Id really appreciate advice/insight into my TRT regimen and bloods. My stats are 76 kg, 185 cm. I’ve been experiencing depression, anxiety, and fluctuating erectile function. I’m wondering if E2 is the culprit. I’m currently on 37.5 mg of Sustanon every 5 days, previously every 4 days for 4 months until recently. I also take 1 grain of NDT thyroid and pregnenolone 30mg supplements. The pregnenolone was because of low energy but maybe its being converted to E2.
I’m considering reducing my Sustanon to 25 mg every 4 days due to its long half-life. Or something every 3 days. And going off pregenlone. Thoughts on this adjustment or on how to better control my estrogen? Also could the E2 flux be causing depression.
Maybe I should also get some anastrazole and take 0.25mg every now and again.
Lately, I’ve been concerned about my estrogen levels possibly affecting my mental health and kidney function (creatinine 130). Ive been monitoring kidney function as I had a real scare a few years ago, I know TRT contributes to kidney toxicity. But I got my creatinine to about 100 regularly but haven measured in 8 months. GFR was isotopically measured at 87 ages ago.
I had higher Estradiol while on pregnenolone also, and it did slightly lower after stopping. Pregnenolone is “early” in the hormone cascade of your body turning cholesterol into either Test or E. If your body already has enough pregnenolone, supplementing it will likely turn to Estrogen. I see the T you listed is 17, that must be your free Testosterone. Do you know what your total T is? because there’s an optimal ratio to have and as long as your Total T is a certain ratio higher than E2, then a high E2 value is really nothing to be worried about. It’s when E2 is high and Total T is not great that it should be controlled. You want your body to have enough Total T to suppress Estrogenic side-effects and being that your Free T is normal, its probably fine. Do you have High Estradiol side effects currently?
Oh interesting. How much higher was it? Yes, I’m hoping stopping pregnenolone as i don’t get as fatigued now, it was from recovering from virus.
Don’t think it’s free T, just UK units, 17.500 12 - 30 nmol/L so I think 504.735, which is probably only a bit above average. I did decrease my dose from a temporary increase. So maybe also estrogen takes longer to drop.?
Could be poor mental health correlated with estrogen issues and sometimes ED even though high libido, other times I have high libido no ED. I’ve never had gyno or anything that high E2.
Sorry brother I didn’t realize the units were different, that changes things big time.
I think think the culprit is your dosage is way too low so blocking E wont fix anything, in fact it will probably screw with your mood and sleep even more. 37.5mg every 5 days is 52.5mg a week. I am somewhat of a hyper-responder with a “low dose” of 87.5 mg a week. Someone who responds normally would probably not feel that great with less than 100, and someone who is a hypo-responder would feel like complete shit at my dose. I think what’s going on is this: You probably felt good initially with T injections on top of your natural T. After your natural T shut down because of exogynous test, your levels went off a cliff and instead of bumping the dose up you went down when you mistook your symptoms as a high dosage problem when it’s really the opposite, and lowered your dose. The esther half-life really doesnt matter in the long-run, it only plays a part in how quickly you get to “steady state” and how frequently you should dose. Your Total T and Free T are both in the low range of Normal, so it seems that what was initially wrong (your body is turning too much T into E) is what is persisting on your dose, in fact your overall bloodwork looks like someone who is not doing TRT at all.
What you should do IMO is increase both your dosage and dosage frequency to overcome this problem. Start with bumping to 75 mg (I would do 25mg every mon, wed, fri) and see how you feel after a month. A more frequent dosage eliminates the “peaks and troughs” of initally feeling good and then feeling like shit. I micro-dose 12.5mg Enanthate every morning but being a human pin-cushion is not for everyone, it just doesn’t bother me at all (side note: I know sustanon is popular in the UK but enanthate is a closer compound to your natural testosterone if you can get it). Remember: when you bump up the dose it takes time to reach ‘steady state’ of that dose (6-8 weeks). Getting your Total T to 30-40 nmol/L and your Free T past 0.65 or even a little higher will make your Estradiol a non-issue. See how you feel after a month at 75mg. You probably need to end up around 100mg/week, so if your symptoms dont improve, think about 30mg 3x a week (90mg/week total) and work from there. It’s probably a good idea to do this incrementally and not overnight, I’ve gotten anxiety/insomnia from too high too fast in the past.