Need Advice to Get My Estrogen Back to the Right Level

Pharma / TRT Testosterone Replacement
1

Hi all,

As a brief background on this post: 37 year old male, 200 pounds and 5’10" with a ~34-35" waist and a decent amount of muscle on me. I began TRT 8 months ago and take nothing but Test, HCG, and Arimidex. Here is a table of my core lab results before, during, and as of 2 days ago and why I need to get my estrogen fixed and looking for advice. For simplicity sake, I’ve left out alot of lab information:

Nov 12th
Baseline - No TRT or supplementation
Test, Serum: 373
Free test: 15.6
Estradiol: 21.3
Luteinizing Hormone: 8.7 on a reference range of 1.7-8.6 (this is one of the reasons I started HRT)

January 23rd
Regimen: Since December 5th 1/weekly injections of 1.0ml 200mg test cyp, 25iu of HCG once per week, no arimidex
Test level, Serum: 1308
Test Free: 40.9
Estradiol: 65.5

April 23rd:
Regimen: 2x weekly injections of .5ml 200mg test cyp, 25iu of HCG once per week, .25mg of arimidex taken with each test injection (i.e. 2x week .25mg of arimidex)
Test, Serum: 1330
Estradiol: 36.0

(note, between April and August I had one vial of 300mg/ml test I used which I didn’t correctly recalculate the injection amount resulting in me taking a higher dose of test each week…I’ve begun lowering down but when I switched back to a vial of 200mg/ml test I kept it a bit higher to try to smooth out my test adjustments)

August 13:
Regimen: 2x weekly injections of .6ml 200mg test cyp, 40iu of HCG twice per week, .5mg of arimidex taken with each set of injections
Test, Serum: >1500 (beyond measurement range)
Estradiol: 8.3

…

To me I’ve obviously crashed my Estradiol/Estrogen with too much Arimidex - a few weeks ago I noticed a few symptoms I believed to be my estrogen getting too high like it did back in February/March. I also noticed for the first time my back skin is not “breaking out” in the traditional sense but it’s covered in what I’ll call textured skin. Like my lower back to top of shoulders feels like it has what my wife calls “pickies” over damn near every inch. Anyway, this is new side effect for me. I upped my arimidex thinking the higher dose of T and HCG was leading to too much estrogen conversion.

And I was wrong or I’m over-responding to arimidex.

I’m planning to do the following:

  1. Stop taking Arimidex for 3 weeks and then start taking .25mg with each injection like I was doing in April
  2. Go back to .5ml of 200mg/ml test cyp 2x a week
  3. Go back to 25iu of HCG 2x a week
  4. Re-check labs

Would welcome any other suggestions. Thanks for your input.

Joe

P.s. I take nothing else - no supplements except some isopure whey protein. My lab work is otherwise spectacularly clean. My supplies appear to be reliable and come from a lab/pharmacy used by Florida Alternative Medicine.

Edited to add baseline labs

2

Not a good ratio at all.

You’ve fallen prey to the idea that E2 is bad while in fact, E2 at the right T/E2 ratio is good for you. Drop the Arimidex all together and keep your Test high and your E2 high.
See my blood work below. I’ve been AI free for about a year now.

E2%20test%20results
E2%20test%20results1423×575 70.4 KB

3

There are tests that will show you the full value. Typically listed LC/MS

4

If you’re worried about gyno, run Nolvadex as a SERM

5

You shouldn’t need an AI while on trt. If you need one it probably means your test dose is too high. And based on your numbers…your test dose is too high. No trt patient should be taking a dose that consistently puts them above range. That’s not trt, that’s a very mild cycle. Not one of your blood results indicates a protocol that would qualify as trt. You’re taking too much testosterone. Lower the dose and you won’t need an AI. Problem solved.

6

Thank you Iron Yuppie…

I am running too much test. That was of my own doing. I also don’t know the impact of the escalated HCG but assume that’s contributing. I’ll lower both.

I think I’ll back down to .5ml 2x a week of 200mg test cyp, no AI, 25iu of HCG 2x a week, and re-test in 6 weeks. If my test is still above 1300, I’ll lower to .4ml 2x a week of 200mg test cyp.

If my understanding of TRT is correct, usually we want to hover around 900-1100 serum test?

7

Thanks Studhammer:

Between January labs and April labs I had significant symptoms of high estrogen including waking up drenched at night, difficulty with erections, overall water retention, I could go on. It was a meaningful sign of high estrogen causing me issues.

At that time in, I believe, March I switched from 1x weekly test injections to 2x a week at half dose and I began to take .25mg of arimidex. Those symptoms went away within 2-3 weeks.

Maybe the switch to 2x weekly injections alone would have been enough, IDK. Nonetheless, I did start to have a negative reaction to too much estrogen.

On the flip side, yes, my ratio now is terrible. And I’m feeling notable joint pain in my neck right now for example.

8

Honestly? It’s really dependent on the individual. I feel just fine at trough, which is ~550, and I feel excellent at peak, which is usually ~1,000. But that’s me. Other guys might feel awful at those levels. So don’t chase a number as much as possible. Trust your body and how you feel.

9

Forgive me, I meant from a research perspective: From my understanding in published research long-term T levels above ~1100 are more strongly correlated with negative side effects or even long-term health and those negative side effects/outcomes tend to be non-existent at levels 1100 or below.

Again, my understanding of the current state of research on test.

10

This is why you are having problems, shooting for a number and not symptom relief, this why why you are on TRT in the first place, not to make the numbers look good. When on daily dosing I don’t care about the numbers, I increase the dosage until I feel amazing, then I run the numbers to see what feeling good looks like on paper.

I see why you are having estrogen problems, your SHBG is low and your protocol isn’t appropriate, you need more frequent smaller injections. You don’t need high normal Total T levels to have sufficient Free T. Your Free T is decent while Total T is low pre-TRT, this indicates you have low SHBG and need no more than a Total T of 600.

Low SHBG men usually struggle to control estrogen when injecting moderate doses once or twice weekly. A lot of low SHBG men on T-Nation do very well on daily dosing and no AI, but by taking HCG you’re asking for more estrogen than requiring a drug to counteract, this is counterproductive, you don’t need more estrogen, you need less.

You’re probably taking HCG for fertility and/or testicle atrophy reasons and now are dealing with the drawbacks and you have chosen your poison, more estrogen. You will always be juggling the balance between estrogen and will constantly be changing the AI dosing and will never be stable for long.

You should get off this AI induced E2 roller coaster, been there done that, 7-10mg daily is truly amazing and a perfect balanced hormone levels.

11

Thanks for your perspective - to be clear I haven’t been shooting for a number. At all. My point was simply to confirm my understanding of what the research supports: that above a certain range you tend to get undesirable long-term health outcomes.

I’ve been taking HCG as part of a protocol I began in December; I have no fertility goals. Yes, I would prefer no testicular atrophy. However, I’m a fan of not using more drugs than necessary to achieve a goal.

I think your core point though that I take to heart is that AI/Arimidex should be unnecessary as part of my TRT efforts.

12

If you want to continue to use the AI as part of your protocol, you should consider 0.050-.125 doses.

13

Didn’t know the dosages went that low.

I don’t want to include AI in my protocol and in fact I didn’t from December 5th - sometime in March of this year. I started TRT Dec 5th.

When I just followed my original protocol, which was 1x week test injections, I built up too much estrogen as demonstrated thru undesirable symptoms. (i.e. waking up like a 5 gallon bucket of water had been dumped on my LOWER body with sheets soaked thru to the mattress)

That being said, I’d like to try just 2x/week test injections with no AI

14

I think you would do better on more frequent dosing, in fact from what I see on T-Nation on a daily basis, I know you will do better on more frequent dosing. Think about it for second, you see an improvement going from 1x–>2x weekly, so imagine going 2x–> more frequently.

I already know how 2x weekly will turn out, I’m used to seeing it play out all the time on T-Nation.

15

The jury is certainly still out but after a long time on T and not ‘feeling it’, the RN at the clinic said to stop taking Anastrazole as an experiment. One of the Doctors who is on TRT never takes anything for Estradiol and I decided to try that as well.
It’s been a week tomorrow and I’ve not felt better in the last year. I may start back on it in a week, a month, a year or never…we’ll see but for now, I’m liking the change. Don’t feel as ‘up and down’ this week either, nice and steady. Cutting calories and lifts still inching up.

16

Anastrozole has side effects like any other drug, when I was taking it I felt terrible even though my labs looked good.