Hi everyone; I’d greatly appreciate any help or advice.
I am a 27 year old male and have done a couple of very short-term (~4 week) anavar cycles in the past with 2 week mild PCTs to be safe and always come back to normal pretty quickly as expected. Last year starting in October I did my first and only real cycle of Test E 500 mg per week in two doses of 250 mg per week for 12 weeks. I finished off with 2 weeks of Anavar and ran Aromasin E3D throughout. I have also run 1mg Finasteride daily for a few years with no noticeable side effects to prevent genetic hair loss.
I waited 2 weeks to do PCT as instructed and followed the “perfect PCT” protocol on this website. (Clomid, Nolva, Aromasin).
My PCT ended in February and I did a preliminary blood test back then (I know that the SERMS last a good while in your system afterwards but I just wanted to see where I was) and my bloodwork was perfect and I felt decent, even if my libido wasn’t exactly back to normal yet.
Feb 5 Results:
Testosterone, Serum 574 ng/dL 264-916 DA
Free Testosterone(Direct) 17.1 pg/mL 9.3-26.5 BN
It was not a high number but still a bit higher than my normal baseline without any drugs (other than finasteride) in my system, which typically hovers around 450-500.
Things started getting worse after that, however, and my sex drive has completely died since. Concerned, I did another blood test this week on April 2 and my results were terrifying:
The only thing I can think of to do now is run another PCT of Nolvadex of 4-6 weeks. My testicles are normal sized so I do not know if HCG will do anything? I’m really just not sure how to proceed. ANY suggestions will be much appreciated. Thank you in advance!
So it looks like you don’t need a full-on pct. You recovered just fine and everything is in working order.
Is something else different from one blood test to the next? Sleep issues? Anything that could explain the appearance of your symptoms and the corresponding lower test level?
How long have you been experiencing symptoms? Because test can naturally fluctuate a lot from one day to another (and from one time of day to another).
He doesn’t necessarily need to restart. He’s started. Everything is working. It’s just working poorly.
Clomid monotherapy could work. That’s a treatment some doctors use for low t. Look into it and see what you think. It differs from pct in that it isn’t a short term thing and the doses vary. Monotherapy can last for six months or more.
I’d still wait and see what other factors could be causing this.
Wait a minute his pituitary gland is working his nuts aren’t. And because his nuts are not producing why isn’t his pituitary gland putting out more LH and FSH. Something is wrong with that feedback loop.
I think he has cooked himself I sure hope he can talk a doc into TRT at 27.
His “nuts” are absolutely working. His LH is lower, so it stands to reason that his testosterone would be lower as well. The feedback loop is working. It just isn’t working the way he wants it to.
Edited because two minutes after I said “we don’t have ore cycle blood work” he posted pre cycle blood work
Testosterone, Serum 570 ng/dL 264-916 DA
DHEA-Sulfate 272.7 ug/dL 138.5-475.2 DA
Estradiol 27.2 pg/mL 7.6-42.6 DA
Prostate Specific Ag, Serum 0.3 ng/mL 0.0-4.0 DA
Sex Horm Binding Glob, Serum 36.9 nmol/L 16.5-55.9 DA
That was a relatively high test result for me though, I assumed because of finasteride usage.
Yeah man, I know. I wasn’t trying to argue. Sorry if it seemed that way. And yeah, his numbers are low, but he’s certainly got a working system. It’s just working poorly. Like an American car from the 80’s.
I would sure stop the finasteride. Nothing good can come from taking that. I don’t think it is affecting your T from coming back. finasteride if taken too long can make your dick no longer work but I’ve never heard it effecting T production.
I have always trusted iron_yuppie’s advice. I have read many of his post and he is one of the few here I look up to. I would give his suggestions a try. At the worst it won’t work but at least it won’t harm you farther. I wish you luck you are really young to be messing with so many aas’s.
You know the boys who can afford it on long fuckwith the liver killing aas it is all insulin and HGH with T these days.
This might be a stupid question, and something I should have brought up upfront, but could surgery under general anesthesia cause these kinds of issues? I had a cosmetic procedure in March and I haven’t been working out really since then.
I was 200 lbs 12.5% via DEXA at the end of the cycle but slimmed down to 185 ~10% during PCT and did abdominal liposuction to contour my midsection 3 weeks ago. Can something this minor actually impact the endocrine system??
Hard to say for sure, but let’s think about it this way: exercise, especially lifting, helps raise natural testosterone levels. Without that usual lifting regiment, you could see a drop off. Usually not that drastic, but it’s something. That plus the addition of physical trauma (and even a procedure such as the one you had caused some trauma to tissue), I’m guessing some sleep disturbances due to the after effects of anesthesia, pain, or general discomfort, and you can have a state where you’re just not producing as much as you normally would.
I think your February blood work was still being influenced by your pct. I think those numbers were artificially high. Now you’re totally off everything, just had general anesthesia, probably aren’t sleeping great, and you’re not lifting. That can all add up to your numbers being so low. I think you need to either give yourself more time or approach a monotherapy cautiously. But if you can hold out for another few weeks, get another round of blood work, and see what’s going on after you get back into a more normal lifting routine, your numbers could look a lot better. If they don’t then at least you have enough data to determine the next step.
I’ve seen it. I dated a girl that worked for a plastic surgeon and she said this was prominent… in the gay community. She said guys that had barely any fat would come in to do the love handles mainly.
Also, PCT ended in feb and was ok, but now not ok. I think OP shouldn’t bug out too much, a lot of other things can effect his low T, maybe wait it out another 3 months and check again.
I’ve done blood work where I went from the same thing, around 500 and then plummeted because of no sleep and tons of stress.
It’s not that crazy nowadays I think; it isn’t really about fat loss (I don’t think they can even remove that much fat during normal liposuction anyway, maybe 1 or 2 lbs tops). Just wanted my midsection to pop more.
