Spent around 6 months on hcg mono and was changed to hcg + test cyp after hcg alone didnt make me “feel better”. Just had 8 week labs and im a little concerned with the changes.
Total T- 567 was 908
Free T- 104 was 182
Shbg- 18 was 32
E2- 39 was 55
PSA- 1.3 was 0.7
AM Cortisol- 11 was 16
What the heck happened? Was taking 1000iu hcg 3x week. Now i take 500iu 2x week and .40ml test cyp every 3.5 days. Took a shot on Sunday morning, and got blood drawn on Tuesday morning.
All levels are great except for estrogen, estrogen may be causing estrogen related symptoms to do lower SHBG. Your protocol is to blame for your results, low SHBG men around 20 do better injecting smaller doses EOD, my SHBG is 18 and felt terrible on 50mg twice weekly, Free T was very high and that means Free E2 was high, Free E2 is converted from Free T.
Inject 20mg EOD and you may require an estrogen blocker do to the majority of your hormones being free and bioavailable, common among low SHBG guys. HCG is likely contributing to excess estrogen. You never inject more than 500 at a time, otherwise most of it will convert over to estrogen.
1000mg of HCG weekly is insane, no wonder you were having issues. You need smaller doses of HCG. Try 300 twice weekly or 250 EOD. I inject 20mg EOD and require an AI to block the conversion of testosterone into estrogen and take my AI at the time of T injections, otherwise estrogen isn’t suppressed at the correct time.
Some guys don’t tolerate HCG well, it’s great in the beginning and the feel good effect can taper off and work against you. If you decide to stop HCG you may not require an estrogen blocker at all, this is the prefered method.
You have read correctly. I lack energy, libido, and find it impossible to drop weight. I sweat like a whore in church. Usually the sweating starts the second i do anything physical or if the room/ambient temp is above 40 degrees lol. But i dont do very well in extreme cold either. Thyroid labs looked ok 2 months ago. Free t3 was 3.3 i think.
After 6 months we did labs (hcg only) and the numberd were up. Doctor gave me an ai and i took .5mg anastrazole per week. Didnt feel any better. So he agreed to try test cyp. My libido is thru the roof now but i barely have enough energy to get a boner lol. I can get thru a workout but my cardio and dropped significantly. My hematocrit was 45 and hemoglub was 15 (or vice versa… dont have the paperwork in hand atm). My PSA also doubled (0.7 now 1.3).
Anastrozole cannot effect E2 inside the testicles, you need to lower your HCG dosage. If fertility is not important to you I would stop the HCG, I’d you don’t mind slightly smaller testicles.
Your HCG doses are just too high, you seem sensitive to estrogen, common among low SHBG
men.
Is fertility an issue? If no, then I would drop hCG. Do you have TSH and rT3 numbers? Also, CBC? I think I’d get my test protocol worked out, dose, injection frequency, E2 management if needed, which appears to be a problem for you.
My last thyroid testing was in May. TSH was 1.97, Free T3 was 3.3 and RT3 was 16, i believe. I had been taking 12.5mg iodine per day for a month prior to testing. I stopped iodine a week before tests.
I do want to maintain fertility and woukd prefer to keep using hcg. Im just more shocked that with test cyp my numbers fell off the table. I was expecting to feel incredible.
So, what i take from the replies is, Im a low shbg guy who has a higher level of aromatozation. Lower hcg does, more frequent Test injections and add a small does of an AI. Maybe 250iu 2x week hcg and .3ml test EOD. Retest and determine if i need AI?
I’m not trying to hijack either… But my last SHBG reading was 31. I started at 50mg every 3.5 days and was only at high 400s for total T…then doc upped to 60mg every 3.5 days.
I didn’t like the way I was feeling, so I decided to go 34mg EOD and after a few weeks, I felt great. Love EOD… Last trough reading was 692 for total test. I’m now switch up the does from reading some of @PhysioLojik’s comments about switching things up to avoid steady state and will go up to 40mg EOD or down to 30mg EOD… It’s been great so far. (I’ve only done sub Q, did it from the start)
It’s a preference thing really. If you feel great now, why switch? If you don’t feel great now, it can’t hurt to switch it up some… Just know it will take a little time after moving to EOD to judge if it works. Just my thoughts.
I don’t really feel anything from trt to be honest. I originally started on it as I am secondary hypo. I haven’t had a sex drive since I was about 20. I’m now 40, and that’s the main goal.
On 300mg E2weeks, I had glimpses of libido.
On 100mg Eweek, I felt mentally crisp, but no libido.
On 50mg e3d I don’t feel much of anything.
I did just order some HCG as the more I read about it, the more I wonder if it will help with sex drive. Seeing how I’ve always had low LH (I’m secondary), it may help.
@highpull: do you use an A1 at that dose? What protocol?
My drive was sorta there, but after feeling what I feel now… I realize my drive was more out of habit than feeling, if that makes any sense. I didn’t even realize not having morning wood was a bad thing and when I started thinking about it, I couldn’t remember the last time I had it… Biggest issue for me was ed, that sent me to the urologist and here I am.
9 months later… About 16 hours after the 40mg EOD injection, I’d look at a picture of my wife while at work and get an erection.
How long have you been on trt? What are your trough levels and is there any chance to increase the dose?
I’m not on an AI either… Never had my E2 even tested. There have been times I’ve been bitchy and short tempered, but most of the time I feel good.
What I find even more interesting is, the week before my previous labs (total T 908), I didnt take any hcg for 5 days. I was hoping my levels would go down and he would switch me to test. If my issues at 908 were E2 related, maybe i can work a little harder on bringing it down. Maybe take a little more AI. Now that my E2 is half what it was, my libido has sky rocketed beyond what it has ever been. I was out shopping with my wife and her mom, i walked out of the dressing room and she was blushing lol she like the pants hahahaha. Now that ive concquered that, i want to work on the other benefits
I take anastrozole 1mg 12 hours after the weekly injection. That put E2 at 27/28 (both tests). Stopped for three weeks and E2 went to 49 (IA) 63 (LC/MS/MS).
You had some improved libido with 300mg every other week, was that noted closer to the injection and did it seem to decline into the second week? I’m wondering if a higher dose, with at least once a week injections, would help you there.
You’re correct about everything expect the aromatization which is separate from excess free hormones, liver clearance of excess E2 is also a factor. Overweight men have more aromatase enzymes since it lives in the fatty tissue.
I have very high aromatization and recently crashed my estrogen levels, one day of injection of testosterone without the AI and a couple hours later estrogen was high again. I cannot inject testosterone without an AI present in my system.
