If Arimidex (Anastrozole) doesn't work for you, there is still hope: Aromasin

[UCFguy]

This is my first post but I thought my experience could be helpful to others......

I've been on TRT for the last 4 years. I started with pellets and I did that for roughly 3 years. They worked great but since I don't have a lot of fat on my backside, I had problems with them popping out occassionally.

I started doing injections a little over a year ago and didn't have much success. 150mg cyp divided into 2 shots, HCG 250 IU EOD, Adex .25 twice a week. Every time I took anastrozole, I seemed to have these weird side effects. Libido would dissapear, no erections. I'd almost become depressed and moody. It almost felt like low T. I played around with the doseage and nothing seemed to work. I'd stop taking anastrozole for 3-4 days and I would start feeling better. I thought I was an over responder but my labs didn't show that. My E2 was 25 (Yes, it was the sensitive test) on .25mg 2x per week. Then I was thinking, maybe I'm different....maybe I just need more E2 than most to feel better. That wasn't the case either.

On my last appointment, I talked about it with my doc about the problems and he recommended trying Aromasin (Exemestane) and wow!!! What a difference!! Morning wood came back, the water retention went away, my overall mood got better, and I'm feeling the best I've felt yet while on injections.

I wanted to post this since I've looked through these forums struggling to find answers on why anastrozole / arimidex didn't work for me. I'm sure there are others out there where arimidex just doesn't jive with your body like it didn't jive with mine. There are other meds out there to try if one particular med doesn't work.

 

[Cataceous]

What dose are you on and how often? Is it giving a similar result for total estradiol as the 0.25 mg anastrozole BIW?

 

[equel]

what is your aromasin dosage, and what is ur shbg levels?

 

[Systemlord]

Every time I took anastrozole, I seemed to have these weird side effects. Libido would dissapear, no erections. I'd almost become depressed and moody. It almost felt like low T. I played around with the doseage and nothing seemed to work. I'd stop taking anastrozole for 3-4 days and I would start feeling better. I thought I was an over responder but my labs didn't show that. My E2 was 25 (Yes, it was the sensitive test) on .25mg 2x per week.

I had a similar experience, even though my estrogen was good and anastrozole made me feel like death, I am ruined whenever I touch it. I even tried 1/8 of a 0.050 anastrozole and same outcome with good estrogen. That's when I started injecting daily and found estrogen had never been lower on any other protocol.

Aromasin was better but still had the same outcome as anastrozole, but not nearly as bad.

When on 7mg daily dosing (49mg weekly), estrogen was <30 with about TT 417 ng/dL, an 20mg EOD protocol (80mg weekly) TT 496 and estrogen was 53, you can see how much testosterone I'm using even though both protocols produced similar numbers.

Because I was using less testosterone to achieve similar numbers, less converted to estrogen, I know longer had to compensate for the decline in hormones between injections and therefore needed less overall.

Your SHBG levels is critical for selecting the appropriate injection frequencies.

 

[Vince Carter]

I liked Aromasin, cost a little more than Anastrozole for me, but we thought it threw out all my lipids otherwise unexplainably high in a series of tests. But like Anastrozole I was using a lot of Exemestane I think 12.5mg/D at one point. I made the switch because Anastrozole @ .25mg/D wasn't enough and I thought I'd be able to get a better result with less AI. That wasn't quite the case but in some instances I thought that I did do a little better on Exemestane. I aromatase A LOT on just 16mg/D and I'm apparently very sensitive to Estrogen so this is a complicated mine field for me.

 

[UCFguy]

what is your aromasin dosage, and what is ur shbg levels?

I started taking 12.5mg of aromasin twice a week. I started this 3 weeks ago. I'll go get some labs done on week 5 or 6 to verify it's working.

 

[UCFguy]

I had a similar experience, even though my estrogen was good and anastrozole made me feel like death, I am ruined whenever I touch it. I even tried 1/8 of a 0.050 anastrozole and same outcome with good estrogen. That's when I started injecting daily and found estrogen had never been lower on any other protocol.

Aromasin was better but still had the same outcome as anastrozole, but not nearly as bad.

When on 7mg daily dosing (49mg weekly), estrogen was <30 with about TT 417 ng/dL, an 20mg EOD protocol (80mg weekly) TT 496 and estrogen was 53, you can see how much testosterone I'm using even though both protocols produced similar numbers.

Because I was using less testosterone to achieve similar numbers, less converted to estrogen, I know longer had to compensate for the decline in hormones between injections and therefore needed less overall.

Your SHBG levels is critical for selecting the appropriate injection frequencies.

Yes, I was lowering and lowering the dose too but still had awful side effects. I even had anastrozole compounded into .115mg and still had same effects.

When taking .25mg twice a week, my E2 was perfect but I felt terrible.

 

[UCFguy]

What dose are you on and how often? Is it giving a similar result for total estradiol as the 0.25 mg anastrozole BIW?

I was taking .25 anastrozole twice per week the day after my shot. Now I'm taking 12.5mg (1/2 tablet) twice per week (1/2 tablet after each shot).

I've only been on it for a few weeks but I'll get bloodwork at week 5 or 6 to make sure it's working.

 

[Miironleg]

I can't believe the amount of ai's guys are taking. There is no long term safety studies done on these drugs in men. In women they cause cardiovascular and bone health issues after surviving breast cancer. How do you guys justify taking these drugs and not worry about long term health issues?

 

[Vince Carter]

I can't believe the amount of ai's guys are taking. There is no long term safety studies done on these drugs in men. In women they cause cardiovascular and bone health issues after surviving breast cancer. How do you guys justify taking these drugs and not worry about long term health issues?

This is extremely short sighted point of view.

No one can say what Estrogen level in men is healthy. NO ONE can do that. The 21-30 is one of the largest myths (I call it a lie) that exists in TRT. On the other end, no one can prove that high, whatever number that is, is good for you, either.

The only concrete FACT in Estrogen management is that 0 (zero) is bad for you, constant suppression to 0, is bad.

Everything else is pure speculation so much so that it's not even worth debating any more.

 

[Miironleg]

This is extremely short sighted point of view.

No one can say what Estrogen level in men is healthy. NO ONE can do that. The 21-30 is one of the largest myths (I call it a lie) that exists in TRT. On the other end, no one can prove that high, whatever number that is, is good for you, either.

The only concrete FACT in Estrogen management is that 0 (zero) is bad for you, constant suppression to 0, is bad.

Everything else is pure speculation so much so that it's not even worth debating any more.

I will flip your argument to say ignoring the possible consequences of a drug is short sighted. Why take a drug meant to combat cancer off label and without any safety data? To each their own.

 

[UCFguy]

My doctor has been on testosterone and AI's for decades and he seems to be doing pretty good. He warns about keeping E2 too low because of joint health.

 

[Cataceous]

... YOU shouldn't need an AI. ....

You shouldn't need TRT either. In a perfect world.

 

[Nelson Vergel]

On my last appointment, I talked about it with my doc about the problems and he recommended trying Aromasin (Exemestane) and wow!!! What a difference!! Morning wood came back, the water retention went away, my overall mood got better, and I'm feeling the best I've felt yet while on injections.

Yes, because it resembles an androgen

A few interesting posts here:

aromasin excelmale.com site:www.excelmale.com - Google Search

 

[Nomad]

At my last follow-up with Defy I asked about aromasin as an option and the NP said it’s generally too harsh for most people.

 

[UCFguy]

I don't feel that aromasin is harsh at all. If anything, the anastrozole felt harsh. I just felt super odd while taking it(depressed, moody, no libido, etc). I think we're all just a little different and it's hard to say what will work good on any one person until you experiment a little with different things.