He prescribed me 2mg anastrozole/week which I thought was crazy high. I’ve played with the dosage and found .5mg 2-3x week is perfect when not doing hcg. Nipples get a little puffy after a couple consecutive weeks of hcg so I usually go up to .5mg 3-4x week.
That is too much, you estrogen could be lower after taking the anastrozole causing anxiety, then estrogen rebounds and you go through the cycle again in 3.5 days. The HCG could very well be causing anxiety as well, together with these very high levels could be compounding the problem.
I would have started you out on TRT in isolation, adjust dosage and inject frequencies to dial in. You see the majority of men who come in to T-Nation who are on TRT+HCG+anastrozole and months later are on TRT only and doing well.
Definitely makes sense. I felt great the first couple months, so sucks this has all gotten in my head and made me question my decision to jump on TRT.
Maybe dial the anastrozole back to .5mg 2x week then eventually even less? And 75mg T every 3 days?
This is better than what you’re doing now, but if I were you I would drop the AI because it does bad things to your body. I mean if you could do away with the AI and inject 2-4 times a week, this would be better than taking an AI.
There is no long term game with anastrozole, over time blocking estrogen is going to have consequences.
Ah I see. I guess I’m not considering that without HCG, and with injections that frequent AI probably won’t be needed at all…
Would you dial the T back? I initially was prescribed 200mg to hammer down my SHBG, which has clearly worked. Thinking maybe 75mg 2x week would be easier on my system?
Stop the AI or at least go down to 0.25 a week or something like that. The stuff is poison. Estrogen is GOOD for libido, not bad
Do Daily injections. Your estrogen levels are low. Do daily and it will give you less spikes. Your levels aren’t extremely high if you worked up to that and that’s what makes you feel good. You can try a 25-30 free t, but your estrogen is low and you really need to get that above 30.
That says allot. The ai will cause low e2 and that will cause mental and other issues. Simple fix here. Switch to daily and follow the natural approach: inject and let the body handle the conversion
If you just stopped the AI you’ll be fine. My T level on 200mg is higher than yours and I’m fine with no AI. I wouldn’t change the T dosage. If a couple months after stopping the AI you don’t feel ideal and want to experiment with lowering the T dose then that’s the time to do it.
@dextermorgan what’s your injection frequency? Really think I may move to every day or EOD as has been suggested.
Skipped my anastrozole and hcg dose last night and I’m not touching the stuff again. Feeling better today but the last few days have been rough. So unlike myself, pretty frightening.
There are compounds that bind shbg and anavar is one of them. But the mildest is proviron.
Going trt is a bit extreme imho. Proviron would be. Better bet, it doesn’t supress hpta that much.
The other 2 compounds are masteron and primobolan.
@cd2917
200mg daily IM in the delts using 28g 1/2 inch needle 1CC insulin syringes
Switching to more frequent injections is going to come with an adjustment period where you may feel worse at first (I did) for a while (maybe not). If you do it go into with that in mind.
@dextermorgan so 25-30mg/day right? I’m assuming not 200mg every day…are you on any hcg? If not, any atrophy issues or concern about future fertility? Thanks for all the feedback!
@cd2917
Yes my TRT is 200mg/day. I feel best when my levels are 10,000. Jk 28.6mg/day. No HCG until I’m ready for kids (makes many folks feel like crap which is the opposite of what I use TRT for). My balls may be 1/8th smaller? Haven’t measured but they look the same. Initially they reduced in size a good bit but came back on their own over time.
@dextermorgan that gave me a good laugh. Okay, think I’m going to give this protocol a go. I had the sane experience with initial atrophy then a return to normal for the most part, but didn’t know if that was the hcg kicking in. I’m 28 and single with hopes of no kids for a while lol, so I guess no need for it now.
Thanks again for the advice everyone!
Yeah, every time I’ve changed doses on dailies I’ve felt the absolute worst while on TRT. Completely brutal.
Still syncing up on my 22mg dailies protocol and currently doing pretty well the past 5 days and was doing terribly for about the first 3 weeks. Hoping I do like the current economy and keep moving up.
Honestly, I wish I listened to you in November to just stick with my original protocol of 20-22mg… I felt so terrible I thought it had to be high E2, which Systemlord told me as well. Lowered my dose to 105mg a week and never felt so terrible - truly that must be how life is at low T. No energy and so lethargic I didn’t want to workout, hang with my buddies or smash my gf. Now I think I’m back to normal at 154mg a week, but might need 200mg to feel @dextermorgan mode. Still too early to call though, but didn’t feel like this at all on a lower dailies dose.
I had the opposite experience, I guess if your sensitivity level to androgens is high, things will go smoother.
@dextermorgan @systemlord i currently have 23g and 31g needles. Until I get 28g in, would you recommend going subQ with the 31g/daily?
@cd2917
I personally prefer IM which you can easily do in delts with a 31g (push slow). You can definitely do sub-q with 31g if that’s what you want to do. I feel more “on testosterone” when I do IM. With sub-q I didn’t feel as much of a difference even with 2000 total T levels. You could have a totally different experience though so don’t take what I’m saying as gospel.
@marcus007
Good deal. It’s a long game and every charge you make gives you more insight into what you need and how to get there.