How long does it take to get to pre TRT levels!?

[Etownone]

Long story short. I've made the big mistake of starting my own protocol of TRT about 6 years ago after my doctor would only give me the gel. So I did 100 MG cyp twice a week, and it helped my mood and sex life dramatically.

Now... Im going to come off my TRT and follow a PCT for 1 month. (two weeks of 300iu HCG daily followed by 2 weeks of clomid 25mg daily.)

I know I did it all wrong...
But I want to do it right.

When can I expect my test levels to go back to pre TRT so I can go to a Dr and do TRT the correct (legal) way, with blood work and with prescriptions from a doctor.

 

[Vince]

6 years is a long time, you may not be able to get you a levels back to where they were, before you started trt.

 

[max74]

well my friend, guess i'm not the only stuppid one in this world ( no offence ment).
Did my own TRT for 10 years and quited cold Turkey in august. We all react different, but nothing came back, infact i feel like crap.
My advice to you, cause i expect that you didn't start messing around for nothing...
Get a full bloodpanel first
And dont forget SHBG.
And brace yourself when quiting everything, in my case....everytime i thought that it couldn't get any worse....think again, but you need to do this now, cause when you dont know excactly what you are treating, then there is no way to do your own TRT.

 

[Etownone]

well my friend, guess i'm not the only stuppid one in this world ( no offence ment).
Did my own TRT for 10 years and quited cold Turkey in august. We all react different, but nothing came back, infact i feel like crap.
My advice to you, cause i expect that you didn't start messing around for nothing...
Get a full bloodpanel first
And dont forget SHBG.
And brace yourself when quiting everything, in my case....everytime i thought that it couldn't get any worse....think again, but you need to do this now, cause when you dont know excactly what you are treating, then there is no way to do your own TRT.

Hey Max,
When you stopped cold turkey, did you do a good post cycle therapy? And that didn't help either?

Are you back on TRT?

 

[RLW]

You might be able to go back to where you would today had you never started but the idea of going back to where you were 6 years ago makes no sense. You wouldn't be 6 years younger today even if you never went on testosterone.

 

[max74]

no PCT, didn't figure it would be of much use and was allready expecting the worse.
Went to a endo 4 months later and they thought my bloodwork looked great?
I start using Testosterone after i did 1 cycle when i was never able to gain musclle or strength, this was when i figured out there was something wrong with me, Always tired, moody, zero libido the whole 9 yards..so i started rearching low T, and i figured this was my problem. Visited several Endo's in these years and my T Always came back high, so i got to a point that i didn't believed the bloodwork anymore, maybe because i did TRT or whatever, now with this endo i was Lucky enough to cross some more things on the bloodform before they draw, and SHBG was one of these things, it came back 118, so more then double the upper limit. Now i found out with help on another board and reading about SHBG that this is verry importent, high SHBG means low FT, and looking at older bloodwork this was Always the problem. This means my treatment is different then men with low T, and thats where i screwed up. Coming Monday i go to a Specialist ( private), and hope that this time i'm getting help, i lost all hope in Doctors and Healthcare, and what you can find online, GO private, but if thats not an option, do bloodwork and go from there, for you.....six years is also enough to feel the downside of quiting testeosterone, so just expect the worst, even if you stop your pct, the chance is that you will feel like crap, so just quit, wait a few months and then do bloodwork to see what is wrong, so that means everything from hormones to thyroids.

 

[Etownone]

You might be able to go back to where you would today had you never started but the idea of going back to where you were 6 years ago makes no sense. You wouldn't be 6 years younger today even if you never went on testosterone.

Thanks RLW,
Just wondering, how long does that take. Does someone have to crash for months... Or would the PCT really help.

 

[Etownone]

no PCT, didn't figure it would be of much use and was allready expecting the worse.
Went to a endo 4 months later and they thought my bloodwork looked great?
I start using Testosterone after i did 1 cycle when i was never able to gain musclle or strength, this was when i figured out there was something wrong with me, Always tired, moody, zero libido the whole 9 yards..so i started rearching low T, and i figured this was my problem. Visited several Endo's in these years and my T Always came back high, so i got to a point that i didn't believed the bloodwork anymore, maybe because i did TRT or whatever, now with this endo i was Lucky enough to cross some more things on the bloodform before they draw, and SHBG was one of these things, it came back 118, so more then double the upper limit. Now i found out with help on another board and reading about SHBG that this is verry importent, high SHBG means low FT, and looking at older bloodwork this was Always the problem. This means my treatment is different then men with low T, and thats where i screwed up. Coming Monday i go to a Specialist ( private), and hope that this time i'm getting help, i lost all hope in Doctors and Healthcare, and what you can find online, GO private, but if thats not an option, do bloodwork and go from there, for you.....six years is also enough to feel the downside of quiting testeosterone, so just expect the worst, even if you stop your pct, the chance is that you will feel like crap, so just quit, wait a few months and then do bloodwork to see what is wrong, so that means everything from hormones to thyroids.

NO PCT? whoa.

When you say Go Private... You mean pay out of pocket and not deal with doctors and insurance.

 

[max74]

Ok, i could be wrong about this but shooting testosterone for 6 years or 10 years is something else then a bodybuilder taking a cycle, so i had no hope that some HCG or nolva would bring me back to normal. Your case and reasons are probably different then mine, my last 4 years of TRT allready did nothing anymore for libido, only for some mood and energy. So thats why i dicided to quit and knowing that with a shutdown this long there would be no way in hell that my bloodwork would come back ok.
But again, Healthcare doctors only focus on testosteron, the bloodwork they ordered was FSH, LH and testosterone, i filled in SHBG and E2...its still a ridlle to me how they calculated free testosteron sinds the calculators Always ask for albumin, and that was not on the list. But anyhow, my FT is just around 1%, so not good offcourse with the high SHBG. The Endo didn't even want to see me when my blood was in, and i had to look for another one. But even this guy told me he discussed with the other endo and i should be proud with these levels. When i asked about my SHBG he told me that this is only used to calculate FT. How fucked up is it when you as a patient need to find out for yourself online that this is bullcrap. So yeah, go private, when Insurance is involved you can bet your ass that they are all bound by rules to make sure that its not gonna cost them any money.
I cant see it in another way anymore, and most folks who go from doc to doc in the system all end up in private care before they get help.

 

[Systemlord]

I just stopped TRT 5 weeks ago and no PCT or anything and started to noticed feeling better after 4.5 weeks and had been on TRT for 2.5 years. I have no official confirmation but I experienced T bliss on Wednesday and everyday since.

My joints were killing me last week, this is no longer the case.

 

[fifty]

I just stopped TRT 5 weeks ago and no PCT or anything and started to noticed feeling better after 4.5 weeks and had been on TRT for 2.5 years. I have no official confirmation but I experienced T bliss on Wednesday and everyday since.

My joints were killing me last week, this is no longer the case.

Good to hear man.

 

[TLR]

It will probably take more than 2 weeks of clomid to do much, but there is no way to know for sure with these things. I tried a restart after 7 years and only got to slightly above pre treatment levels with LH and FSH at top of range. Rather than going through all of this, do you think you could just go in and be honest with the Dr since your intention is to go on TRT anyway?

 

[max74]

The more reactions, the more different things you will hear, Why? |Because we all react different. You can find horrorstory's online and others will feel better in the end, the only way you will know how you will react is by quiting.
At first i thought it went pretty well, but after 2 months the headache's started, once a week a i wanna cut of my head headache, now, 10 months later they are almost gone except for some daily light headache. Energy and mood dropped around the same time and got worse every day, i had to drag myself to just walk the dog, still have zero motivation to do anything. But what kept me going was the knowledge that i needed to visit a doctor. This was a bust offcourse, but if it didn't went the way it went, then i would have never found out what my problem All allong was.
My 2 cents, TRT like i did, going on feeling without bloodwork and not knowing where the problem lies ....never gonna work. Your first proirity would be bloodwork, and i dont know how much a pct would screw with that, so better stay clean for a couplle of months and then go from there.

 

[Etownone]

I just stopped TRT 5 weeks ago and no PCT or anything and started to noticed feeling better after 4.5 weeks and had been on TRT for 2.5 years. I have no official confirmation but I experienced T bliss on Wednesday and everyday since.

My joints were killing me last week, this is no longer the case.

That sounds pretty amazing. 5 weeks and you're back to feeling good. Not sure what T bliss is though

What type of TRT were you on? Test + hcg?

 

[broker]

If you needed TRT, why in the world would you want to go back to “ pre TRT levels”???
Also, you were doing 200 mgs per week which in my opinion is a mild steroid cycle.

 

[madman]

Thanks RLW,
Just wondering, how long does that take. Does someone have to crash for months... Or would the PCT really help.

Depends on the individual as T dose/duration/age will have a big impact on recovery of pre-trt levels let alone ones fertility.

Once exogenous T is cleared from your system the release of LH from the pituitary will kick in fairly quick but the main concern would be responsiveness of the leydig cells in the testes to the LH signal as when using exogenous testosterone without the combined use of hCG the leydig cells become dormant.

Use of PCT will aid in speeding up the process of kickstarting the hpta to resume endogenous testosterone production and can help with minimizing the crash but will not eliminate it completely as the whole process still takes time but the main advantage is recovery will be much quicker while at the same time minimizing the degree to which one experiences the crash as oppose to one who stops cold turkey.

No one can say for sure what your experience will be as every individual is different and depending on whether PCT or not was used in the process.

You may never return to your pre-trt baseline levels and could possibly end up lower.....only by having blood work done post-trt (give enough time) will you truly know where your LH/FSH/TT/FT/e2 levels sit.

 

[madman]

Ok, i could be wrong about this but shooting testosterone for 6 years or 10 years is something else then a bodybuilder taking a cycle, so i had no hope that some HCG or nolva would bring me back to normal. Your case and reasons are probably different then mine, my last 4 years of TRT allready did nothing anymore for libido, only for some mood and energy. So thats why i dicided to quit and knowing that with a shutdown this long there would be no way in hell that my bloodwork would come back ok.
But again, Healthcare doctors only focus on testosteron, the bloodwork they ordered was FSH, LH and testosterone, i filled in SHBG and E2...its still a ridlle to me how they calculated free testosteron sinds the calculators Always ask for albumin, and that was not on the list. But anyhow, my FT is just around 1%, so not good offcourse with the high SHBG. The Endo didn't even want to see me when my blood was in, and i had to look for another one. But even this guy told me he discussed with the other endo and i should be proud with these levels. When i asked about my SHBG he told me that this is only used to calculate FT. How fucked up is it when you as a patient need to find out for yourself online that this is bullcrap. So yeah, go private, when Insurance is involved you can bet your ass that they are all bound by rules to make sure that its not gonna cost them any money.
I cant see it in another way anymore, and most folks who go from doc to doc in the system all end up in private care before they get help.

Although albumin is needed when using the various calculated methods for FT it can still be done if one has not had albumin tested as these calculations use 4.3 g/dL (mean) as a large majority of men's levels are slightly higher/lower and only in cases where one had Hypoalbuminemia abnormally low levels would it have a significant impact on ones FT!

 

[max74]

[QUOTE="madman, i keep learning more and more...thanks for the info, Always thought it was weird that they didn't mention this on your bloodpanel when they need it to calculate, but now i understand.

 

[madman]

If you needed TRT, why in the world would you want to go back to “ pre TRT levels”???
Also, you were doing 200 mgs per week which in my opinion is a mild steroid cycle.

If anything 250 mg/week would be considered a low dose T cycle and even than most are using 300-600 mg/week of T for muscle enhancement.

Sure 200 mg/week is a rather large dose for trt and most would not need such dose to achieve a TT level which would result in a healthy FT level but you should very well know that there are men who need such dose to achieve such levels.

Start low and go slow is the most sensible advice.

To state "Also, you were doing 200 mgs per week which in my opinion is a mild steroid cycle".....is narrow minded as you have no idea not only what his pre-trt levels were TT/FT/SHBG but more importantly where his post TT/FT levels sit on such dose as he posted no lab work.

 

[madman]

[QUOTE="madman, i keep learning more and more...thanks for the info, Always thought it was weird that they didn't mention this on your bloodpanel when they need it to calculate, but now i understand.

Endocr Pract. 2013 Mar-Apr;19(2):236-42. doi: 10.4158/EP12113.OR.
Are there variances of calculated free testosterone attributed to variations in albumin and sex hormone-binding globulin concentrations in men?
Guay AT1, Traish AM, Hislop-Chestnut DT, Doros G, Gawoski JM.
Author information

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:
Calculated free testosterone (cFT) is determined from total testosterone (TT), sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), and albumin (Alb) levels using mathematical formulae. Variations in cFT due to changes in SHBG or Alb have not been investigated. We evaluated potential cFT variances determined with fixed Alb (4.3 g/dL) and measured Alb, and the point at which low SHBG and Alb combinations produced significant cFT variance.

METHOD:
We analyzed 11,176 data points from 5,797 men. cFT values with fixed versus actual Alb values were evaluated and compared. cFT levels were theoretically determined for all possible combinations of TT, SHBG, and Alb (8,343,552 combinations). Agreement between the 2 measures was assessed with Lin's concordance coefficient.

RESULTS:
Mean Alb was 4.06 ± 0.32 g/dL. Mean SHBG was 39.0 ± 23.6 nmol/L. A fixed Alb of 4.3 g/dL did not produce significant variance for most cFT evaluations. Accuracy decreased when Alb was ≤3.5 g/dL in combination with SHBG ≤30 nmol/L, and this occurred in 1.2% of all data points.

CONCLUSION:
A fixed Alb of 4.3 g/dL is acceptable for most clinical evaluations. If Alb is ≤3.5 g/dL and SHBG is ≤30 nmol/L, the variance increases, and a free testosterone (FT) measurement by equilibrium dialysis is warranted for better accuracy.