Starting Daily Anastrozole. I Don't Care What You Say

By the way, 300mg gives me a total that hovers around 1200 and a free that hovers around 35, sometimes up to 40. It’s hardly anything crazy. 1200 was in the normal range just a few years ago. I’m not running any crazy levels. HOWEVER, I do come across men getting free T over 40 using a peasly 100mg a week. This is why I keep banging my head on the wall when people talk about doses. Doses are IRRELEVANT. Serum levels attained with said dose is much more relevant. Even then, serum levels don’t equate to symptom resolution either so…?

If you lived on a deserted island, with limitless supplies of testosterone and no access to labs, what would you do? You would figure out how much you needed to take per week and how often to take it to resolve symptoms… and life would be so much easier :wink:

Appreciate all the comments, commentary, and intentional and unintentional humor. When I log on to TNation it is after doing my own research into studies, clinical and reviewed. My intention for a forum is honestly to get anecdotal input from people who have personal experience. Personal experience can be subjective of course, but when taken with the entire picture is important. Imagine following one of the protocols from a doctor or from a study and you are in fact the 1 in 20,000? You may look to a forum to find others with the same case, and yes I’ve read posts discussing that this may be misinformation. But I think people need to utilize forums for what they are, conversations of opinions and personal experience. I do agree that everyone reaction to protocols may be different based on your own physiology. That is why some of us are on TRT to begin with. So AI, no AI, my thought is there are cases that this can be personal and I wouldn’t fault someone for asking for anecdotal information over and above their no doubt impeccable ability to google. Everyone needs to understand that using anything exogenous will be cause and effect on the body, and understand the risks prior. Understand, and move forward.

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What I do enjoy about that particular group is that we get a lot of anecdotal evidence from guys sharing their experiences. We also see what different physicians around the globe are doing. When we see a lot of problematic guys from the same physician, it becomes clear that strategy isn’t working. We also see guys doing very well coming from a particular physician so we inquire as to what that physician is doing that the others aren’t. We have a number of actual physicians in the group with some specializing in TRT, men’s health etc… others are endocrinologists, GPs, urologists, ophthalmologists, naturopaths… so sometimes a guy will make a post and he winds up getting an expert in a specific field come in with a perspective that many of us wouldn’t have thought of. There is also a constant sharing of new literature and studies. I have a group chat going on with a number of physicians and they are constantly sharing with me what they are seeing in their practice… stuff that is working and stuff that isn’t. All for the betterment of our own knowledge so we can help more guys out… nothing more.

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For the past 18 months I’ve been doing 300mg a week. On 250mg a week I was 80% there but still had some issues that didn’t seem to get resolved. With the 300mg, I’m 100% and symptom free.

To anyone reading this, this is a HIGH dose for most men that would put your levels to double or potentially even triple of what I have so do NOT use this as a point of reference as I’m an outlier.

I have tried weekly, twice weekly, EOD, and daily. I have tested each of these methods several times. EOD gives me the best results FOR ME. So, 85mg EOD is what I do. I’ve switched between SubQ shots and IM shots and don’t notice any difference either way, though some men can see a huge difference between the two.

Serum levels last time I did 250mg a week EOD were 1068 ng/dL with free of 28 ng/dL.

On 300mg a week, my total always hovers around 1200 ng/dL with free always sitting between 35-40 ng/dL.

SHBG has always been between 18-20 anytime I’ve measured it.

Bloods are done the day of injeciton, prior to injection, as it always should be. This would be considered best practices for ‘trough’, though there is hardly any actual ‘trough’ when doing EOD shots.

I’ll also add, my prescription is for 250 and I get the extra 50 on my own as I don’t want to put unneeded stress on my prescribing physician. I’m in Canada so the laws are rather lax here for this type of thing. Nobody is going to send me to prison for having a couple of vials of testosterone and, on rare occasion, nandrolone. It’s very different in the USA.

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Appreciate your comments. I suppose my point is that I do like reading personal experiences as much as the studies. At times I see guys sharing their own thoughts getting shot down because its not whats in the literature. Danny I have followed your youtube prior to getting tested and on TRT and joining this forum so I respect your expertise. Wish I would have sooner, life has a way of getting in the way!

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You’re quite welcome! We can’t completely disregard anecdotes and only use studies, I agree. However, when you’re caught up with the literature and hear an anecdote, you become significantly more educated as to what the issue might be based on science on not on bro science.

If I had a dollar for every one who contacted me that insisted that they needed an AI, and we simply tweaked their protocol a tad and suddenly all those ‘high e2 issues’ vanished, yet e2 serum levels remained virtually unchanged. Had I not been caught up with the literature, I would have assumed E2 was causing the issues, because ‘bro science’, and spent the rest of the time trying to figure out how much more or how much less Arimidex he needs to be taking which would be an epic waste of time.

The more science we learn, stuff like how aromatization actually occurs, where it occurs, what are you actually measuring when doing labs, what can fluctuate wildly throughout the day… stuff like being hydrated to get accurate hct numbers… why PSA isn’t really a good indicator of anything… I could go on an on. You need to get caught up with the science and use those tools to solve the issues coming in. Without them, we’re all just making guesses. I want to keep guessing to a minimum and I can only accomplish that if I know what is actually occurring based on men’s physiology that we can demonstrate and not anecdotal evidence. So when something can be demonstrated in the literature backed up by a ton of references… and then you start going through all the references… and then you can start applying said techniques with men and seeing that you can demonstrate the same outcome as in the studies… it sure as hell becomes difficult to deny. Then you hear the bro science guys say it’s all crap and you just want to strangle them LMAO

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That’s one HELL of a freakin’ difference between you and I on the same dose. So you now understand why I get all worked up when I hear “Anyone who needs more than 200mg a week is on a steroid cycle”. Meanwhile the guy on 100mg a week is WAY higher than me. I’ve seen guys taking 400mg a week are barely get their free T over 30.

Guys need to stop referring to a dose as something you can use to compare anything with. It’s utterly useless.

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My FT on 100mg split E3.5D was 178 (35-155).

I’ve upped to 250mg split E3.5D.

Hopefully this amount gets me up to at least 250 FT or more and i can feel some sorta benefit from TRT, primarily libido.

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Hell of a good strategy there? Wonder who gave you that idea? :wink:

17.8 ng/dL free T… don’t know too many guys feeling good there. That 250 should get your free T probably closer to 40 ng/dL. If you’re not feeling any difference at that level, testosterone isn’t your issue. You should feel ‘something’… anything. Then if you do, assess over time, and you can always work your way back down if you need to, if dose reduction has no impact on symptom resolution.

I had to do the same exercise when I started. All the docs put me on baby doses and nothing work. I demanded a proper experiment to go to an ‘extreme’ and do 200mg a week just to see if I felt anything. That made all the difference in the world and I finally felt something. Started lowering dose and I was getting worse so it was clear I needed to go up, which I eventually did.

Funny thing… all that time I was demanding that they give me an AI because my E2 was 40 and it was WAY above the 20-30 range that ‘every bro science guy knows that’s the best range to be in’ LMAO

I’ll never forget the first thing I noticed when I stopped that AI. I was able to BREATHE better. It was so odd. It’s as if my lungs had opened up. Not saying this occurs with everyone but it most definitely occurred with me.

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On an old protocol of 300mg every other week, i did feel something at times, so i think upping the dose will help.

Second 125mg shot tonight. I’ll check in in a few weeks time… or earlier if i start to feel something.

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That’s where I stand most of the year. I feel great. Nice to meet you LOL. Thats on 140mg/wk. My TT is usually around 8-900 ng/dl. I have run short periods of 300mg/wk and 500mg/wk. I feel the same at 300mg/wk but at 500mg/wk I have issues with E2 (breast pain / gyno lump formation) as well as anxiety. Not sure what my levels were at either though.

Ha! Nice to meet you too lol! I did a poll in my group asking about the men who were ‘dialed in’ and what their free T was. The vast majority had it over 25. There were very few under that. I imagined that either they truly were dialed in at that level for them or didn’t know what dialed in actually felt like :wink:

That 500mg a week causing breast pain/gyno… you never suspected it could be due to the high androgens itself, DHT, IGF-1, etc. etc. etc.? Everyone goes straight to E2. There are so many factors at play for gyno. I got gyno from low androgens and low E2 of 12. Raised E2 to 60 (by raising testosterone) and gyno shrunk.

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Honestly I went straight to E2 in my mindset. I was under the assumption that it was the receptors in the breast tissue’s reaction to the high E2. I don’t really like using AIs as I had so many problems with my protocol before settling on a reasonable TRT dose with NO AI. AIs make me feel like shit and I have labs to show their determent to my HDL. However, the main thing is just lowering my dose to a reasonable level for symptom resolution on both ends.

I did my ‘experiments’ solely in the pursuit of muscle via my little man syndrome / adonis complex. Now that I’ve tried a few things I’m pretty much just going to stick to TRT. I am concerned mostly with my cardiac health (thanks for the frequent scares @readalot LOL). Any insight to long term heart health on higher end TRT dose @dbossa?

Yeah after 4 years of playing around I had a CAC done. I’m approaching 40 and my father had his first heart attack at the young age of 41. I thankfully scored a zero for what that’s worth.

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We know that serum levels were significantly higher back in the day than they are now. Just google beach photos from the forties, fifties, sixties etc. Where is all the obesity? The men looked like men back then. That’s how things are supposed to be in my opinion and not the féminisation of men we see today. Cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes etc all run rampant now. I doubt very much that my current levels surpassed the natty guys from back then. I’m never sick… It’s been almost five years. My bodyfat is around 11%. No meds of any sort. If that’s not healthy I don’t know what is. If I see any sort of issue starting to creep up in the future I’ll address it at that time. Everything I do today is with health in mind. I’ll be 47 in February. When I hit 50 I plan to do a full workup, top to bottom, to assess the true health of my fifty year old self.

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Amazing how we can can all have a nice, normal discussion, sharing different points of view, when certain members are not around? Why don’t I ever give @unreal24278 a hard time, or @readalot, or @spinup when they have a different point of view? Then dixie whatever and equel come in and just bitch, whine, and complain about every little detail that does not align with their confirmation bias.

It’s not me… I can promise you that.

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That’s Dr. Keith Nichols as everyone knows by now. I used to promote the hell out of him on the YT channel. Unfortunately, that’s the kind of attitude that I simply can’t promote. Funny thing is he’s only 5’6. Can you say Napoleon syndrome? On my latest return back here this week, I couldn’t believe that there were more flagged posts written by a physician than some regular 22 year old noob just looking for the ‘gainz’. He still can’t let things go after all this time.

Life will never stop surprising me.

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Go easy on us manlets. It’s tough being trapped in a child sized body. :joy:

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All people above 5’5 have a growth hormone secreting pituitary tumour… that’s what I always tell myself. I’m nOt ShOrT, EvErYoNe eLsE hAs GiGaNtIsM.

Really? Those statements came from a doctor? Judging by his attitude towards others who disagree with him I’d think he probably has a terrible bedside manner.

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Yup. Great doctor or not, hard to take them seriously when that’s how they talk to people.