Long story short: Last fall I had my first "proper" estrogen crash with arimidex. The following months were a struggle for me when I tried to re-adjust my adex dose. Now I have to state that before that I had period of months were arimidex seemed to work just fine and I felt good. I did lose about 11 pounds after that so I guess that meant that I was aromatizing less.
Rewind to year 2017: Ive experienced 5-6 crashed during the past 7 months. According to my lab work, my E2 usually comes back in 7-10 days.
That said, the biggest thing that has been bothering me is the fact that since last november I have been experiencing strong apathy which is greatly hindering my every day life. There have been few weeks where I felt better, butt at the moment im feeling pretty horrible.
I feel that my symptoms are mainly realated to dopamine. They are:
- low libido - sometimes non existant
- cant really enjoy the things that I used to like
- I have a really low "drive" at the moment
- social interactions feel difficult
- Feel that my working memory is not the same anymore
- at worst I feel agitated
- I cant really handle stress
Overall my symptoms seem to resemble the early non-motor symptoms of parkinson's disease. Last november I made a thread here about a study that showed how an estrogen deprivation of 10-30 days lead to a 30% loss of dopamine producing neurons - in the substantia nigra. Now of course this was an animal study and a brief estrogen therapy (2 days) did restore the neurons in the animals that were deprived for 10 days. Here's the thread I mentioned: https://www.excelmale.com/forum/sho...-lethargy-by-destroying-your-dopamine-neurons
I guess my fear is that my current symptoms are permanent. Now I did have somewhat high e2 readings with my current protocol (54pg/ml on the non sensitive and 50 pg/ml on the sensitive). Because of that I did use an AI up until the 4th of july. After that I did however decide to ditch the AI completely and now Ive been "clean" for 4 weeks. Suprisingly on the latest non sensitive test I did not have a high reading - it was 38 pg/ml. Im still planning to go without an AI. Im hoping that the recovery time of 6-8 week's applies also for me.
Here are my latest labs and protocol.
Protocol: 0,15ml(37,5mg) TE E4D. I also take 5-7mg of testosterone gel on the scrotum ED or EOD.
Labs:
Androgens (2days after an injection):
TT: 840 ng/dl
SHBG: 25 nmol/l
FT:493 pmol/l (200-650 pmol/l)
E2: 38 pg/ml (non sensitive)
thyroid
TSH: 0,78 (0.3-4.5)
T4: 17 pmol/l (10-21)
T3: 5.1 pmol/l (3.2-6.5)
Iron status
Ferritin: 82 mq/l ( 20-250 )
Other labs
CRP: 1
Cortisol: 521 pmol/l (250-650 pmol/l)
So that's my current situation. Im wondering if there are any people here who have had similar experiences and eventually recovered - after a long period of having symptoms?
I know that my approach during last fall was stupid. I should have stopped adex after the first crash and waited for the usual 6-8 weeks. I took a long time to get it in my thick skull, that the only situations where you should introduce an AI should be after a high sensitive reading and persisting symptoms. Here's hoping it's not too late.
Also I want to keep this thread as a log on my road to recovery. I dont want to go forward alone. every advice is appriciated!
Rewind to year 2017: Ive experienced 5-6 crashed during the past 7 months. According to my lab work, my E2 usually comes back in 7-10 days.
That said, the biggest thing that has been bothering me is the fact that since last november I have been experiencing strong apathy which is greatly hindering my every day life. There have been few weeks where I felt better, butt at the moment im feeling pretty horrible.
I feel that my symptoms are mainly realated to dopamine. They are:
- low libido - sometimes non existant
- cant really enjoy the things that I used to like
- I have a really low "drive" at the moment
- social interactions feel difficult
- Feel that my working memory is not the same anymore
- at worst I feel agitated
- I cant really handle stress
Overall my symptoms seem to resemble the early non-motor symptoms of parkinson's disease. Last november I made a thread here about a study that showed how an estrogen deprivation of 10-30 days lead to a 30% loss of dopamine producing neurons - in the substantia nigra. Now of course this was an animal study and a brief estrogen therapy (2 days) did restore the neurons in the animals that were deprived for 10 days. Here's the thread I mentioned: https://www.excelmale.com/forum/sho...-lethargy-by-destroying-your-dopamine-neurons
I guess my fear is that my current symptoms are permanent. Now I did have somewhat high e2 readings with my current protocol (54pg/ml on the non sensitive and 50 pg/ml on the sensitive). Because of that I did use an AI up until the 4th of july. After that I did however decide to ditch the AI completely and now Ive been "clean" for 4 weeks. Suprisingly on the latest non sensitive test I did not have a high reading - it was 38 pg/ml. Im still planning to go without an AI. Im hoping that the recovery time of 6-8 week's applies also for me.
Here are my latest labs and protocol.
Protocol: 0,15ml(37,5mg) TE E4D. I also take 5-7mg of testosterone gel on the scrotum ED or EOD.
Labs:
Androgens (2days after an injection):
TT: 840 ng/dl
SHBG: 25 nmol/l
FT:493 pmol/l (200-650 pmol/l)
E2: 38 pg/ml (non sensitive)
thyroid
TSH: 0,78 (0.3-4.5)
T4: 17 pmol/l (10-21)
T3: 5.1 pmol/l (3.2-6.5)
Iron status
Ferritin: 82 mq/l ( 20-250 )
Other labs
CRP: 1
Cortisol: 521 pmol/l (250-650 pmol/l)
So that's my current situation. Im wondering if there are any people here who have had similar experiences and eventually recovered - after a long period of having symptoms?
I know that my approach during last fall was stupid. I should have stopped adex after the first crash and waited for the usual 6-8 weeks. I took a long time to get it in my thick skull, that the only situations where you should introduce an AI should be after a high sensitive reading and persisting symptoms. Here's hoping it's not too late.
Also I want to keep this thread as a log on my road to recovery. I dont want to go forward alone. every advice is appriciated!