Hey everyone! This looks like my first post but I am a fairly long term member who does not want to disclose their anabolic use to the world. I just got my blood test results back and am a little concerned.
First, a little background: I am 23 and finished my first cycle mid-December. It was 500mg TestE per week (show EOD) with proper Nolvadex PCT. Everything went well. As of late, my sex drive has been down, so being a little paranoid I went for blood work. Here are my results (mind you, its a Canadian blood lab, so if you need unit conversion, let me know and I’ll give it a shot).
Free Test - 31.8 PMOL/L (Reference Range is 31.0-94.0)
Lutropin (LH) - 2 IU/L (Ref. Range is 2-6)
Follitropin (FSH) - 2 IU/L (Ref. Range is 2-8)
Total Prolactin - 8 ug/L (Ref. Range is 2-18
Estradiol - 90 pmol/L (Ref. Range is 43-151
I also noticed my WBC and Nuetriphil(sp) levles were below the low referecne range, if that helps at all.
The test was done with 12 hour fasting and no alcohol consumption a week prior.
Any comments or concerns? Should I be worried, being so young and being at the very low end of Free Test and LH? Is my sex drive dysfunction all in my head, especially now that I have these results?
I think what might be happening is that you are on the very low end in regards to your Free test, LH, FSH, and in the middle ranges for your estradiol and Prolactin. This combination is what might be causing the decreased sex drive.
How long was your cycle? Do you regularly consume alcohol? (yes i read the no drinking a week prior)
Youre diet might be playing a role as well. What was the date of the last nolva dose?
The cycle was 12 weeks long, and my last nolva dose was around early to mid January. In hindsight, couting backwards, I guess my cycle ended early December, then 2 weeks off for ester to clear, then 4 weeks Nolva.
Drinking has been kept fairly low; most I’ve had in the past couple months is a six pack once or twice with the occasional (once a week) glass of red wine.
Diet has been steady at around 3600kcal per day, with around 40% from protein, 40% fat and 20% carbs.
My layman assessment is the same as egnatiosj. I think low dose Adex (0.5mg/w in split doses) or Letro (don’t know exact dosage, but definitely low dose) might help get the E2 more in check. Cabergoline could help with prolactin and sex drive.
so you were suppressed for, lets say, 14 weeks and it has only been 4 weeks since PCT and you wonder why your natural test is lower and your estradiol is higher? I dont really see much of a concern here. Now if you had done a 6weeker of Test Prop and had these levels 8 weeks later; I would be a little more worried. I think your body just needs more time.
Some one else feel free to disagree, if they believe otherwise, this is JMO.
So my best course of action is to just wait it out? Say another 4 weeks, then get another test done?
Also, would any Trib. based products help recovery of natural test, maybe a bottle of Alpha Male… even if it just masked the “symptoms” until full recovery?
Did you then taper the SERM or stop suddenly? You can gee estrogen rebound from that.
Do the adex. Next time use adex at the higher needed levels all through your cycle, tapering down to 0.5 mg/week at the end of PCT then for an indeterminate amount of time after that.
I think what you experience is quite normal. It generally take 2-3 months or more for your test level to normalise. I’d say wait for a few weeks, and do another blood test in late march. Any trib based product won’t help your recovery.
Just for comparison. I have finished a 12 week test-e cycle on mid december 08, followed by 4 weeks of 100mg/week stasis, and 4 weeks of taper 80/60/40/20mg/week, plus 50mg of clomid for the last 2 weeks. I felt my libido slowly came back in mid-jan. And as of this week, i feel 100% back to normal, and started making strength gains again ( on top of what I gained during cycle.) hope this helps
Didn’t taper the Test, but I did kind of taper the Nolva (40/40/20/20). Did you mean I should try Adex now? Something like 0.5EOD, or even less?
Thank you for the responses guys, and its good to hear this is somewhat normal. Next time I will try Prisoners test taper; looks promising and a lot of guys are having very good results.
I have about 200mg Nolvadex left over. Is there any use for that now in terms of recovery? Probably not, as most people have trouble with libido on Nolvadex. Dammit, I just want my sex drive back! And now that I know my numbers, I feel subconsciously that I’m training with a handicap!
I actually enjoy a peroid of low libido. So I can focus on other important thing. And the GF can’t use pussy power as leverage against me :), beause I don’t want any lol
I think you can also look into shorter cycles in the future. During a typical 12 week cycle, the gain doen’t come in until the 4th week (without kick start), and between week 8 and 12, nothing really happens. So It’s only 4 weeks of grwoth. A 4-6 week cycle with fast acting compund can achieve similar amount of gains, but much easier to recover from. it’s also cheaper and easier on the body.
Yes, dose adex at 0.5mg/wk. Use a liquid and dose it EOD by the drop. 4 drops EOD of a 1.0mg/ml product.
Front load with 1mg and start the 4 drops EOD the next day.
Note that some are adex over responders who will have E get too low on expected doses. They need to take 1/4 or 18th of the expected dose. This is uncommon but not rare.