Hello all. I’m currently on TRT at 100mg a week, which was prescribed by my endocrinologist. Unfortunately, he will not prescribe me HCG, so I had to take matters into my own hands. What would be the proper dosage for a 38 y/o male who wants to keep the swimmers swimming?
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You’re getting ahead of yourself, you don’t even know if you’re infertile. There are lots of men on AAS sand fathering children with no hCG. Also most men can’t tolerate hCG at any dose and can be a libido and erection killer.
There’s no guarantee hCG will maintain fertility even if you respond favorably.
You can’t just walk in to your local pharmacy and buy hCG, you need a doctors script.
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LH of less than 0.3mIU/mL. Normal range is 1.7-8.6. I’d say that’s pretty damn low. He even told me HCG would be the route to go, but he does not prescribe it. He won’t even prescribe an AI with my levels being at 58.3pg/mL.
There are also many that claim a huge boost in libido and quality of erections when using HCG though. We’re all different, but worth a go I guess if one was not to feel all the benefits from Testosterone alone!
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HCG dose while on TRT is controversial. I had to twist my doctor’s are to get her to prescribe it. She prescribes it at 150 IU 3 days per week, which amounts to 450 IU per week. HOWEVER, this is simply to prevent testicular atrophy (my stated goal to her), not fertility.
I’ve done some digging into the medical literature and it shows that a weekly dose of somewhere around 1,100 IU in healthy adult males will prevent Intratesticular Testosterone (ITT) levels from dropping below normal when on therapeutic doses of TRT. I found 2 studies and one summary paper. See the graph below I made summarizing the two studies. You should be able to find full length articles through Open Access in Pub Med. ITT levels are a known indirect marker of fertility levels of healthy men.
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Are you currently trying to conceive? If not, you can hold hCG until it’s time. Generally, guys are pregnant 2-6 months after starting hCG and we’ll use 400-500 IU 3x a week.
I have not seen that to be true. Quite the opposite. Maybe one out of one hundred have reported negative effects from hCG.
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I do 2x week 0.35cc (10k IU/ 5ml bottle i think)
it is a huuuge boost for my libido. i don’t care about fertility. just feel better on it.
i get mine from https://www.reliablerxpharmacy.com 29usd for 10k IU
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Then why is it the majority of men report feeling much better going from hCG mono therapy to TRT?
There are more success stories on TRT in isolation than hCG mono therapy in isolation due to the higher estrogenic effects (testicles/aromatase), then requiring an AI which comes with it’s own set of side effects.
hCG typically creates more estrogen dominance than TRT.
TRT you only get estrogen from aromatase.
Yes, I believe my wife and I will have a child, which is why I am questioning this.
The best changes at fertility on TRT is to include hCG and FSH. I’ve seen men go from sub fertile or 5 million swimmers to 50-80 million adding FSH.
Right, the question was right now. My thinking is if not now, you could hold off for a while and save some expense. Good luck moving forward.
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Well…I’m surprised you do not know. The easiest, and best, way to increase testosterone is to take testosterone. You’ll need a lot of hCG to get your testosterone levels to where they would be with relatively pedestrian test dosing. As you pointed out, hCG, while it will increase testosterone, may result in different reactions. Common sense at work here and doctors will know this. You also should know that men do not have much hCG naturally, so injecting it at the dose needed to get those higher test levels is doing so for a "drug’ effect. That, will come with consequences.
Stunning observation. What do you think the ratio of guys taking test vs hCH (monotherapy) is? I do not know, but 500 to 1? 1000 to 1? Why? Do you think it could be because testosterone is dramatically more effective than hCG?
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OK, who are these men? People you personally know? Or maybe spoken to? Or a few guys posting their experiences on the internet.
For some reason HCG made me feel horrible, but I’m kinda of glad. Turns out I don’t need it. Never had testicular atrophy or fertility concerns. Do you put your patients on it from the get go out of curiosity? For the past couple years I’ve settled on the opinion that solo T Cyp treatment is the best way to start and works well for most. I highly respect your opinion so curious if you would disagree.
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This is not only my observation on these forums, but also countless doctors are reporting from their own clinical experience.
I don’t know the exact numbers. If hCG worked equally as well as TRT or better, TRT would be on the back burner and most men would be on hCG mainly due to not having to worry about being infertile.
Nope, only if they are concerned with testicular atrophy or currently want to conceive.
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Right, countless doctors report their experiences to you. Of course they do.
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These doctors report to all that will listen.
Trying to work this out but my maths is dreadful… what is this in IU’s per week?
Seriously? “These” doctors, these “countless” doctors, “report” to you? They report FSH increases the viable sperm count from 5 million to 50-80 million? They tell you this because? That’s right. You will listen.
For anyone interested in how this goes down in the real world:
The typical guy, aged late 20s to late 30s, being treated in a typical TRT practice would like to start a family, or add to his family. They add hCG, or stop testosterone and move to hCG. A few will choose clomid or enclomiphene. In two to six months they are pregnant. End of story. There is no semen analysis. Why not? Given the circumstances, is it really needed? They are on testosterone, we already know FSH and LH are suppressed and the sperm count will be decreased.
But, a few guys obtain a semen analysis. Then I get a phone call or an EMR portal message informing me they have a very low sperm count. The conversation proceeds like this:
“Right, remember? We talked about this during your initial consultation. Remember? Your brain recognizes you have testosterone and stops making the hormone stimulating the pituitary to make FSH and LH. Your testicles stop making sperm and testosterone. Your testicles can atrophy, They can get a little soft. Remember? We talked about this.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember now.”
We proceed to discuss the options moving forward, they decide which they’d prefer, and they are pregnant in six months. Is there a follow up semen analysis? No. Why? Their wife is pregnant, mission accomplished.
There have been a handful of times, just a few, in which conception was not achieved and consultation with a fertility specialist was obtained. Sperm count is adequate, so it did rebound, but the issue is somewhere else.
TRT docs are not doing before and after semen analyses. I don’t know who “these” doctors are who “report” to you. Perhaps one with a few samples. Overall, I just don’t think they operate like this. The object is pregnancy, not reaching a particular level of sperm.
If these are fertility specialists reporting to you, then I could see before and after examples. But that’s it. Are these the referenced doctors? If you are claiming they are TRT practitioners, then I don’t see it happening. Sorry.
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