Hormonal Fluctuations and Libido

Pharma / TRT Testosterone Replacement
1

I am in my mid 20s.

I have had very low libido and problems with ED since I have been 14/15 and as far back as I can remember. Now that I have experienced use of AAS and AIs, I believe that at the very least it is tied to e2 level.

I have currently been on letro consistently for about 4 weeks at .25mg/day for 1.75mg/week. I’ve seen Bill Roberts say that when he is off, he uses 2.5 mg/week divided in .36mg/day increments. I have had an extremely hard time finding my sweet spot. However, quite randomly it seems, I have had a day or two where I have had normal libido and I was able to have sex before losing my erection. I think that perhaps the problem might be tied in with prolactin as well, but that’s obviously impossible to know without blood work.

Perhaps this is TMI, but there is no really other way to explain it.For about 2-4 days or so every 4-6 weeks (my whole life, no AI/AAS), I will experience a period of fairly high libido and my scrotum hanging ok, while my penis is not shriveled up. However, the rest of the time my scrotum is very tight and penis is very limp and very shriveled as if you are standing in a cooler naked. Due to the fact that I have managed to regain libido for a day or two while on AI, I assume that this is me “passing through the sweet spot”, and therefore e2 is at the very least one of the issues (hopefully the only issue).

I thought that I could figure out the dosage necessary of AI just by monitoring symptoms, but I have not been able to do that when I was on AAS in the past or when I have been off and trying to use AI by itself.

My total testosterone when last checked as >900. So I assume that my testes are functioning fine.

It has been an extremely frustrating problem to deal with no libido/ED for this long and has basically eliminated any sort of relationship I can have with women. At this point, I simply just want to find the solution. The whole thing doesn’t really make sense to me as I live pretty healthy compared to some people I know who drink/smoke/use drugs and eat like complete shit, yet seem to be fine sexually/have girlfriends.

I will have weeks where I have a nice pump and look “full” and other weeks where I am flat and don’t look very good. Libido between these two “states” has been fairly random. The way that I look has led me to believe that the issue is tied to e2 and its fluctuation.

So my question really is:

I have come off completely from letro. How long should I stay off before I go and get bloodwork? I was planning on 2-3 weeks at the moment but I am not sure when the letro will be fully cleared.

Has anyone dealt with chronic libido problems and solved them?

2

It has a 2-4 day half life, so 3 weeks should be long enough, estimating 4-5 half lives for clearance (for all practical purposes).

3

This is my 3rd day being off of letro and have zero libido, tight scrotum, etc.

However, when I was on it I was fairly bloated and from what I’ve read it is probably due to the fact that I was holding water due to dehydration from low e2.

I have obviously not verified this by blood work, but the “bloat” during low e2 for me seems like I am much stronger. When I have high e2 I eventually just gain a lot of fat. It’s a very strange situation.

I’m going to just stick it out for 2-3 weeks and then get blood work so that I can be sure that I am trying to treat something that is there.

Very strange how my e2 seems to fluctuate so fast.

4

I thought you mostly didn’t have libido on letrozole either.

Letrozole is a very strong AI and can very easily drive your E2 too low even at smallish doses. Assuming you actually have a problem with estrogens, low doses of arimidex or aromasin would be a better way to start addressing the problem.

But a lot of men are never able to maintain an estrogen “sweet spot” on aromatase inhibitors. I am not sure why this should be, but it is possible that AIs might have deleterious effects on libido independent of their apparent effect on blood estrogens, AIs might upset the balance between different types of estrogen in the body (there are several, with different effects on libido), or they may suppress estrogens too much in the brain (where libido comes from) despite serum estrogens looking normal.

Prolactin can also suppress libido. You should have that tested too.

5

[quote]seekonk wrote:
I thought you mostly didn’t have libido on letrozole either.

Letrozole is a very strong AI and can very easily drive your E2 too low even at smallish doses. Assuming you actually have a problem with estrogens, low doses of arimidex or aromasin would be a better way to start addressing the problem.

But a lot of men are never able to maintain an estrogen “sweet spot” on aromatase inhibitors. I am not sure why this should be, but it is possible that AIs might have deleterious effects on libido independent of their apparent effect on blood estrogens, AIs might upset the balance between different types of estrogen in the body (there are several, with different effects on libido), or they may suppress estrogens too much in the brain (where libido comes from) despite serum estrogens looking normal.

Prolactin can also suppress libido. You should have that tested too. [/quote]

I edited my post. Meant it to mean I haven’t “rebounded” and come back around to the “sweet spot” as usually happens when you go through it, gain libido back, and lose it again.

Been feeling very pissed off the past couple of days. I get the feeling, although obviously not completely sure, that my e2 has risen dramatically because my body feels like it has all the time in the past without AI.

So, either the case here is that I am just naturally at a low point of e2 24/7 with occasional rises here and there, or my body is naturally at a high end of e2 with occasional lowering here and there. I am partial to the latter scenario.

However, obviously nothing can be known without blood work.

The reason I use letro is from reading that I did, I got the impression that it was the easiest to adjust on a very minute scale. I used adex before when I cycled and I couldn’t find any sort of sweet spot, whereas with letro I have had very, very transient succcess. Perhaps I am an adex over responder, or perhaps I simply was not on a steady enough dose of adex to know what was going to let my body become adjusted. Bill Roberts said that he was on letro while off, and so did another user on here “Westclock” so I figured I would try it out.

I may get some aromasin. I tried it a couple of months back, first at 5mg/day, which seemed to drive my levels too low. Then I did 2.5 mg/day, had no real improvements, came off for a couple days, had a day or two of high libido, and then nothing again.

I think I might try to do .25mg EOD of letro and see what the results are and if there’s an improvement. Reason being is that right now, I feel like I always do and I assume my e2 is too high. Feel very agitated/irritated by the slightest things, tight scrotum, etc. I have been off for 3 days, will basically be halving my previous dose to get .25mg EOD and see where I am two weeks from now. Then I will test to see where I am at.

I am actually having prolactin tested as well. Quite expensive at $80 total for the PrivateMD labs female panel and prolactin but I hope I can get the results and then go from there.

So as of now I am doing .25mg EOD until two weeks from now and then I will get blood work. And at that point I will go from there.

6

[quote]Explosiv wrote:
However, obviously nothing can be known without blood work.
[/quote]

Even blood work is hit or miss, since some men do best on E2 = 20 and other men do best on E2 = 35. For this reason, testing is only useful for fine tuning if you can time your test to be on a day of good libido, see what E2 is at, and find some pattern of where you have good or bad libido via multiple tests.

7

I have stumbled upon some of “brazilianguy” threads and he talks about success with restoring libido by addressing adrenal function.

He posted some links of people who had extraordinary results using “licorice root”.

I would love for him to chime in and talk about this or in general any sort of experiences.

I have used “isoniazid” in the past, for 9 months for latent tuberculosis. Or so my doc told me it was at the time and I was too young to actually do research and find out that it might have not been.

8

Found this about licorice root.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/881.html

Caveat emptor.

9

[quote]IareChaz wrote:
Found this about licorice root.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/881.html

Caveat emptor.[/quote]

The dosage I would be using is ~450mg / day if I do go ahead and try it.

The “danger zone” that is spoken of in the link is when you go above 5 grams, a dosage I will not even get remotely close to.

Would be awesome if I could solve libido with this…

As for now I will add selenium as a supplement to iodoral, at 200mcg/week and iodoral at a continued dosage of 12.5mg/month.

There is research that shows that iodine even if supplemented individually may not be absorbed if one is low in selenium.

10

It’s been a little while since the OP.

I have reset my dosage of letro at .125mg EOD (.0625mg ED) which is .05mL every other day.

I have responded to AI pretty much the same way every time. I will go on, it will take a little to take effect, and then I become bloated. I think it is from the extra water retension from too low e2.

However, when I go off, usually within 3-5 days I will regain libido for a day or so and then it will disappear again. It seems that either my body fluctuates e2 rapidly by itself or that I am completely wrong and I need to get a blood test. When I do not take AI however, I slowly become very weak and skinny fat, my scrotum becomes extremely shriveled up to my body and it has really many signs of high e2 and just general estrogen dominance.

I definitely need to get a blood test to see what is going on, and I will do so within the next week since I have finally got a stable dose of AI at a very low dose.

Bill Roberts said he uses 2.5 mg of letro/week in .36mg divided doses ED.

I use .4375mg/week total, which is much smaller than what he does. I am obviously making an error here and hopefully blood work will help me figure out what is going on.