PCT Failed after Using HCG on Cycle?

Hey so I’ve got a bit of a problem. First I should describe my cycle.

I took Test e at 660mg/week with Deca at 400mg/week. Kickstarted it with Dbol at 50mg/day (I only had 25 mg pills). Cycle lasted about 18 weeks in total.

I also took arimidex at 0.5 EOD and HCG at 500IU/week (250 twice a week).

I developed some Gyno so I started taking 25mg of Nolvadex everyday to manage that.

Then I stopped taking Deca about 4 weeks before finishing off the last of my test e. I also stopped Nolva around the same time and I stopped taking HCG about a week before I started back on Nolva for my PCT. Ive now been on Nolvadex at 25mg/day for ~50 days and my balls and sex drive are terrible.

I got my total test and its at 3.4. Im NOW getting my LH, FSH, and Estradiol tested.

What went wrong here? I felt great for a couple weeks after stopping HCG and then everything just crashed. Why isn’t mt T recovering? Should HCG have prevented my testes from desensitizing? Anyways Im just looking for some answers!

Please help with any info you have. I tried to do this properly and safely and I feel like I’ve fucked something up. This was my second cycle. Last cycle went fine but no Deca.

Edit: Changed typo: “not” to “NOW”

You stopped the deca at the right time. You took reasonable amounts of hCG. You had all your pct lined up and ready to go. On its face it seems like you did everything right. Maybe you needed to run the Nolva at 40 instead of 25 during pct? Maybe you need to try pct again, this time with Clomid as well? You’re not shutdown anymore, obviously, so the restart “worked” in the most basic sense of that term. But clearly you aren’t back to normal. What were your pre-cycle T levels? Why not get LH, FSH, and E2 checked?

OOPS! That was a typo! I am NOW getting my LH, FSH, and Estradiol done. Did it this morning.

Also My test levels before my first cycle was 24.6, after I had recovered from my first cycle (post PCT) was 24.1. Now, like I said, ~50 days after this second cycle its 3.4. I took about 10 months off between my first and second cycle.

Ive heard some people say DECA shuts you down for longer and harder and PCT might take longer but I thought with HCG it would be fine.

Also I would like to clarify that I waited about 2 weeks after my last test e pin to start taking nolva.

Ill post my LH, FSH, and Estradiol when I get them. I appreciate ANY help or advice I can receive because this has me a little worried.

Well let’s do some housekeeping here before we move on. Deca doesn’t shut you down any harder than testosterone. That’s not physically possible because shutdown is when you’re at zero. There is no level below zero. So 10 weeks of deca gets you to the same zero as 10 weeks of testosterone. The difference—and I assume this is where the myths of deca originate—is that deca takes longer to clear your system, so you’re effectively shut down longer than you would be vs testosterone of a shorter ester.

The only thing the hCG serves to do is keep your testes functioning while you’re on cycle. It keeps them within a more healthy, normal range than without the hCG. It should not have caused your pct to be so unsuccessful. Is there any chance that your Nolva is bunk or (more likely) underdosed? If it’s actually dosed at 17mg instead of 25mg then there’s a real chance that you never really got enough of it to kick your system into full recovery mode. It was enough to restart you, perhaps, but maybe not enough to lead to full recovery. There is a minimum effective dosage for all these drugs.

Double checked my container. Its Finnea labs which I’ve heard good things about and been recommended by bodybuilding friends of mine who know their stuff. Its 25mg/tab. 50 tab container. From what I’ve read from KSman and others, you shouldn’t ever need more than 20mg EOD. I felt like taking 25mgED was more than enough. This is all a big mystery to me. Perhaps things will take longer?

I’ve also read that there is no real difference between Nolva and Clomid, though it is widely purported that they work together. Apparently Nolva shuts down IGF-1 levels more than Clomid but any other difference, in terms of PCT, are negligible. Perhaps I got a bad batch… Its the only thing I can think of at this point.

How many weeks did your PCT go for?

Almost 50 days now.

I don’t have any experience with hcg, on cycle or post cycle. I have found it can take up to 3 mths with a serm to get back to decent endogenous ranges, from a long cycle.

That’s VERY helpful. What do you think I should do? Ill post my LH, FSH, and Estradiol tomorrow. Im on nolva rn and going to add clomid. Should I just wait it out and see or should I try something new? If my LH was high I was thinking of using HCG to kickstart my balls and then clomid and Nolva right after kinda like the Scally Power PCT. But if its low then imma stay on SERMS only. My reasoning being if my LH has recovered but my balls are dead then maybe I can kick my testes back alive and then try pct again sort of. Im really trying to do everything right but hearing that it can take you 3 months to recover is reassuring for sure.

Keep at it with the serm, wait the 3 months and get another test.

So I got my LH, FSH, and Estradiol done here are the numbers (and my normal levels when tested BEFORE my first cycle):

LH: 3 IU/L (4 IU/L)
FSH: 1 IU/L (3 IU/L)
Estradiol: <19 pmol/L (74 pmol/L)

Basically only my FSH atypically low. Thoughts?