Advice on next steps - mid-low free T

[Forty2]

It sounds reasonable, and might be helpful in some cases.

I'm going to give it a try in about a weeks time. 250iu/day hCG with 5 drops of 10% DHT.
BTW the experiment I did with 150 iu hCG eod was a failure. It completely suppressed my LH and lowered my testosterone further.

 

[Cataceous]

... However, studies of men on TRT with suppressed GnRH do not show higher rates of dementia, nor do they show higher rates of all cause mortality. If the lack of GnRH is having negative effects then, it's either too subtle to affect health outcomes, or it's being overpowered by the benefits of testosterone.
...

Which studies evaluated the rates of dementia? Healthy controls or just untreated hypogonadal subjects? What's needed to answer this question more definitively is a study with large N that has matched eugonadal men as controls. The study needs to last long enough and/or have old enough subjects such that the prevalence of dementia is high enough to observe any differences.

 

[Cataceous]

What are the additional functions of GnRH?
Do you know if LH does anything more than just stimulate the leydig cells?

As noted, GnRH may play a role in adult neurogenesis. Also in the post I linked to:

”[1] Furthermore: “Multiple lines of evidence indicate that the expression of extrapituitary GnRH receptor is not limited to reproductive tissues. For instance, it has been demonstrated by RT-PCR and Southern blot hybridization that the receptor is also expressed in the liver, heart, skeletal muscle, kidney, and peripheral blood mononuclear cells.”[2]​

It's a similar story with LH. Wikipedia says:

Luteinizing hormone receptors are located in areas of the brain associated with cognitive function. The role of LH role in the central nervous system (CNS) may be of relevance to understanding and treating post-menopausal cognitive decline.​

​

Some research has observed an inverse relationship between circulating LH and CNS LH levels. After ovariectomy (a procedure used to mimic menopause) in female mice, circulating LH levels surge while CNS levels of LH fall. Treatments that lower circulating LH restore LH levels in the CNS.​

This suggests men may want to avoid high levels of hCG for long periods. Also:

LHCGR [luteinizing hormone/choriogonadotropin receptors] have been found in many types of extragonadal tissues, and the physiologic role of some has remained largely unexplored. Thus receptors have been found in the uterus, sperm, seminal vesicles, prostate, skin, breast, adrenals, thyroid, neural retina, neuroendocrine cells, and (rat) brain.​

There are still things to be learned about these hormones, which is why I have misgivings about suppressing them indefinitely.

 

[metflex]

In the kyzatrex trial I mentioned, they started at 7 ng/dL free T and increased by 7 ng/dL to 14 ng/dL with the 200 mg bid dose. I would be looking to create a dramatic difference from your 10 ng/dL baseline with this experiment to ensure the results are noticeable, and targeting something more like 20 ng/dL free T. I'm not sure where your personal comfort zone is with levels, but bear in mind we're measuring this at peak with oral T, while many doing well on injectable TRT are troughing significantly higher than that.

Good stats to know. And my assumption is that you'd keep an eye on TT but more so base decisions on symptoms and free T levels getting them into the upper quartile? It's interesting that we measure T levels on Kyzatrex at it's peak but don't necessarily do that will all T forms.