HPTA Restart Without SERM

Hi guys,

You were a huge help for me when I started TRT 5 years ago. Now I hope you can help me as well when im taking a TRT break.

I have a very important question - is there any drawback from me NOT TAKING Clomiphene / Nolvadex after stopping TRT?

The backstory is that I have been 5 years on TRT (24 yo-29 yo). Test 30mg 2x/week and hcg 250IU 2x/week. Now I stopped 2 weeks ago.The goal was not to get my test back to ‘healthy’ and fulfilling levels permanently, as I know this is rather impossible (had 320 t before TRT). I rather stopped to have the mental comfort getting the HPTA axis back to work at least for 4-6 months so it doesn’t ‘forget’ how to function and permanently ‘dies out’. This may sound like pseudoscience, but I do definetely need the mental awareness that ‘ok, this body circuit is STILL ABLE TO WORK, its just kept dormant by my TRT’.

That being said, I took last shot of 33mg Enan on 10.09. Then got labs on 22.09 and had T 245 and E2 5,47.
From 22.09 I started Clomid 12,5mg ED - please, bear in mind I was taking it only for a week so it is too short for the Clomid to take action on the body.
I took labs one week later - on 22.09 I had T 306 and most importantly - LH and FSH of 3,09 and 1,69. This means that my pitituary started working on its own even before clomid had chance to act on my body! . After seeing this I was super happy and surprised, and immediately stopped Clomid because why would take it if my hypothalamus and pitituary already got the engines running!

I also talked with a renown knowledgable person from my area, and he blew my brain with the story that apparently the TRT/cycle ‘metagame’ has changed over the past 3 years, and it is becoming more and more common for people to NOT HAVE ANY PCT. Apparently more and more people are feeling that SERMS are indeed a ‘softer landing’, but at the same time they definetely do prolong the time it takes for your body to start producing T on its own at full capacity. This stands in contrast with everything I had learned before going to TRT 5 years ago - and I did a thorough research. However, well, my labs seem to agree with the new approach.

All of that being said, please le me reiterate the question - is there any drawback from me NOT TAKING Clomiphene / Nolvadex after stopping TRT?

Also, attaching my labs

Slower recovery

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Only because the current trend is to stay on forever, and blast and cruise, rather than cycle on and off, which wouldn’T require a PCT. Otherwise, I’d say the “very knowledgeable person” isn’t quite on track with their comment.

Could you elaborate please? If we define ‘recovery’ as ‘returning your body to it’s normal, natural working process’ then I believe using Clompihene in fact extends the ‘recovery’ period. It just makes the period more bareable, as your test/e2 are higher. But it is still ‘artificially’ higher, as in - it is higher only because you are on Clomi. When you get off then your body still has to manage on its own.

Am I getting something wrong here?

SERMs trick your brain into thinking estradiol is low, so your HPTa spits out more gonadotropins to your balls in an effort to increase testosterone, and thereby increase estradiol.

After a cycle of AAS, this mechanism can speed up recovery. But, your HPTa would eventually come back on its’ own, it would just take more time

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Great you said that - but in my case my e2 was 5. So there is no need to trick my brain, because my E2 was already nonexistant.

So let me get this right, you want to come off TRT, experience the symptoms of low-T, lose the progress you’ve made in those 5 years with optimized hormones, watch your health decline all so you can feel better about it mentally?

This is a fools errand, and pointless.

I don’t know where you read or who told you that you will permanently lose, kill off HPTA functionality on TRT long term.

If you do decide to go through with it, I hope when you return to your previous protocol, you respond similarly as before, because there have been members where they do return to TRT, only don’t respond like before, and they wish they had left well enough alone.

You find success on TRT, enjoy the ride, because it may not last forever.

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Or you can put it differently - I want to come off TRT because I am genuinely curious if my body fixed whatever problem it had or at least got better over the past 5 years.
What is the chance of that - 0.5%? Great, I’ll happily test this 0.5% at the miniscule cost of 4-6 months of discomfort,
I believe any single person is going to feel mentally better knowing he doesn’t depend on an external substance. There is a difference between ‘I must take T because without it my T is 130 and life is shit’ and "I want to take T, because i feel better on it, but without T my own T is 500 and life is still good’

Well, ok, science is science, but nobody is going to convince me that having a signaling pathway completely inactive, not even for a moment, for 10-20-40 years is not going to affect your body in any way.

Men have been using testosterone for several decades, if there was some serious consequence of suppressing the HPTA, I think we would know about it by now.

Bigtex on Excelmale, 44 years on injections, no issues from the HPTA shutdown.

The only side effect I’ve ever heard about is low pregnenolone, which is a precursor to LH, the solution, supplement pregnenolone.