T Nation

HCG Only for TRT

T Replacement
#1

I’m 31, I have low testosterone like 120 or something. We’ve been trying a few things over the last year. My doctor recommended 1000iu a week of HCG only, and test again in 6 weeks.

Can someone point me to a HCG faq thread, or maybe off the top of the head real quick run down long term effects I should worry about? I read on a fertility site, they were saying that long term it will drive test even lower and cause major gyno. But what do they know right, this is the only site I find real experience.

Thanks

Before I was taking 200mg of test, with 500iu a week hcg but I could not get my nipples from being sensitive. It seemed to work good except for what I would guess was estrogen levels. I lost my job around that time, so just cut everything except a little armidex for a short while after.

I’m just now starting back up and we started with 50mg of test a week, but it doesn’t feel like it’s doing much. I’m still waiting on test results, and then was going to try his recommendation for 1000iu of hcg. Figure it might help me lose some weight if I can keep calories real low, but that’s just something I’m hoping for heh.

#2

You and your doc are seriously not knowing what you are doing. Read the ‘protocol for injections’ sticky and the one about estrogen. Understand “T+hGH+AI”.

Your TRT failed because you did not understand anything. You have to learn these things so you can manage your own health care. You need to educate your doc or get a new doc. The latter would seem to be the best course of action.

hCG does not cause weight loss. A 500 Calorie per day does cause weight loss and the hCG is Voodoo.

hCG mono therapy can work if the testes can respond strongly… often not the case.

You were not using enough Arimidex.

50mg/week is not a replacement dose.

#3

KSMan: could you please help me? I’m trying to avoid the same mistakes that this guy made…

To summarize, my free test levels are fluctuating around slightly below normal and low normal. All of my other blood tests are normal. My first doctor just dismissed me as within normal range for everything (even though it is very low normal and sometimes slightly abnormally low for free test - but just slightly). I think everything is working well but my libido is pretty low and I’m having a hard time building muscle in the gym. I’m 37.

Anyway, my new doctor and I are discussing my options - I want to try HCG monotherapy before resorting to the introduction of exogenous testosterone that is going to shut my own system down. I think that everything works - albeit not at the level that I would like - so I am hoping to stimulate my own test production with HCG.

The thing is, neither my doctor nor I (except from what I have read) have any clue as to a protocol to follow for HCG monotherapy. From what I have read (biggest contributor being Dr. Shippen), I think the closest I have come to an appropriate protocol is:

250IU subcutaneously EOD
0.25mg Arimidex EOD

Monitor Total Test, Free Test, Estrogen every 6 weeks and adjust arimidex levels to target E2 levels at 22pg/mL.

What do you think? Is HCG monotherapy worth a try? Do these doses make sense to start? Any other advice?

Now that I have seen you call it “monotherapy” I’m going to start searching that term.

Thanks,

Die

#4

only start on arimidex if your blood tests show that you have high estradiol.

why take a medication if you don’t have any symptoms of high E or blood tests showing high E?

#5

[quote]PureChance wrote:
only start on arimidex if your blood tests show that you have high estradiol.

why take a medication if you don’t have any symptoms of high E or blood tests showing high E?[/quote]

Well, I guess my answer to that would be (even though I think it is a rhetorical question) that on one hand I assumed that my estrogen would inevitably increase (I could be wrong) and I am paranoid about gyno and on the other hand I thought that it could be useful to have Arimidex in my system proactively and adjust the dose down if necessary to target that concentration and wean off completely if I can. So the idea was to have it right away in my system because it takes some time to react? I would rather have my estrogen tank and then adjust the arimidex than to have my estrogen skyrocket and then play catch up.

I don’t know…just some thoughts but again, I am leaning towards just waiting to see how my estrogen levels are affected before introducing it because as I recall Arimidex works pretty quickly (hence having to take it every second day).

If I DO wait, how long do you think I should wait before having my blood tests to check the estrogen levels? I’m thinking 1 week to know which direction it’s travelling.

#6

Hijack: This is Nazario’s thread. Why are you treating his thread like a chat room? Create your own thread and always go back to your thread with your updates, I will respond there. Do not split your case across multiple threads.

#7

[quote]KSman wrote:
Hijack: This is Nazario’s thread. Why are you treating his thread like a chat room? Create your own thread and always go back to your thread with your updates, I will respond there. Do not split your case across multiple threads.[/quote]

I didn’t realize it was a hijack if the thread had gone dead and my case was very close to his. I didn’t think it would be a problem. I’ll make sure that this also does not happen again, I will not start multiple threads and I will not reference other useless threads.

MY BAD

#8

I did not notice the date stamp. We do have problems of this sort on current threads, so I got nasty about it.