I think AI’s are unnecessary the majority of the time, blocking estrogen is risking more problems.
My Total Test runs somewhere around 860 at trough with E2 in the high 50’s to low 60’s at last check. High estrogen feels better than low in a lot of ways, but more is not always better. Some guys have issues at 40, some have no issues at 120. Higher is better for your joints, and carries positives for heart and prostate, to a point. Studies don’t investigate long term effects of E2 60 and above, that I’ve found so far. Most are studying the difference between an E2 of less than 8 versus an E2 of more than 25, so keep that in mind when guys rant about the protective benefits. An E2 of 60 might cause some dire condition 20 years down the road that we are unaware of at this time. I don’t care, it’s worth the risk for me.
Help me on this one. I was on 200mg test divided in two shots a week, HCG 250 IU twice a week. For a while I felted great, but later I started to have ED. My results with this protocol after 3 months were:
FT: 30
TT:1350
E2: 49
DHT:52
SHBG:37
My E2 never been that high before, so the Dr told me to dropped the HCG and add 0.5 mg Anastrazole divided in two doses 0.25 twice a week… What about if I lower my testosterone cyp to 180mg instead of 200mg?. Do I dropped HCG?
@young_forever
I’m on the same 200mg dose with SHBG of 39 (so same as yours) and E2 is near 80. I have mega wood all day everyday. Drop the hcg and don’t take an AI. Give it 3 months and see if you don’t feel great with no ED.
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I will follow your advice. I will do that for three months
You levels are excessive, levels need to come down. There are many ways to go about doing it. If it were me I would drop HCG and AI and lower my T dosage.
His levels are not excessive. Stop saying that dude. You say don’t treat lab ranges and thats exactly what you are doing here. This might be his peak.
Ai causes so many issues. He just needs to drop it and watch his Symtoms resolve. Stop worrying about numbers.
Later when he feels great he can get a smaller dose. No reason to have 30 if 24 works. Save money on dosing.
Just don’t treat ranges. We’ve been told via the androgen receptor studies that they do not get densensitized nor do they get saturated.
Men who have issues with higher feee t almost always are using an ai or keeping estrogen in check. This is why high doses give them symtoms.
If they’d just let it ride they would realize they feel great.
Now there is a level where you get diminishing returns, but that doesn’t happen until most men hit 40+ or 50+. So many guys are blasting and love it and 40 to 50 plus they don’t have issues. Why? Because higher receptors increase as lore androgens are present. I’ll post the video from doctor Howell. A research guru. All he does is research studies and decipher the truth. Something that takes many years of experience.
This certainly wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen guys have problems passed the 1000 mark. I’ve seen countless men tell me they feel more balance when bringing levels down to about 600-800.
Excess T can cause other levels to go out of balance.
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That’s observational my friend. Consider that most men don’t give it enough time to work. Lots of men have other issues. Many don’t have a proper balance because of ai. Others don’t inject daily.
I’m not a fan of AI’s, maybe it’s my personal experience that’s causes a bias. On rare occasions there will be a guy who needs one.
Thank you all of you for the replies. I wonder why all of TRT clinics that I know use the Anastrozole as if is the best solution. Doesn’t Anastrazole suppose to also increases FT and lower E2 at the same time?. Why TRT Doctors like DR Rand who is being on the field for so long think that the AI is the best thing ever?. I just have one goal, feel optimal, I don’t care what I have to do to get there
Use the AI, crash your E2 take about 6 months to realize you don’t need it and then stop using it and feel great. That was my story at least.
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What about taking only 0.5mg Anastrazole a week, with 200mg test cyp. Seems that the E2 won’t crash right?. If my E2 is in the 40’s, 0.5 Anastrazole won’t lower it under 20, I have no idea, because in two years of TRT I only took Anastrazole twice
Ok to sum all of this up one thing that we should not worry about is high E2?
Don’t worry about anything that’s not causing problems.
@young_forever
I took 1mg on day one of TRT and crashed E2 then about 5 months later crashed it on .20mg after having taken around the same dosage for months prior. I used a mg scale and was super precise. Most people need to crash their E2 before they start rethinking it so try it and see how it goes.
Folks with low SHBG may need to use an AI if they want to use higher doses of T. Those who’s SHBG is >29 likely won’t have issues with any level estrogen (or at least way less likely than the low SHBG guys).
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The guys that I know that have low SHBG that inject ED, they see their SHBG increased, daily injections is probably not good for guys with high SHBG
The low SHBG men see SHBG increase a little bit, but not a dramatic difference, at the end of the day I doubt going from 14–>22 is going to make or break a protocol and affect FT by a large degree, but more frequent injections will have a large impact on estrogen levels.
Remember everyone is different and if you haven’t tried something then you’ll never really know until you do.
The thing you have to ask yourself is your current protocol working for you? If not you have nothing to lose by trying something different.
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There are positives to a higher E2. Some guys have issues. There is an argument that the issues are temporary, I won’t say that they aren’t. There are some guys that report ED issues with higher E2. I will not argue about why, or if that may be just a coincidence or a symptom of another issue. I know this, if my E2 being over a certain number equalled ED, I’d happily use a low dose AI and not care about the other consequences. It is unlikely that you will crash your E2 on a single low dose of AI, but you can get an idea of what it does. or doesn’t do. That being said, dropping the HCG will drop your E2 and probably eliminate the problem with no other adjustments. And never make more than one adjustment at a time, or you won’t know which adjustment did what. And the lower number of things you can use, the easier this all is.