming both products will increase your TT by the same amount.
You can’t increase FT without first increasing TT, however if you have low SHBG then you will have more FT than TT. So HCG will increase testosterone.
Yes HCG will increase total testosterone and thus free T. But the question is will HCG free up more T than a testosterone ester assuming both products will increase your TT by the same amount.
That isn’t the question.
I think I answered his question well enough. I think you skimmed through my post without reading all of it.
Do you have anything productive to add to the conversation?
@marcus007. That is incorrect. Unless I am missing something, that makes no sense. Assuming each increases testosterone equally, and if not you simply adjust the dose accordingly, testosterone increases from testosterone cypionate equaling testosterone increases from hCG would result in an equal increase in free testosterone.
Are you sure you heard that correctly?
@systemlord So the dependent variable here is SHBG? Someone with lower SHBG will have more FT than someone with higher SHBG if they inject the same amount of a testosterone ester?
@systemlord @highpull According to the nurse’s logic, HCG frees up a person’s natural hormone precursors, which is why it would free up more testosterone as it increases total testosterone in the individual. I may have butchered what she explained or she may be wrong, that’s why I was wondering if this was known to anyone else.
@marcus007 If you put the @ a list of names will come up so you can tag people in different paragraphs instead of posting the same thing twice.
The more you know
@dextermorgan haha bro that dropped my already low t down a whole standard deviation
Still not making sense to me. Hypothetically, you’re at 300 total testosterone. You take 300IUs hCG three times a week. Your labs are at 1000 at 48 hours post injection. Let’s say that is at trough, as low as you get. What would be the peak?
How much above trough? Probably not as high as an enanthate protocol that also puts you at 1000 at trough. Your peak would be pretty high day two and three. Seems as though if we pulled labs every day and averaged over the week you’d be higher overall. So, to get the averages equal, you might need to be at 700 trough with enanthate. I’m not sure I’m making sense.
Does it matter anyway? Is she suggesting hCG in place of a test ester? Because if added to test, yeah, it would increase test above what enanthate alone would, therefore higher free test would be the result.
There are reasons to run hCG monotherapy. Not sure this is one of them. Unless needing to be currently fertile, or wishing to avoid any testicular atrophy, I don’t see the need for hCG. However, some find that it helps lean them out. Maybe that’s due to increased overall levels.
I believe the context was testosterone Cyp with HCG. For instance, I was on 50 mg T Cyp 2x a week + 300 IUs HCG 2x a week, and wanted to increase my FT a bit more without increasing my estrogen drastically. Therefore, I increased my HCG to 350 IUs. Weirdly this raised my FT from 16.3 to 19.2 pg/mL, although my TT lowered from 1002 to 834 ng/dL. I also drastically reduced my DIM intake so my E2 went from 22.4 to 44.9.
Not a pure focused study and only a sample size of 1 instance, but the intent of my self-experiment was to raise my FT efficiently per the nurse’s recommendation.
Posted here to see if anyone else found similar observations or correlations. Might have to revisit the topic once I can find more information or once I speak to the nurse again, likely one of us are not as clear as we could be. Also, I may be wrong with my logic, I’m not an expert of TRT, just a student.
Generally, hCG tends to increase E2. I know a few guys who do TRT and throw in hCG intermittently. I’ll see if I can get their labs.
You got it.
Another Q. Does energy from FT differ from the energy we feel from TSH? Or are they indistinguishable?
TSH is stimulating hormone, not an actual hormone. The main thyroid hormone fT3 increases metabolism of every organ in your body, it tells your heart to beat, helps drive your brain.
So, you proved that a slight increase of dose of one of them raised free T, but decreased Total T. If you did the opposite, a slight rise in test Cyp, you would have likely had higher Total |T along with higher Free T, and less of a rise in E2 to boot. I think that you would also find that free T went higher, in part, because your total androgen level was raised and this effected a drop in SHBG.
The issue with HCG is it affects very differently the different men.
Found one.
This guy was taking 80mg test cypionate twice weekly:
Total testosterone: 614
Free testosterone: 109
For fertility purposes, currently working on conceiving, he’s been on 300IU hCG three times a week instead of testosterone:
Total testosterone: 485 (78% of cypionate level)
Free testosterone: 58 (53% of cypionate level)
Seems a tad low for that dose and frequency.
I thought so too. Regardless, he reported feeling very good. Not liking the way he feels on hCG.
