Hi,
My name is David and I'm 25 years old. I've read through a number of posts on this website (extremely educational) but this is the first thread I've started.
Pro-Hormones:
When I was about 18 or 19 years old, friends were trying these "incredible" supplements called pro-hormones. Eventually, I tried one and I think it was called Jacked (not Jack3d the pre-workout). I surely had incredible gains (strength and weight) and I thought it was an amazing supplement. At this point, I had very little knowledge about the world of hormones. I tried a number of different pro-hormones and eventually when I got off for a while, I felt that I didn't have the energy or drive that I had previously. It just didn't come back. I got a blood test done and I think my total test came back in the 350-400 ng/dl range if I recall correctly. I can't recall where the free test was. The point is, I felt lethargic with low stamina and diminished sex drive so I set off on a quest to restore my hormones.
Steroids:
I eventually met a friend through work whom I later found out was taking steroids. At first, he was hesitant to let me try any of the stuff he was on but I insisted that I was so devoid of energy and needed something to get me back on track; he finally gave me some testosterone and deca. At this time, I still didn't know much about the world of AAS. I didn't realize how suppressive these two androgens would be on my HPG axis, specifically deca. I ran a number of cycles probably from age 20 to 22 (staying on test most of the time) but much less than most other steroid users I knew. After my last cycle, I noticed significant testicular atrophy and it just wouldn't come back to normal size. I tried a number of Clomid and HCG protocols I had read about online but to no avail.
Pursuit of Medical Help:
After much time digging through the internet in search of the right regimen, I decided it was time to seek medical help. I was preparing to go to my biggest, most important summer internship and I desperately needed something to get me through the misery of Low T / Energy / Libido. I found a place called BodyLogic and they happened to have a clinic in Fairfax, VA. I went there, got bloodwork done and went over the results with the doc. I think my FSH and LH both landed at about 3-4/12 mlU/ml. My testosterone was again somewhere around 350 ng/dl. We went over options of either doing HCG Monotherapy or taking a bunch of vitamins in hopes of regenerating my HPG. He thought the vitamins were the best route so I did that for maybe 4-6 months with very little or no improvement in energy/sex drive/testicle size/strength etc.
Hormone Replacement Therapy:
When I got back from my internship, I still had one last semester of college to finish before I began my professional career. At this point, I felt drained all the time and was in dire need of something to help me get healthy again. I was finally able to find a local doctor in Arizona who treated men with low testosterone like symptoms. We discussed three possible options:
1) HCG Monotherapy: 1000 IU @ 3X per week MWF
2) Clomid: Something like 50 MG EOD
3) HRT: Test Cyp, HCG, AI
HCG Monotherapy:
I asked what he thought the best route was and he said HCG Monotherapy was probably best for someone my age in order to preserve fertility. I said okay and we began the therapy.
Within days of taking the HCG, I started to feel significantly better. This was a sign that although my FSH and LH feedback loop had been extremely suppressed, my leydig cells in my testes were still receptive to LH analogue. I stayed on course for maybe a few months and then went back to the doc to get my blood work done. I think my total test was somewhere in the 500 ng/dl area and I hadn't noticed any significant increase in the size of my testicles. He advised that we up the dose to 2000 IU of HCG 3X week. For the first couple of days, I felt AMAZING and my testicles were nice and plump. But shortly after, the hormonal descent came. My leydig cells were getting stimulated with so much LH analogue that they desensitized and shut down. Within the next few weeks, I was going through withdrawals. All of the beneficial hormones that were being produced in my brain by the HCG came to a hault and so did my sense of well-being. My doc said he had never experienced this before and wasn't sure what to do. My test levels fell below where I had started at and my FSH and LH were probably undetectable because HCG heavily suppresses that natural feedback loop. I exhorted him to put me on testosterone replacement therapy so he did.
Testosterone Replacement Therapy:
I began taking Tesosterone Cypionate 200 mg/ml @ 0.5 ml for the first week then decided to split it into 0.3 ml twice per week. 42 days later, I felt the first injection of the testosterone cypionate kick in and I felt my energy levels rise greatly. The following weeks did not feel nearly as good which leads me to believe 0.3 ml is too little for a single injection or the test just hadn't built up in my system yet (probably the latter). At this point, my body still wasn't responding to the HCG so I tried to figure out how I could resensitize my leydig cells.
Here's how it went (based on my recollection):
Note: I put the HCG IU range because I can't remember exactly how much I took for each of these stints but it was 300-500 IU plus or minus 50 IU.
1) 7 days without HCG then injected between 300-500 IU HCG @ 3X per week; noticed benefits and then after the second injection testicles stopped responding and began to atrophy.
2) 10 days without HCG then injected between 300-500 IU HCG @ 3X per week; noticed benefits for a few days then stopped responding and testicles started atrophying.
3) 14 days without HCG then injected between 300-500 IU HCG @ 3X per week; noticed benefits for a few days then stopped responding and testicles started atrophying.
4) 21 days without HCG then injected between 300-500 IU HCG @ 3X per week; noticed benefits for a few days then after 2nd or 3rd injection my body stopped responding and testicles started atrophying.
5) 28 days without HCG then injected between 300-500 IU HCG @ 3X per week; worked for close to a week then I stopped responding to the HCG and testicles started to atrophy.
6) 40 days without HCG then injected between 300-500 IU HCG @ 3X per week; worked for about a week then stopped responding after maybe the 3rd injection and testicles began to atrophy.
7) 60 days without HCG then injected 300-500 IU HCG; I noticed neurological benefits within the first couple days but I think it was about 10-12 days before I noticed the benefits on testicular size. At this point, I had taken the HCG consistently for a few weeks now and my body DID NOT stop responding to it. There were certainly ups and downs and I started to mess around with how I dosed it over the course of the next 4-5 months. I tried smaller doses ED (200-300 IU), then larger doses, and eventually found that taking between 500-600 IUs EOD to E2D was about the sweet spot. It was where I had the most perceived benefit with the least amount of side effect. From April 1, 2016 until now, it's been a bumpy road with the HCG but I haven't had a complete shut down like I did after being dosed at 2000 IU 3X per week.
Stomach problems:
Taking a step back in time, I added testosterone cypionate and arimidex to my HRT protocol around May 2015. Within a few months, are started to experience severe stomach issues. I had bloating, cramping, acid reflux and my stomach was just in pain all the time. I went to a gastroenterologist to see what might be causing the issues; we tested for: lactose intolerance, celiac's disease, had an upper GI endoscopy to see if I had ulcers. The doc couldn't find any definitive evidence of what might be causing me the issues.
Broken Leg, Fixed Stomach:
On October 7, 2015, I was hiking down Camelback mountain; there are a couple spots where you sort of need to climb down or hop from boulder to boulder. When I landed on one of the boulders, my left foot slipped off and my head came crashing down atop a rock. I blacked out for a second, began falling backwards and my left foot hooked underneath a large boulder; my foot bent back as far as it could and then my tibia snapped and shot through my leg. I had also lacerated my thyroid cartilage from head/throat hitting the rock so there was sorry that an air bubble was forming in my trachea and I was slowly asphyxiating. I ended up putting the bone back in my leg on the mountain (didn't realize how dangerous that was at the time) and then got heli-evac'd off the mountain to a hospital.
The reason I tell this story is because I wasn't allowed to eat food for 4 days at the hospital due to issues with my thyroid cartilage and them not wanting to take a chance of damaging it further. When I left the hospital, I know longer had any stomach issues! It was like the fast had reset whatever issues were being caused by the antagonist which I now think was the testosterone.
Is Test Cyp the antagonist?
I think that it is. About 4 1/2 weeks ago I stopped taking my testosterone and by the second week I noticed some improvement. By the 3rd week significant improvement. By the 4th week, I wasn't having any stomach issues. Monday of this week, I took an injection of my Test Cypionate and by the next day I was starting to feel some irritations in my stomach again. It's not nearly as bad as it was but my fear is that it will continue to get worse if I keep taking injections.
My plea to all of you with knowledge and experience: Can you please provide me any insights on how I can move forward?
1) I can't see myself getting off of testosterone completely. Are there any beneficial alternatives or is there anyone who has experience stomach issues while on testosterone? If so, what have you done to remedy it?
2) Any recommendations on how I can change my HCG protocol? I was thinking of getting off of it for a bit to resensitize my leydig cells and maybe use human menapausal gonadotropin (HMG) instead. Does anyone have experience with HMG? Can it be used whilst on HRT? Is clomid a good alternative whilst on HRT. I've used clomid in the past by itself and had relatively poor results.
3) Are there any gaps you see in my regimen or other things I can add that may help with overall health? I've read that DHEA has some very good benefits and is really cheap. I've also heard that it can be extremely important to check your T3, T4 and reverse T3 levels to see how thyroid is functioning.
4) Is it possible that a total body cleanse and reset would be beneficial. This part scares me because I know there would be a shut down but it could possible revamp my natural LH and FSH feedback loop so I respond better to HRT therapy.
I know this was a very long post so thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for reading it! I've tried for a long time to solve these problems on my own but it's so complex and I really need the help of other bright minds.
Best regards,
David
My name is David and I'm 25 years old. I've read through a number of posts on this website (extremely educational) but this is the first thread I've started.
Pro-Hormones:
When I was about 18 or 19 years old, friends were trying these "incredible" supplements called pro-hormones. Eventually, I tried one and I think it was called Jacked (not Jack3d the pre-workout). I surely had incredible gains (strength and weight) and I thought it was an amazing supplement. At this point, I had very little knowledge about the world of hormones. I tried a number of different pro-hormones and eventually when I got off for a while, I felt that I didn't have the energy or drive that I had previously. It just didn't come back. I got a blood test done and I think my total test came back in the 350-400 ng/dl range if I recall correctly. I can't recall where the free test was. The point is, I felt lethargic with low stamina and diminished sex drive so I set off on a quest to restore my hormones.
Steroids:
I eventually met a friend through work whom I later found out was taking steroids. At first, he was hesitant to let me try any of the stuff he was on but I insisted that I was so devoid of energy and needed something to get me back on track; he finally gave me some testosterone and deca. At this time, I still didn't know much about the world of AAS. I didn't realize how suppressive these two androgens would be on my HPG axis, specifically deca. I ran a number of cycles probably from age 20 to 22 (staying on test most of the time) but much less than most other steroid users I knew. After my last cycle, I noticed significant testicular atrophy and it just wouldn't come back to normal size. I tried a number of Clomid and HCG protocols I had read about online but to no avail.
Pursuit of Medical Help:
After much time digging through the internet in search of the right regimen, I decided it was time to seek medical help. I was preparing to go to my biggest, most important summer internship and I desperately needed something to get me through the misery of Low T / Energy / Libido. I found a place called BodyLogic and they happened to have a clinic in Fairfax, VA. I went there, got bloodwork done and went over the results with the doc. I think my FSH and LH both landed at about 3-4/12 mlU/ml. My testosterone was again somewhere around 350 ng/dl. We went over options of either doing HCG Monotherapy or taking a bunch of vitamins in hopes of regenerating my HPG. He thought the vitamins were the best route so I did that for maybe 4-6 months with very little or no improvement in energy/sex drive/testicle size/strength etc.
Hormone Replacement Therapy:
When I got back from my internship, I still had one last semester of college to finish before I began my professional career. At this point, I felt drained all the time and was in dire need of something to help me get healthy again. I was finally able to find a local doctor in Arizona who treated men with low testosterone like symptoms. We discussed three possible options:
1) HCG Monotherapy: 1000 IU @ 3X per week MWF
2) Clomid: Something like 50 MG EOD
3) HRT: Test Cyp, HCG, AI
HCG Monotherapy:
I asked what he thought the best route was and he said HCG Monotherapy was probably best for someone my age in order to preserve fertility. I said okay and we began the therapy.
Within days of taking the HCG, I started to feel significantly better. This was a sign that although my FSH and LH feedback loop had been extremely suppressed, my leydig cells in my testes were still receptive to LH analogue. I stayed on course for maybe a few months and then went back to the doc to get my blood work done. I think my total test was somewhere in the 500 ng/dl area and I hadn't noticed any significant increase in the size of my testicles. He advised that we up the dose to 2000 IU of HCG 3X week. For the first couple of days, I felt AMAZING and my testicles were nice and plump. But shortly after, the hormonal descent came. My leydig cells were getting stimulated with so much LH analogue that they desensitized and shut down. Within the next few weeks, I was going through withdrawals. All of the beneficial hormones that were being produced in my brain by the HCG came to a hault and so did my sense of well-being. My doc said he had never experienced this before and wasn't sure what to do. My test levels fell below where I had started at and my FSH and LH were probably undetectable because HCG heavily suppresses that natural feedback loop. I exhorted him to put me on testosterone replacement therapy so he did.
Testosterone Replacement Therapy:
I began taking Tesosterone Cypionate 200 mg/ml @ 0.5 ml for the first week then decided to split it into 0.3 ml twice per week. 42 days later, I felt the first injection of the testosterone cypionate kick in and I felt my energy levels rise greatly. The following weeks did not feel nearly as good which leads me to believe 0.3 ml is too little for a single injection or the test just hadn't built up in my system yet (probably the latter). At this point, my body still wasn't responding to the HCG so I tried to figure out how I could resensitize my leydig cells.
Here's how it went (based on my recollection):
Note: I put the HCG IU range because I can't remember exactly how much I took for each of these stints but it was 300-500 IU plus or minus 50 IU.
1) 7 days without HCG then injected between 300-500 IU HCG @ 3X per week; noticed benefits and then after the second injection testicles stopped responding and began to atrophy.
2) 10 days without HCG then injected between 300-500 IU HCG @ 3X per week; noticed benefits for a few days then stopped responding and testicles started atrophying.
3) 14 days without HCG then injected between 300-500 IU HCG @ 3X per week; noticed benefits for a few days then stopped responding and testicles started atrophying.
4) 21 days without HCG then injected between 300-500 IU HCG @ 3X per week; noticed benefits for a few days then after 2nd or 3rd injection my body stopped responding and testicles started atrophying.
5) 28 days without HCG then injected between 300-500 IU HCG @ 3X per week; worked for close to a week then I stopped responding to the HCG and testicles started to atrophy.
6) 40 days without HCG then injected between 300-500 IU HCG @ 3X per week; worked for about a week then stopped responding after maybe the 3rd injection and testicles began to atrophy.
7) 60 days without HCG then injected 300-500 IU HCG; I noticed neurological benefits within the first couple days but I think it was about 10-12 days before I noticed the benefits on testicular size. At this point, I had taken the HCG consistently for a few weeks now and my body DID NOT stop responding to it. There were certainly ups and downs and I started to mess around with how I dosed it over the course of the next 4-5 months. I tried smaller doses ED (200-300 IU), then larger doses, and eventually found that taking between 500-600 IUs EOD to E2D was about the sweet spot. It was where I had the most perceived benefit with the least amount of side effect. From April 1, 2016 until now, it's been a bumpy road with the HCG but I haven't had a complete shut down like I did after being dosed at 2000 IU 3X per week.
Stomach problems:
Taking a step back in time, I added testosterone cypionate and arimidex to my HRT protocol around May 2015. Within a few months, are started to experience severe stomach issues. I had bloating, cramping, acid reflux and my stomach was just in pain all the time. I went to a gastroenterologist to see what might be causing the issues; we tested for: lactose intolerance, celiac's disease, had an upper GI endoscopy to see if I had ulcers. The doc couldn't find any definitive evidence of what might be causing me the issues.
Broken Leg, Fixed Stomach:
On October 7, 2015, I was hiking down Camelback mountain; there are a couple spots where you sort of need to climb down or hop from boulder to boulder. When I landed on one of the boulders, my left foot slipped off and my head came crashing down atop a rock. I blacked out for a second, began falling backwards and my left foot hooked underneath a large boulder; my foot bent back as far as it could and then my tibia snapped and shot through my leg. I had also lacerated my thyroid cartilage from head/throat hitting the rock so there was sorry that an air bubble was forming in my trachea and I was slowly asphyxiating. I ended up putting the bone back in my leg on the mountain (didn't realize how dangerous that was at the time) and then got heli-evac'd off the mountain to a hospital.
The reason I tell this story is because I wasn't allowed to eat food for 4 days at the hospital due to issues with my thyroid cartilage and them not wanting to take a chance of damaging it further. When I left the hospital, I know longer had any stomach issues! It was like the fast had reset whatever issues were being caused by the antagonist which I now think was the testosterone.
Is Test Cyp the antagonist?
I think that it is. About 4 1/2 weeks ago I stopped taking my testosterone and by the second week I noticed some improvement. By the 3rd week significant improvement. By the 4th week, I wasn't having any stomach issues. Monday of this week, I took an injection of my Test Cypionate and by the next day I was starting to feel some irritations in my stomach again. It's not nearly as bad as it was but my fear is that it will continue to get worse if I keep taking injections.
My plea to all of you with knowledge and experience: Can you please provide me any insights on how I can move forward?
1) I can't see myself getting off of testosterone completely. Are there any beneficial alternatives or is there anyone who has experience stomach issues while on testosterone? If so, what have you done to remedy it?
2) Any recommendations on how I can change my HCG protocol? I was thinking of getting off of it for a bit to resensitize my leydig cells and maybe use human menapausal gonadotropin (HMG) instead. Does anyone have experience with HMG? Can it be used whilst on HRT? Is clomid a good alternative whilst on HRT. I've used clomid in the past by itself and had relatively poor results.
3) Are there any gaps you see in my regimen or other things I can add that may help with overall health? I've read that DHEA has some very good benefits and is really cheap. I've also heard that it can be extremely important to check your T3, T4 and reverse T3 levels to see how thyroid is functioning.
4) Is it possible that a total body cleanse and reset would be beneficial. This part scares me because I know there would be a shut down but it could possible revamp my natural LH and FSH feedback loop so I respond better to HRT therapy.
I know this was a very long post so thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for reading it! I've tried for a long time to solve these problems on my own but it's so complex and I really need the help of other bright minds.
Best regards,
David
