Has Anyone Stopped HCG

[pfuked]

I cycle between low dose HCG to prevent complete shrinkage to higher dose when I want to boys to grow back a little. Main side effect for me is increased estrogen and DHT if taking the amount prescribed by my doctor for an extended period of time.

 

[Cataceous]

@Cataceous, I definitely think you are correct that Xyosted has different pharmacokinetics compared with other forms of enanthate. But, I was thinking about the phase II study they published in 2015. I am not sure how to post papers, but the title is:

Pharmacokinetic Profile of Subcutaneous Testosterone
Enanthate Delivered via a Novel, Prefilled Single-Use Autoinjector: A Phase II Study

In this study, they show a graph in which the peak levels with 50mg stay the same over six weeks, and they state: "The 50-mg dose exhibited no accumulation between doses...
suggesting that clearance exceeds exposure by the end of the dosing interval
". I would assume that if the half life were 7 days or less, that the peaks would gradually rise, or is this flawed thinking? I also finding it a little odd that, if this is true, they even offer 50mg. Why would someone want troughs that land them in the same sub therapeutic range every week?

Their website claims that the peaks and troughs stay in a 1.8x ratio with each other, suggesting peaks are nearly double the trough levels. So, if your trough is 500, you peak should be around 900. Does anyone know if this therapeutic window is tighter than other esters, or is it similar?

This is the study that shows an apparent half-life of ten days (239.63 hours). They don't say how it was calculated. It seems a little long compared to what can be derived from the average Cmax and Cmin values.

In any case, regarding accumulation, I think the confounding factor is that the men had functional HPTAs at the start. This means that their own production was declining in the early weeks of the study. The buildup in the 50 mg cohort is better masked by their declining natural production. If you wanted to clearly see the accumulation then you'd need to remove endogenous testosterone from the subjects with a GnRH agonist prior to the study. The peaks will always appear to rise with the first few doses unless the half-life is relatively small compared to the dosing interval. For example, even a 3.5 day half-life leaves a residual of one quarter of the previous dose to be added to the next dose, with weekly dosing. But the residual of 1/16 the dose from two weeks back is already becoming a pretty small contribution.

I've been saying that with regard to serum variation, taking Xyosted weekly is similar to taking regular cypionate or enanthate twice weekly. This relies on the Xyosted calculation of apparent half-life. If this calculation is on the high side then the equivalent interval for the other products would be longer.

The "therapeutic window" you refer to can be adjusted arbitrarily by changing the injection interval relative to the half-life of the ester. Even with a short-acting ester such as testosterone propionate you can reduce the window to virtually nothing if you were willing to inject tiny amounts every few minutes. Xyosted lacks the flexibility of other products because of the three fixed doses. You can still go off-label and inject more or less frequently than weekly.