Hey there,
I’ve posted these queries on a couple of other forums, but am really keen to get as many opinions as possible. Apologies in advance for the long ass post!
After a lot of thought, I’ve decided to take the plunge and begin my first cycle. This will entail 10-12 weeks of Test E at 400mg per week (200mg every E3.5D) and 12.5mg aromasin E3.5D (adjusted up or down depending first on symptoms and then on mid-cycle blood work).
I’m due to start tomorrow, but am getting cold feet as I have a history of mental health issues. I’ve been on sertraline (150mg) for a couple of years, and recently added the mood stabiliser lamotrigine as I have depersonalization/derealization, and also because my GP suspects I may have bipolar disorder too.
So my questions nearly all revolve around mental health sides on cycle and during PCT, particularly with regards to how serotonin may be affected. Any help with these queries would be massively appreciated:
- The study in the link above, performed on rats, shows that nandrolone has long-lasting effects on brain levels of serotonin and dopamine. “It took about five times the administration duration period for the dopamine system to return to its initial level before administration. Serotonin system recovery lasted, in turn, six times the duration of the administration period.”
Would you expect the brain changes observed with nandrolone to be similar to that of testosterone, given that all anabolic steroids are derivatives of test? The thought that it would take around a year for my dopamine levels to return to normal and circa 15 months for serotonin to return to baseline after a 12 week cycle is kind of terrifying! I was hoping this long-term change could be attributed to nandrolone being much more anabolic/androgenic than test, but then I checked the compound list in the Reddit steroid wiki, and found that nandrolone is actually much less androgenic than test (37 vs 100) and only a little more anabolic (125 vs 100).
The following studies also show altered levels of neurotransmitters with anabolic steroid use, however the first two links relate to juveniles/adolescents, where the brain would still be developing, so hopefully wouldn’t be applicable to a 27 year old like myself:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1601-183X.2008.00458.x
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Dopamine has been observed to be tightly bound with test, whereas estrogen is more associated with serotonin. When using aromasin during cycle, I’ll always be leaning towards crashing my estrogen if in doubt, rather than risking elevated levels, to avoid physical symptoms such as gyno. If I crash my estrogen, how much would this be expected to crash serotonin? Given that I’m on an SSRI, which only keeps serotonin floating around for longer by blocking re-uptake rather than actually creating new serotonin, my concern is that crashing estrogen may cause my SSRI to be less effective, as there won’t be as much initial serotonin to work with.
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Estrogen crashing aside, wouldn’t test itself likely make me more dopamine dominant and serotonin depleted? I really want to avoid this not just to make sure my SSRI is still effective, but also because I believe going by my mental health symptoms that dopamine might be too high already (which my GP mentioned when he raised the possibility of bipolar).
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Anecdotally speaking, it appears a lot of people find test gives them far fewer mental / physical sides than other steroids such as nandrolone and trenbolone. Is this something you would agree or disagree with, going by your personal experience on cycle?
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I’ve decided to go with toremifene and enclomiphene citrate (which contains only the “good” clomid isomer) for PCT, to try to make mental sides as minimal as possible. Hopefully this helps, but if not, is PCT really as hellish as people say with regards to mental (and physical) struggles? And how long does this tend to last, roughly?
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Finally, a non-mental health related question! I was on TRT for 5 weeks in 2011, when I was 19, and then did a 5 week cycle of 5mg LGD-4033 between April - June this year (meant to be 8 weeks but had to cut it short due to sides). From a physical standpoint, would you consider this upcoming cycle to be my 1st, 2nd, or 3rd real cycle? Wasn’t sure if the first counted as it was only at prescription levels (5mg androgel per day) whereas the second was only a SARM. I only ask because I know that, generally speaking, the more cycles you do, the more chance there is of not regaining natural T levels. I should note at this point that I found out the cause of my low T levels a few years after attempting TRT, and they’re now very solid (ranging from 600-700 in my last few blood tests).
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I understand you can keep a substantial amount of your gains from a test cycle as long as you haven’t reached your genetic potential. I only want to do one cycle (I know everyone says this!) and then quit, so could I regain say 70% of my gains many years down the line if I don’t reach my limit, or is only doing one cycle a complete waste of time?
Thanks again to anyone who can help with these questions!
