Stumbled upon this video on YouTube, and thought it was noteworthy, and worth a post and discussion. Some benefits listed in this video:
Mid body pumps lol
Lowers blood pressure
Vascularity and gym pumps
Reduced waist line in a human study of men
Reduction of E2 (may or may not be a benefit)
Increased Testosterone levels (study was of natural men, but I assume if it reduces E2, that Testosterone would go up).
I know @hankthetank89 has wondered why people would take this drug. Here are a few reasons.
Negatives:
Headaches
Heartburn
I have watched a few of this guy’s videos. Seem pretty good, although as he admits, he is still learning. He claims 5’10" and around 180 lbs (IIRC, 178 lbs). Dude looks huge for those stats. Maybe very small legs.
I’m not a fan of taking it long term because of my personal predisposition with gastritis issues and easy flushing. If one doesn’t have those issues, go for it but if you have these, it becomes a drugs to stop side effects kind of thing.
Yep, that is true. Perhaps part of the sides thing is related to the dosing being too high for you? I have gotten heart burn on it. Nothing else though. I have red in my natural skin tone, so that could be masking it?
I tried everything from 1 mg to 10 mg and the heart burn is the biggest issue for me as it lasts for days. I also did not feel anything in the Gym in terms of pump I don’t know, maybe it’s not for me
In the video, he mentions he is taking about 2 mg/day. I hate quartering pills, have 25 mg pills, so I am taking 12.5 mg EOD. I have gotten some brutal heart burn, so I’ll monitor that, and lower if it doesn’t go away.
I would be nice to have a quantitative understanding on how much of an AI effect it has. To me that would be a benefit for us guys on Testosterone if it is a mild AI effect.
I take 2.5mg Cialis with 1mg of Doxazosin an alpha-blocker daily for a vasodilator, it also lowers my BP, and helps with BPH. It’s a trifecta for me. Any drug store in India sells low-dose Cialis for pennies as well as Doxazosin.
Back when I took Cialis for sex I took 10-20mg and developed low back pain. I don’t feel anything on 2.5mg. I see it at the gym in arm vascularity.
Why such large doses? Everything I’ve seen seen suggests that barring an actual medical condition (ED, pulmonary high BP), 5-7.5 mg is more than enough even EOD.
Oftentimes with medication there’s a sweet spot in dose where you get all the benefits and only minimal side effects and if you surpass that dose, the effect doesn’t get better but the side effects pile up.
Because I am lazy lol. I don’t mind splitting pills in a v-groove splitter as orientation isn’t important with a round pill. Once they are split, then it is a PITA to get the pill to sit right in the v-groove.
I could quarter them into 6.25 mg pills. Do you think that is enough for EOD?
If I go over 2.5mg I get the worst headaches. Been trying to balance with 10mg of Telmisartan and every afternoon I get splitting headaches. BP goes very low sometimes, haven’t measured e2 while on it but don’t feel like it’s lower.but all the positives I’ve read keep me going with it. Gym pumps are amazing, but if I take my usual pump workout products, headaches get worse, so those are out for the time being.
Head aches I haven’t gotten (well maybe a slight one on the first dose). The heart burn though had been brutal once. Almost threw up on a deadlift because of it. I guess it relaxes the sphincter in your stomach making it easier for acid to come up. The taco bell earlier that day probably didn’t help either though.
Has anyone tried it alone and noticed BP improvement? On my TRT regi (140mg weekly) my BP is good. However, when I raise the Test for a blast, I go to the elevated range to stage 1 hypertension (lower end of it anyways) and was looking for something to help stabilize this. I suppose the pump wouldn’t be to bad either.
Edit: I do have tried Valerian Root to help, but have not noticed any BP difference. However, the evidence it will help is anecdotal, but it does help me relax at the end of a day for sure.
I haven’t tested, but I will tomorrow. I’m usually about 128/78. Vigorous Steve (watch his channel if you don’t) I think said it is usually good for a 5% drop.
I’m cruising right now 175 mg/wk pinned EOD. I am also taking 12.5 mg of ugl Cialis with each shot. I tend to cruise about twice as long as I blast, and keep the blasts moderate. I’ve done two blasts. On at 325 mg/wk with anavar at the end, and one at 600 mg/wk solo for 14 weeks. I did bump the second one up at the end to 650. Honestly, I was underwhelmed. I was too fat for both. I more think you should be lean to start. I was trying to hard to not gain fat, that I think my results suffered.
Do you know your blood numbers for FT and TT? Just wanted to see, relatively what the comparison would be. On my bloods from a week ago on 140mg my TT: 714.7 ng/dl. FT: 27.6 pg/ml. On that day my BP was pretty good at 118/79.
Edit: I did my first Test E 400 mg and var the last 4 weeks. (12 weeks and my BP was normal/slight elevated). The second one I did was Test E 500 mg (12 weeks and that is when my BP was a little worse). I am with you a little on the BF. I was 18%ish (20% on some) the first time. Got down to 16%(18% on some). Want to get down to 13 or 14 before my next one.
I was on 200 mg/wk, pinned on m,w,f with the pins being 62.5, 62.5, 75mg for m,w,f. I pulled bloods on Friday morning.
I’m in that 13-16% body fat range now. Unfortunately, I hold most of my fat in the stomach / chest. My arms and legs are lean and vascular. I have a picture in my training log “Ben’s training log, the stupid thread 3”. I just updated it, do it should be towards the top of the training log section.
Shit, I carry my fat the same way. I can get lean and vascular everywhere, but my love handles are stage 5 clingers. Even when I was 18 in the army running at least 15 miles a week, there they were with me the whole way lol. But I have zeroed in the diet and am hoping to rid myself of this problem.
I read your blood work and you seem to respond to slightly better than me. On the 400mg cycle with var I was around 1400 TT at the very end, don’t remember my FT numbers though.
Even your trt labs, if I assume linear increase with dose, you would calculate out to 1020ish ng/dl, when mine was 1223. I pinned Wednesday and pulled labs Friday though, which isn’t very long after the pin, so I would assume a lower number of I was pulling them 4-5 days later.
I don’t know, maybe it’s not for me