Ask Anything You Want Thread........

[Nomoobs]

So I started upping my anastrazole to .50 from .25 e3d because pain in left pec.Immediately my joints are popping and cracking. I'm so frustrated. Feels like the pain in my pec is slowly going away but now my freaking joints hurt. I'm just bummed because I was feeling really good. I skipped my workout today. Is there other AIs that don't do this?

[zgx]

Unless I'm mistaken the cracking and popping are side effects of low E which is what any AI is going produce. I've read that some users in this forum supplement with fish oil, perhaps worth a shot unless you're already taking it.

[Nomoobs]

Haha yea I take in alot of fish oil. I eat primarily Paleo too.

[THE-DET-OAK]

I'm guessing your talking about the T right? injecting 60mg E3.5D is of little use? Even if my numbers came in @ 728 in the trough? So if your referring to 60mg T not being enough regardless of lab results.. (and I think I understand why you think that).. then would the same weekly amount of T E5D days be sufficient or @ 125-130mg/wk, Should just give 126mg T E7D a shot or the other option would be to increase T to say 150mg/week and still pin E3.5D, pin HCG 500iu at same time and adjust AI as needed dosing day after T/HCG pin?

Here is the issue, your trough needs to come in higher cause you are comparing it to troughs that are based off of E7D injections. Most people will tell you they feel good when they come in @ 8-900, on a 7 day schedule mind you, so trying to compare a 3 day schedule to that is just not possible. your trough maybe 728 but your peak is not far from that, cause your levels are not rising and falling. I know people say you do not get use to your testosterone but I think it can happen. Studies on GH have shown us that consistent exposure to high levels of GH in the blood leave us less sensitive to it.

Our bodies do not keep very stable levels naturally, testosterone is secreted in a pulsitile fashion. Our T goes way up, and then falls almost down to zero. With GH this keeps us sensitive to it, why wouldn't testosterone be the same? So here were are trying to mimic our bodies natural secretion with an archaic IM injection and bottom-line it is just not possible, so we have to think outside the box and stop trying to mimic it. what we want is a curve that goes way up and falls way down, contrary to poplar belief. Now if we could do IV injections of testosterone we could get this curve to happen in one day, but since we are dealing with a medication that has a 7 day half life, we should do it on a 7 day curve.

No I just started my protocol on June 1st of this year.. so I'm in week 7 or so.. I want to reserve the ability to have kids (maybe sooner than later) so I figured I might as well keep the boys as functional as possible. Shrinkage doesn't appear to me either.

I wouldn't worry too much about not being able to have kids even when on TRT without testosterone. I know guys that abused AAS for 10 years and then did a nice blast of HCG while on TRT and got pre go immediately. Another point to note is HCG only works half way when testosterone levels are high, it will stimulate the testes but not the pituitary, it is not until testosterone falls to very low levels that HCG will prime the pituitary. So what I mean is its not that important to keep them going while on in regards to fertility, it is a nice option in theory but history shows that using HCG after discontinuing testosterone yields a much better result.

Hope this helps

[THE-DET-OAK]

So I started upping my anastrazole to .50 from .25 e3d because pain in left pec.Immediately my joints are popping and cracking. I'm so frustrated. Feels like the pain in my pec is slowly going away but now my freaking joints hurt. I'm just bummed because I was feeling really good. I skipped my workout today. Is there other AIs that don't do this?

Estrogen is responsible for joint health, so yes it is common for your joints to hurt while on TRT. With that being said it is also possible for adex to hurt your joints even with your E in range, its been so long I don't remember the exact science behind it.

It would be worth a try to give a different kind of AI a shot.

Also 9x out of 10 I see guys say they have gyno, don't actually have gyno, they simply feel a fat cluster that they were not looking for before because they were not injecting T

Hope this helps

[Gr8Wall]

Been on TRT for about 2 weeks now and have had some poblems. Ive had about 2 days that i actually felt better but the rest os feeling like garbage. Doc prescribed me 200mg test cyp per week but iver been keeping it arounbd 150mg per week one shot per week. I messed up my hormone levels years ago doing some stupid cycling and gave myself gyno in the process. I had gyno removed this past janruary and am of course paranoid of it coming back. Paranoid to the point that the second day on TRT i took 3.125 mg arimidex and my joints were killing me the next day so i backed off for a few days. I noticed some water retention and had blood pressure go up so i took a dosage of aromasin 3.125 mg and felt good the next day. I started to believe i was getting sore and itchy nips so i took another dosage of 3.125 mg the following day as well and then the next. My problem is i cant tell at this point if my estrogen is actually to high or two low but i have a tiny bit of water retention and my blood pressure is going up again and i feel like garbage.

I think i may have problems with AI's as i tried the letro protocol a couple years ago to try to reverse gyno and my blood pressure got dangerously high.

Im just starting to believe this TRT is more trouble than worth and maybe i should just live with 300 test levels as i cant take this blood pressure feeling in my head anymore. Im not due back at docs till august 9th for bloodwork. He did not prescribe the aromasin as he told me he would but wanted to wait the first month to see where levels were but iu got scared i would develop gyno and ordered liquid aromasin from RS.com which by all reviews is a good accurately dosed product. I went the aromasin route as ive read a great deal about how arimidex destroys lipid profiles and want to be healthy long term.

I just dont understand, can lowering my E2 too low with aromasin cause high blood pressure? Or is my dosage or aromasin so small that the high blood pressure due to very high E2? i did not take 3.125 mg aromasin yesterday as my joints have been killing me and all of a sudden my blood pressure is elevating (currently at 135/73) and i can feel that in my head.

I want to go on record and say Ai's may help prevent gyno but they suck. They may lower estrogen but it seems they cause a world of other problems. I feel like garbage at this point and am thinking it may be time to quit TRT.

Doc will probably prescribe me arimidex but i dont want to take it rest of my life and screw up my lipids all to hell but at same time this high blood pressure will ultimately get worse and kill me in end too. Its like a losing game all the way around. What the heck is going on and what the heck should i do? Can estrogen too low cause elevated blood pressure?

I will say before TRT i ran test booster cycles of Triazole and Erase and i got same feeling of achy joints as im guessing it sent my estrogen too low bu i never got the high blood pressure which confuses the hell out of me as i would have thought as potent as erase is that it would have elevated my blood pressure just like aromasin apparently has.

Im just lost and aggravated at this point. Any advice is appreciated. Thank you.

[THE-DET-OAK]

Please keep in mind I am not a doctor and you should consult your physician before changing or engaging in any therapeutic program.


Sorry about the frustration bro but don't give, living with 300 test levels is not a good idea, I would presume it is actually more dangerous than the blood pressure spike.

Your blood pressure should not go up if you keep levels in eugonadal ( natural ) range. So here are a few things you can try before giving up.

Don't be afraid of the creams. Although there is a small worry about estrogen conversion this will keep your levels from ever shooting up too high. Now this may not be as good of a feeling as injections, but it will be a heck of a lot better than 300ng/dl natty levels.

since you are on injectables already lets see if we can work out something though before we switch to creams. Now, most of the time when your blood pressure gets really high that is because of high estrogen, but not always. You should get your doctor to give you blood pressure meds to go with your TRT, some guys are just super prone to it when injecting T, nothing those meds won't help you with though.

Also you may already know this but you have to keep bloat down and this could easily be caused by not taking in enough water or not exercising enough (cardio).

What I would do is drop my dose to 100mg a week for a bit, and see if that alleviates it, then once you stabilize blood pressure while on therapy see if you can slowly titrate up if need be.

For the AI's causing joint pain it is very possible for them to do that even though E is not suppressed, this can be very common with exemestane.

For the lipids I wouldn't buy into to that to much cause let me tell you where that info came from. AI's have been tested on women in hopes to reduce there cancer cells by eliminating estrogen. They had to give women 10mg ED of adex to achieve that, which is about a 10x the dose we would take in a week let alone every day. i do not see them affecting lipids at the small dose we take them at, after all leaving your testosterone at 300 is much worse for your lipids then adex even at 10mg ED.

So with your 100 mg of testosterone try taking about .5-1mg a week only of adex. splitting it up or taking it all on the day of your shot. I would stay away from HCG for now and keep your protocol as simple as possible and work it up very slowly.

If this does not work then your next move would be to try creams, they can be very useful to those that don't agree with injections.

I think it is possible to get you going, I would just get the blood pressure meds from my doc and at least have the ones on hand you can take at will, when blood pressure goes up.
:
Hope this helps and feel free to post more now that we have a discussion going on this

[Mr P]

nice thread interesting posts, I would love to start hrts soon, a month ago I had thick blood "hemoglobin was at 18.4 so I donated blood, a month later hemoglobin is in good range 17.3 I would like to start hrt now

[THE-DET-OAK]

nice thread interesting posts, I would love to start hrts soon, a month ago I had thick blood "hemoglobin was at 18.4 so I donated blood, a month later hemoglobin is in good range 17.3 I would like to start hrt now

Doing a double RBC with Red Cross instead of a whole blood donation will drop that even further Mr. P

On top of that I think they use those for the cancer patients, so win win, an easy way to give back to the community

Lets get you started, I would like to personally give you your free phone consultation

[THE-DET-OAK]

nice thread interesting posts, I would love to start hrts soon, a month ago I had thick blood "hemoglobin was at 18.4 so I donated blood, a month later hemoglobin is in good range 17.3 I would like to start hrt now

also while we are on the subject of Hemo lets not forget this

For example, testosterone can increase the hematocrit, the percentage of red blood cells in the bloodstream. If the hematocrit goes up too high, we worry about the blood becoming too viscous or thick, possibly predisposing someone to stroke or clotting events. Although, frankly, in a review that I wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine* where we reviewed as much of this as we could, we found no cases of stroke or severe clotting related to testosterone therapy. Nevertheless, the risk exists, so we want to be careful about giving testosterone to men who already have a high hematocrit, such as those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or those who have a red-blood-cell disorder.

A Harvard expert shares his thoughts on testosterone-replacement therapy - Harvard Health Publications

and this for the gel topic

Men who start using the gels have to come back in to have their testosterone levels measured again to make sure theyre absorbing the right amount. Our target is the mid to upper range of normal, which usually means around 500 to 600 ng/dl. The concentration of testosterone in the blood actually goes up quite quickly, within a few doses. I usually measure it after two weeks, though symptoms may not change for a month or two.

[Mr P]

nice read so basically I would be doing RBC more often, since I get thick blood being hrt?

[Gr8Wall]

Please keep in mind I am not a doctor and you should consult your physician before changing or engaging in any therapeutic program.


Sorry about the frustration bro but don't give, living with 300 test levels is not a good idea, I would presume it is actually more dangerous than the blood pressure spike.

Your blood pressure should not go up if you keep levels in eugonadal ( natural ) range. So here are a few things you can try before giving up.

Don't be afraid of the creams. Although there is a small worry about estrogen conversion this will keep your levels from ever shooting up too high. Now this may not be as good of a feeling as injections, but it will be a heck of a lot better than 300ng/dl natty levels.

since you are on injectables already lets see if we can work out something though before we switch to creams. Now, most of the time when your blood pressure gets really high that is because of high estrogen, but not always. You should get your doctor to give you blood pressure meds to go with your TRT, some guys are just super prone to it when injecting T, nothing those meds won't help you with though.

Also you may already know this but you have to keep bloat down and this could easily be caused by not taking in enough water or not exercising enough (cardio).

What I would do is drop my dose to 100mg a week for a bit, and see if that alleviates it, then once you stabilize blood pressure while on therapy see if you can slowly titrate up if need be.

For the AI's causing joint pain it is very possible for them to do that even though E is not suppressed, this can be very common with exemestane.

For the lipids I wouldn't buy into to that to much cause let me tell you where that info came from. AI's have been tested on women in hopes to reduce there cancer cells by eliminating estrogen. They had to give women 10mg ED of adex to achieve that, which is about a 10x the dose we would take in a week let alone every day. i do not see them affecting lipids at the small dose we take them at, after all leaving your testosterone at 300 is much worse for your lipids then adex even at 10mg ED.

So with your 100 mg of testosterone try taking about .5-1mg a week only of adex. splitting it up or taking it all on the day of your shot. I would stay away from HCG for now and keep your protocol as simple as possible and work it up very slowly.

If this does not work then your next move would be to try creams, they can be very useful to those that don't agree with injections.

I think it is possible to get you going, I would just get the blood pressure meds from my doc and at least have the ones on hand you can take at will, when blood pressure goes up.
:
Hope this helps and feel free to post more now that we have a discussion going on this

Wow, i really appreciate the indepth answer and im guessing the amount of time you had to spend typing this. You went way above and beyond what you had to do and made alot of sense. Also you sort of relieved my hatred and fear of arimidex making those points to me. Im totally blown away by the time spent to help me and am very appreciative of you. If im not mistaken you have helped me before on another board and provided a very detailed answer. Thank you so much for beginning to make me feel better about figuring this out. I will keep you posted, thanks again my friend.

[FL3X MAGNUM]

Here is an entertaining.question, unless it has been answered.
Why do I see sustanon being used for TRT (seeing 1x/week and even every 2 weeks!) when it seems like such a pointless use for it IMO?

[THE-DET-OAK]

Here is an entertaining.question, unless it has been answered.
Why do I see sustanon being used for TRT (seeing 1x/week and even every 2 weeks!) when it seems like such a pointless use for it IMO?

Sustanon started because the field wanted to try and find a way to give less frequent injections. They aimed to put out a product that would last 3-4 weeks in between injections.

Sustanon is comprised of 4 esters:

Testosterone propionate 30mg
Testosterone Phenyl propionate 60mg
Testosterone Isocaproate 60mg
Testosterone Undeclynate 100mg

For a total of 250mg - If it is not dosed that way then it is not sustanon. It is a variation.

So the other side, the benefit for the Pharm companies of figuring this out was that they could trademark it and no other company could put together that exact formulation. So once they got word of mouth out that sustanon could last 3 weeks or more then they would take a huge piece of the market and no one would be able to take a share.

So this formulation was suppose to keep stable blood levels by going from one ester to the next. Since in order they go from shortest to longest. the deca being like 14-16 day ester in reality but I think they were pitching for 21-28 days.

Pharm companies have been as sly as actually altering the testosterone itself so that it is not bio identical. Bio does not mean natural it just mean exact same.

Compound Pharms don't have the overhead of trying to get patents, trademark and market there products so they offer inexpensive bio-identical.

[NeonKnight]

Deleted

[NeonKnight]

Please keep in mind I am not a physician, this is for entertainment purposes only and you should consult your physician before changing or engaging in any therapeutic program

So I don't think the dip in feeling is from dropping T levels, prolly from an increase of estrogen at the tail end, or at least an unfavorable T/E ratio.

If you were to try 3/4 of the dose on a 5 day schedule this could alleviate your problem. There is nothing wrong with using a little cream though to keep your trough up before another shot. These are the things you play with.

if your blood levels were at 1k a day before your next shot you probably got up to 2k. I would try loading the adex on or after shot day, instead of spreading it out so much. If this works that means your E was dropping too low before your next shot. Some HCG may help keep E where it needs to be.

I guess i would have to ask what kind of estrogen sides are you getting when your get that unwanted feeling, IE do youo have sore joints and are staying very lean? headaches?

Or are you gaining weight easily and have some water retention? acne? this would mean its too high, or unfavorable ratio.

Dropped the test to 125mg per week and arimidex to twice per week
so far so good
energy is back up and bloat is going down
Thanks OAK!!

[j2048b]

alrighty det, got a couple questions for u:

(i am currently off of trt due to bp and cholesterol, AND i stopped cold turkey in march 2012) just trying to figure out causes and remedies:

but...

if someones bp goes up and stays constant at 190/92 what would one lower? test per week? 100 mlg 2 times a week per say? was at 200mlg e7d of test c, hcg 500iu 2 times a week and only had to take my aromasin 1 time a week, as my body was good with e at those levels,

(sunday hcg 500iu, mondays 200 mlg test c, and wed 1-25 mlg aromasin, friday 500iu hcg)

another thing, what is with using proviron while on trt, and what about deca and anavar? as i am going to start with deca for joint issues and add in anavar fore muscle wasting that has been happening...

what r ur thoughts?

thanks man value ur opinion!

[IMT staff]

Good Stuff!

[THE-DET-OAK]

alrighty det, got a couple questions for u:

(i am currently off of trt due to bp and cholesterol, AND i stopped cold turkey in march 2012) just trying to figure out causes and remedies:

but...

if someones bp goes up and stays constant at 190/92 what would one lower? test per week? 100 mlg 2 times a week per say? was at 200mlg e7d of test c, hcg 500iu 2 times a week and only had to take my aromasin 1 time a week, as my body was good with e at those levels,

(sunday hcg 500iu, mondays 200 mlg test c, and wed 1-25 mlg aromasin, friday 500iu hcg)

another thing, what is with using proviron while on trt, and what about deca and anavar? as i am going to start with deca for joint issues and add in anavar fore muscle wasting that has been happening...

what r ur thoughts?

thanks man value ur opinion!

I honestly would get the blood pressure issue fixed before I thought about anything else especially Var or deca. If your going back on I would go with just testosterone at first and try to find the right dose. Save the HCG and keep an AI on hand. Once you get that going without any issues you may be able to try to add a small amount of var and go from there.

The HCG will complicate things at first, in your situation IMHO

[j2048b]

I honestly would get the blood pressure issue fixed before I thought about anything else especially Var or deca. If your going back on I would go with just testosterone at first and try to find the right dose. Save the HCG and keep an AI on hand. Once you get that going without any issues you may be able to try to add a small amount of var and go from there.

The HCG will complicate things at first, in your situation IMHO

ok that sounds great det thanks, as far as my dosage goes, what is it im exactly supposed to be looking for with just the test? i did not have e2 issues with the added hcg, but i do wonder why it would complicate things?

i have always been the one to do test only for about 4 weeks then get bloods, and see where my e2 is at, from their gauge an ai and get that doasage down, then 4 weeks later if all is well add in hcg, at around 250 iu 2 times a week and readjust ai after 2-4 weeks, and from there know what is causeing any e2 rises and how to combat them...

thanks man appreciate the feedback!

[THE-DET-OAK]

ok that sounds great det thanks, as far as my dosage goes, what is it im exactly supposed to be looking for with just the test? i did not have e2 issues with the added hcg, but i do wonder why it would complicate things?

i have always been the one to do test only for about 4 weeks then get bloods, and see where my e2 is at, from their gauge an ai and get that doasage down, then 4 weeks later if all is well add in hcg, at around 250 iu 2 times a week and readjust ai after 2-4 weeks, and from there know what is causeing any e2 rises and how to combat them...

thanks man appreciate the feedback!

I guess your not looking for anything with just testosterone, I would just want to get to a range where the dose does not effect my BP. I was actually talking with someone the other day and they are very sensitive to pressure spikes on TRT when they have a high sodium intake. It may seem like an obvious answer but you just may be super sensitive to it.

Once you get your T levels up and testosterone is not jacking up your BP go ahead and try whatever else. It just seems that until you know what the protocol for YOU is then adding other things like HCG will just make it harder to find that protocol.

I guess what I'm saying is it all depends on how the BP thing plays out

[wvdave]

Loving this thread!!!

Good to see you back, Mr. P!

[gusto1]

I have been interested in using gh for a while, are certain peptides just as effective for fat loss and hyperplasia?

[THE-DET-OAK]

I have been interested in using gh for a while, are certain peptides just as effective for fat loss and hyperplasia?

Please keep in mind I am not a physician, this is for entertainment purposes only and you should consult your physician before changing or engaging in any therapeutic program

For me I get roughly the same effect from both, although it is easier to gain weight on the peptides. It is good weight if your working out and eating clean obviously. You can very easily tone down on them but this will dependent on diet like any other substance.

I would stick with the basics for fat loss, GHRH and Ghrp-6. GHRP-2 can be a little stronger simply because the saturation dose is higher. So you can use more of what you put in. It does have the ability to affect prolactin but I highly doubt it would at a dose that was reasonable.

Some are doing whats called boom dosing with the peptides, injecting 1-2mg at a time. I am sure this would make you swell up like a balloon. So I take a more conservative approach and keep water retention low.

Any kind of GH optimization with testosterone is awesome because testosterone makes the cells bigger and GH makes more cells

As you can see this is very advantageous to all sorts of things that we do. This is the synergy the ol timers have been talking about for years. Now there is a study that actually proves it.

CONCLUSIONS: To enhance muscle strength and physical function, threshold improvements in lean body mass and appendicular skeletal muscle mass are necessary and these can be achieved by targeting changes in testosterone levels. rhGH augments the effects of testosterone. To maximize functional improvements, the doses of anabolic hormones should be titrated to achieve target blood levels.

Testosterone threshold levels ... [J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2011] - PubMed - NCBI

[HydroFire]

my prob for a few years is that I have high e2. Im 28 been on Aromasin at 50 mg 7am then 6pm 25mg each dose to try and lower my e2. Its gone down from 174 to 153
(sacle 65-153) still at the top end. I have had gyno surg a few times. Dr wants to start my on trt but im way to scared of gyno and e2 spiking like crazy. test cyp 100mg subq every 7 days. 50mg aromasin daily.

I feel i have tried so hard to get e2 down but I cant I eat clean no soy/no dairy/little wheat/ little fat/high protein/ low cal

since starting aromsain I have dropped 30lbs. I went from 190 to 160. Im 5'10. I need to bulk up I just cant seem to ever build muscle just fat in the mid section.

My test level has gone up from 522 to 666 (sale 250-11000) from the aromasin but obviously I still have estrogen dominence I hate this.