I will be posting blood work and semen analysis week by week.
I have been on TRT for the past 6 years (off and on cycling HCG). For about a year I have been taking 160mg a week with 6.5mg Aromasin once weekly. This keeps my E2 around 27 and Testosterone around 900. My wife conceived our first child when I came off testosterone and I did 500iu clomid HCG for 2 weeks after my last shot then did 2 weeks of clomid (week 1 50mg, week 2 25mg). She conceived and I immediately got back on. I did a sperm analysis the day after we conceived to see where I was at and I had 25 million swimmers per ml (average is 20 million)
We are trying again so I tried adding in HCG for 2 months (250iu EOD) recently and got back a sperm test and it was extremely low (100,000 swimmers per ML). I got FSH and LH tested while still on testosterone and both were .1. I am in the middle of what seems to be the absolute best protocol and the goal is to only have to be off for 2 weeks total to have my wife conceive.
Protocol is:
1500 iu HCG EOD and 75 iu HMG EOD (on the days I’m not taking HCG) for the first week 1,000 iu HCG EOD and 75iu HMG EOD for the second week.
Some recommend higher but I don’t like the idea of blasting my balls with too much HCG and possibly desensitizing them if I have to move to clomid after. 1500 and 1000 seem plenty to get the job done and maintain a t level that I can function on.
I just took an LH and FSH back after the first week to make sure the HMG is real (contains FSH) and FSH did come back at 2.9 (1.2-9.6) and LH came back .1. This is normal since HCG is an LH analogue and won’t register on an LH test. I’m going to up my HMG to 125 EOD to get FSH up and then take a semen analysis this Friday.
If sperm comes back poor and not improving dramatically, I’m going to move onto clomid since I know it worked in the past. If sperm comes back high, I’m going to stick with HCG and HMG since I feel god awful on clomid.
Anecdotally almost everyone I know (and myself included) has found that to be untrue. I know a lot of people that have conceived within weeks of this protocol. Last time my wife conceived, I went from almost zero swimmers to 25 million with great motility in 1 month (still had testosterone in my system for 2 of those weeks).
“While earlier menotropin medications contained FSH and LH at a 1:1 ratio, the recognition that it is FSH that is critical for follicle stimulation has led to development of newer preparations that contain a much higher FSH/LH ratio, Fertinex being an example.[4]”
Combo hCG+hMG does not seem wise.
1500iu EOD then 1000iu hCG EOD seems excessive.
Yes I lean away from higher doses.
On TRT, LH/FSH–>zero is fully expected.
It takes time for hCG or hMG to work as there are some physical changes that have their own time-line.
Thanks for the response KSMan. I am aware that you lean away from higher doses and prefer 250iu EOD. I took a blood test on mono 250iu and T came back 212. That is the reason I am going to try a higher dosage. I’m only willing to do 3 weeks of a higher dosage max to avoid possible desensitization.
Great, I’ll look into the Fertinex preparation. I’m currently using Menotropin. My blood test did show that menotropin increased FSH, not LH. From what I understand, it’s not an LH analogue, it’s actual LH correct? Any idea what the half life is? I used 75iu the morning before the test then used about 30iu the morning of the test in case it was a short half life. I wanted to make sure it was real.
Since it did indeed raise FSH and HCG is an LH analogue (I know it’s real since I got from the pharmacy), I would think it would be safe to take a small amount of T with it. I’m not doing this in case sperm count comes back with zero improvement then I’ll switch to my clomid which last time 25mg had my FSH at upper quartile and LH mid range.
Wow!!! I’m shocked. To anyone who says you need 90 days for fertile sperm, I just debunked this one hardcore. I got a sperm analysis two weeks ago and had a few hundred thousand swimmers. My last T injection was last Wednesday (9 days ago). I started 75iu HMG one day and 1500 HCG the following day.
Just got my sperm analysis and am at 28 million swimmers with 48% motility. I’m blown away how effective HMG is.
I had 28 million swimmers with 48% motility after doing HCG and HMG for 9 days following my last t shot. I figured I could keep this number preserved and get back on testosterone. I took a 150mg shot and got another semen analysis 6 days later (still maintaining HMG and HCG). After two days abstinence (recommended) my sperm was down to 2 million swimmers. Amazing how fast it can crash!! I immediately didn’t resume testosterone and it’s been 10 days since injection and I’ve been on 50mg of Clomid for the last 6 days. Here is my analysis this morning (16 hours after last ejaculating). Needless to say, clomid sent my numbers through the roof with 62 million swimmers at 62% motility.
