Also 6.25mg has virtually the same effect as 25mg for most males (and this is true all the way down to 2.5mg according to a study) so I'd reduce aromasin dose too.
Reading this above, I'd like to discuss this a bit further:
I've lately been looking into Aromasin (Exemestane) as monoteraphy and found a lot of conflicting information about dosing. Studies done on men use the female chemotheraphy dose of 25mg/day (and compared it to 50mg/day, both doses had the same effect). According to most online forums these doses are overkill, so I looked into studies that use a smaller dose. I found two, but note that they aren't done on men, the subjects are postmenopausal women:
The first shows pretty well how they come up with the 25mg/day dose:
Endocrine and clinical effects of exemestane (PNU 155971), a novel steroidal aromatase inhibitor, in postmenopausal breast cancer patients: a phase... - PubMed - NCBI
They started from 5mg then 10mg, 25mg and we already know we are not interested in the higher doses for trt purposes. So my interpretation (feel free to comment):
5mg/day: E2 suppression already at it's peak.
10mg/day: E1 supression at it's peak (E2 suppression hsn't grown since the 5mg dose).
25mg/day: E1S suppression at it's peak (E1 and E1 supp. already maxed out at 10mg).
Suppressing E1 and E1S makes sense when you are treating breast cancer. But when you are trying to boost LH via lowering the estrogen feedback loop it's completely fine if you only suppress E2 to the max. So based on the above the test boosting effect of 5mg/day would be the same as 25mg/day.
Let's look at the 2.5mg study:
The minimal effective exemestane dose for endocrine activity in advanced breast cancer. - PubMed - NCBI
It's not overly precise in the Abstract so
if anyone has access to the entire study be as kind and qoute the relevan numbers/tables for the exact suppression numbers.
However as I am deciphering this is:
They used 0.5, 1, 2.5 or 5 mg doses. 'Serum E1, E2 and E1S levels were suppressed by all doses starting from day 7; the degree of inhibition versus baseline was 25 up to 72% for E1, 30 up to 62% for E2 and 16 up to 52% for E1S, with higher doses achieving greater suppression'
if dose dependancy is linear and I am reading this correctly:
0.5mg/day: E1:25%,E2: 30%,E1S: 16%
1mg/day: E1: ~50%,E2: 62% (max suppression), E1S: ~32%
2.5mg/day: E1: ~62% (maxed out),E2 (was already maxed out at 1mg), E1S: ~52% (maxed out)
5mg/day: everything was already maxed out at 2.5mg/day.
The study also states: 'doses ranging from 2.5 to 25 mg induced a similar suppression of oestrogens '
So if my interpretation of the second study is correct than the two studies are somewhat in contradiction. But both agree in that at 5mg/day E2 suppression (what is interesting for us) is already at it's max though.
So this explains why a single dose of 6.25mg suppress guys on the estradiol sensitive tests as a single dose of 25mg. Let's get on to 2times a week dosing:
Finally a study on men:
Pharmacokinetics and Dose Finding of a Potent Aromatase Inhibitor, Aromasin (Exemestane), in Young Males
'The terminal half-life was 8.9 h. Maximal estradiol suppression of 62 ± 14% was observed at 12 h after a single 25-mg dose of exemestane. Estradiol remained suppressed by 58 ± 21% at 24 h and returned to baseline 3–6 d after treatment'
So first, depending on how fast your body is producing new aromatase enzime you are back to baseline between 3-6 days. Second, in 27hours or roughly a day after taking aromasin only 1/8 of the dose taken is present in your body. So even if you take 25mg what you are doing is maybe prolonging the return to baseline by one day compared to taking a 5mg dose.
So this confirms why 6.25mg twice a week has the same effect as 25mg twice a week.
This also means 5mg/day would suppress you more than 25mg twice a week.
What I would be interested in is someone with access to having estradiol sensitive blood tests (yes I am located in Europe, so I don't...) could confirm or oppose the above findings on personal experience (perhaps somebody who is not an overresponder and has experinece with taking at least 12.5mg doses in the past).
So:
Does 0.5mg have a noticable effect on your E2 sensitive results?
Does 1mg have double the effect on your E2?
Does 2.5mg really have no further effect above the 1mg dose on your E2?
If no what would be the dose of max effect?
Etc.