Started TRT/HCG in January. Need Advice

Pharma / TRT Testosterone Replacement
1

Hi Everyone,

Long time lurker here. I’m looking for some advice on my current TRT protocol. I began TRT back in January of this year:

In January, I was on 140mg of T, 500iu of HCG, and .25 of anastrozole once weekly, IM injection.

One month later, my labs were:
Total T: 908 ng/dL
Estradiol: 38.5 pg/ml
Hematocrit: 49.4%

I felt pretty great, but I was a little bloated due to the high estrogen. So, I upped the anastrozole to .5mg once weekly. I also decided to come off HCG because I was worried about putting too many drugs in my body (probably a bad idea), and I wanted to focus on getting optimized with T first.

Then, my T levels started dropping.

So, I started injecting 90mg of Twice per week, no HCG, and .25mg of anastrozole at each injection.

My follow up labs in March were:

Total T: 661ng/DL
Estradiol: 33.9pg/mL
Hematocrit: 51.9%

I wasn’t feeling good. I had brain fog, low motivation and low libido.

So, I went back to once weekly injections, but with 160mg of T.

My recent labs came back:
Total T: 551
Estradiol: 22
Hematocrit: 49%

My questions are:

  1. Why is my testosterone level falling?
  2. Can one expect such a large dropoff in T levels when stopping HCG?
  3. Will re-starting HCG get my T levels back up?
  4. Should I switch to SubQ injections and increase my dosage frequency?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated here. I’m tired of feeling like this. Thanks very much in advance.

2

Very few people need anastrozole it’s not ideal to suppress estrogen. My estrogen runs around 49 and I feel great. HCG sure if your trying / wanting to have kids. Personally I would just run Test only for the next 8 weeks 140mg split into 2 injections Monday morning Thursday evening and run labs at the 8 week mark. Give it time your making a lot of changes rapidly. Key labs your missing that would give an actual good picture would be SHBG and free testosterone.

3

Thanks for your quick response. My doctor really pushed HCG especially because I’m young, and he claims that it will boost my T levels as well. He also claims that it’s the reason why my T levels dropped when I cam off of it. Thoughts on that?

I will request SHBG labs and propose that protocol.

4

SHBG and free testosterone. I don’t have enough experience with HCG to have an opinion if that’s what dropped your test levels but if your young and want kids it might be a good idea I just don’t have the knowledge there. Personally I rarely look at total test free test is the driver. You honestly don’t have a true picture of what’s going on without those labs.

5

38.5 is not high estrogen. Not even close. Is not even out of range, and the range doesn’t apply with TRT.
One month later was too soon for labs, but okay. When were the bloods taken? Is it on shot day before the shot every time? Does it vary?
The anastrozole is messing with you, stop taking it.
The HCG does not make that big of a difference in most guys, but the difference matters to some. Up your dose of T, at one month your natural levels are contributing because of the HCG - you didn’t shut down. When you stopped the HCG you shut down. So, that’s question 1.
And 2.
3. No. Probably not. Not much anyway.
4. No. Not any reason or point to it. You are too low, up your dose.

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6

Thank you for your response. The bloods are always taken right before my shot.

So you’re suggesting I up my dose of T to, say, 200mg/week without taking any anastrozole? Wouldn’t that make my estrogen skyrocket, especially if I added HCG back in?

Should I split dose the 200mg to try and combat this?