My Experience: Test Taper

Now I know this has been discussed a while back by P-22 and T1gNaL1 and there were some great ideas discussed then.

With my first cycle last year, PCT ended horribly with me feeling irritable and moody like hell and losing gains. I was on a Nolva 20mg/day regime for a month. Blood tests then showed me having low test levels still.

Total Testosterone - 4.1nmol/L (8.0 - 26.0)

It took a while before things started to ‘feel’ normal and that really annoyed the hell out of me.

The next cycle, I was knew I had to try something different. Test Tapering made perfect sense to me.

Earlier this year I did a 12 week cycle.
Test Prop - 100mg EOD
Masteron - 100mg EOD

For my PCT/Taper, I decided to use a combination of Test Enanthate and Nolva.

Week 1 - 100mg Test E
Week 2 - 100mg Test E
Week 3 - 75mg Test E
Week 4 - 50mg Test E
Week 5 - 50mg Test E & 40mg/Nolva/Day
Week 6 - 25mg Test E & 30mg/Nolva/Day
Week 7 - 20mg/Nolva/Day
Week 8 - 10mg/Nolva/Day

Then I tapered off the Nolva dose every 5 days with 7.5mg, 5mg, 2.5mg and then finally 0.

All throughout PCT, I felt great, had heaps of energy and didn’t feel any mood swings at all.
I kept most of my gains and was pretty lean still from my cutting cycle. The transition from being on-cycle to PCT and off-cycle was so seamless that I didn’t even notice anything.

To prove this point, I had a blood test done last week.

Total Testosterone - 15.7 nmol/L (8.0 - 26.0)

The result was exactly the same as a reference test I took 2 years ago before I ever used AAS.

Hope this info might prove useful to you guys out there.

Very intesting info. Thanx.

The way I see it, many of the arguments pro or against P22’s taper seemed to me based on theory, while everyone that posted here that have actually done his taper are thrilled with it.

Maybe someone has done it and it didnt work for him but he didnt post about it. All the feedback I’ve read are positive so far.

I’ll agree with SwD. The test taper is debatable on paper, but most who’ve tried it, including me, say its a very smooth transition.

[quote]Schwarzenegger wrote:
I’ll agree with SwD. The test taper is debatable on paper, but most who’ve tried it, including me, say its a very smooth transition.[/quote]

yup,
I was so against the taper because of all the ‘science’ against it. But once doing it I could not believe how great is was vs. the older methods. I also used test and masteron and I think that’s important too. Some other roids are very suppressive and it seems like nothing helps with them.

Really appreciate you sharing this experience with us. I am quickly starting to think that the taper concept as it applies to PCT is perhaps the most important element of any cycle.

And I agree with Bushy completely (do I ever disagree with him?) with respect to using a SERM with the taper. I might go one step further and use an AI with or without the SERM.

When I ready to do another cycle, it will be a heavy one…something I have never done before. I will surely use the tapering method for PCT when the time comes.

No problem guys, glad to share the knowledge.

Spot on BBB, taper plus a SERM just makes perfect sense to me every way I look at it.

Even in nature or engineering, you dont go from full speed to a full stop without breaking something in the process.

Good info, thanks for sharing.

And it’s worthwhile to note that the anti-taper crowd doesn’t seem to include anyone who’s actually tried it.

[quote]chillain wrote:
Good info, thanks for sharing.

And it’s worthwhile to note that the anti-taper crowd doesn’t seem to include anyone who’s actually tried it.

[/quote]

How true that is; how very true

What kind of gains did you see and keep?

Well, I could say I feel vindicated, or I told you so…

but mainly I am just happy that I have made a positive affect in peoples lives.

Personally I don’t feel the serm is as important as some, and IMO the most important part of the taper is the waiting period where the body has time to clean out all the other drugs and re-establish homeostasis/ make up the lag of going from over 1 gram of gear to 100mg per week.

If you are going to use an antiE I highly recomend going with the SERM over the AI, as the AI e.g. adex and femara downregulate the E.R. hard, which can cause rebound suppression, and late onset gyno once you go off them. If you do use them you have to taper off them as well IMO.

Or, use aromasin instead, but masteron is prefered IMO.

anyways just scattered thoughts here.

And generally thrilled that so many of you so far have had a lot of success with this.

I battled it out pretty hard against some last year lol!

As for keeping gains, obviously you will lose some, but they quickly return - within two weeks usually on your next cycle, and everything from that point is new gains.

Combine all this with a peptide protocol, and an awesome training and eating regimine and you will be reaping consistent gains every cycle, and on your way to your pro card lol! which is where I am headed in the next few years.

Regards.

P.

[quote]Prisoner#22 wrote:
Well, I could say I feel vindicated, or I told you so…

but mainly I am just happy that I have made a positive affect in peoples lives.

Personally I don’t feel the serm is as important as some, and IMO the most important part of the taper is the waiting period where the body has time to clean out all the other drugs and re-establish homeostasis/ make up the lag of going from over 1 gram of gear to 100mg per week.

If you are going to use an antiE I highly recomend going with the SERM over the AI, as the AI e.g. adex and femara downregulate the E.R. hard, which can cause rebound suppression, and late onset gyno once you go off them. If you do use them you have to taper off them as well IMO. [/quote]

This is very interesting; I didn’t think arimidex down regulated the ER. I think if you bring estrogen down too low, then you might have this effect. For me at least, a SERM + AI has done good things (bloodtesting confirmed). But I truly think I might be really different than alot of people based upon their posts of their experiences.

If you’re right about this (arimidex down regulating the E.R.), I will have learned something that might be very important.

[quote]

Or, use aromasin instead, but masteron is prefered IMO.

anyways just scattered thoughts here.

And generally thrilled that so many of you so far have had a lot of success with this.

I battled it out pretty hard against some last year lol!

As for keeping gains, obviously you will lose some, but they quickly return - within two weeks usually on your next cycle, and everything from that point is new gains.

Combine all this with a peptide protocol, and an awesome training and eating regimine and you will be reaping consistent gains every cycle, and on your way to your pro card lol! which is where I am headed in the next few years.

Regards.

P.[/quote]

It doesn’t do it directly.

The action occurs because serum estradiol levels fall lower then what is physiologically normal. This is a typical occurance as most users hugely overdose their AI compared to what is needed. Lets remember that these are breast cancer medications with the intention of eradicating all aromatising estrogen, which is the culprit for what makes these cancer cells grow, and kill.

The body is always adjusting to maintain homeostasis. Therefore estrogen receptors are adjusted as well.

When you come off the AI and are exposed to normal levels of estrogen again, your body will respond more sensitively then normal to this amount of estrogen, which will lead to post cycle/ pct suppression, and late onset gyno.

P22 (or anyone else who has done this)-

I did a taper off of a heavy-dose, long-term cypionate and tren cycle and was pleased with the result. How would you structure the taper off of a shorter term (5-6 weeks), short ester cycle (in this case tren acetate and test prop). It seems like the taper would be pretty short since the cycle was pretty short. For example-

After 5 weeks of 150 mg prop/100 mg tren EOD,

Wk 6 - 100 mg prop EOD
Wk 7 - 100 mg prop E3D
Wk 8 - 50 mg prop E3D

Am I thinking about this right?

[quote]Pinto wrote:
P22 (or anyone else who has done this)-

I did a taper off of a heavy-dose, long-term cypionate and tren cycle and was pleased with the result. How would you structure the taper off of a shorter term (5-6 weeks), short ester cycle (in this case tren acetate and test prop). It seems like the taper would be pretty short since the cycle was pretty short. For example-

After 5 weeks of 150 mg prop/100 mg tren EOD,

Wk 6 - 100 mg prop EOD
Wk 7 - 100 mg prop E3D
Wk 8 - 50 mg prop E3D

Am I thinking about this right?[/quote]

I’m no taper expert but I think those dosages are too high still cut those in half and lengthen it out a bit.
If you did 5 weeks of 150mgProp, 100mg Tren EOD.
You might consider something more like this:

Week 6 50mg Prop EOD
Week 7 50mg Prop E3D
Week 8 25mg Prop E3D
Week 9 15-20mg Prop E3D
Week 10 10-15mg Prop E3D

The idea is to reach a point where you are intaking less Test than your body naturally produces. If you figure your body makes around 50-75mg of Test a week on its own it really takes you until your week 8 as I have it where you are intaking less than the body makes.

This gives your body weeks 8,9 and 10 to get its own endogenous Test flowing again and the small amount of Prop you use serves as a mini boost. The use of something like Nolva would aid in the natural Test coming up faster as well

You could shorten the waiting period to 3 weeks, and then taper for 3 weeks off.

[quote]Prisoner#22 wrote:
It doesn’t do it directly.

The action occurs because serum estradiol levels fall lower then what is physiologically normal. This is a typical occurance as most users hugely overdose their AI compared to what is needed. Lets remember that these are breast cancer medications with the intention of eradicating all aromatising estrogen, which is the culprit for what makes these cancer cells grow, and kill.

The body is always adjusting to maintain homeostasis. Therefore estrogen receptors are adjusted as well.

When you come off the AI and are exposed to normal levels of estrogen again, your body will respond more sensitively then normal to this amount of estrogen, which will lead to post cycle/ pct suppression, and late onset gyno. [/quote]

As P22 knows this recently happened to me (cause I emailed him freaking out and asked his advice).

I was taking adex and steadily increased the dose to try to get rid of all the estrogen in my system (to lean out more and get rid of fat around my chest area) and then started taking letro to up it a little more. I tapered off the letro when I dropped my test dose (down to 300mg/w) and even at that dose I started getting gyno.

I have had to drop my test dose down to almost nothing prematurely because I am so sensitive to estrogen right now. even nolva is giving me problems.
I will definitely respect the less is more principal with AI’s in the future.

[quote]FuriousGeorge wrote:
Prisoner#22 wrote:
It doesn’t do it directly.

The action occurs because serum estradiol levels fall lower then what is physiologically normal. This is a typical occurance as most users hugely overdose their AI compared to what is needed. Lets remember that these are breast cancer medications with the intention of eradicating all aromatising estrogen, which is the culprit for what makes these cancer cells grow, and kill.

The body is always adjusting to maintain homeostasis. Therefore estrogen receptors are adjusted as well.

When you come off the AI and are exposed to normal levels of estrogen again, your body will respond more sensitively then normal to this amount of estrogen, which will lead to post cycle/ pct suppression, and late onset gyno.

As P22 knows this recently happened to me (cause I emailed him freaking out and asked his advice).

I was taking adex and steadily increased the dose to try to get rid of all the estrogen in my system (to lean out more and get rid of fat around my chest area) and then started taking letro to up it a little more. I tapered off the letro when I dropped my test dose (down to 300mg/w) and even at that dose I started getting gyno.

I have had to drop my test dose down to almost nothing prematurely because I am so sensitive to estrogen right now. even nolva is giving me problems.
I will definitely respect the less is more principal with AI’s in the future.

[/quote]
at this point masteron, or aromasin may be a good thing to try.

As simple an idea as is P22’s test taper, it is a HUGE deal to me.

I was more drawn to short 2 week cycles cause I dont want permanent side effects or going on HRT and sticking needles in me forever more or crashing hard. I dont need mood swings and being out of it for 2-3-4 weeks. That can affect work, relationships, etc you name it.

I havent done the taper yet but I will in the near future.

How great is it to know you can be “on” for a good while and come off smooth with no crash whatsover? Great stuff P22!