hi all,
I’m not on TRT but I figured this is the place for my question:
I don’t feel like I’ve recovered from my last steroid cycle as my libido’s in the shitter. I’ve booked an appointment with a doc on Monday to get some blood work done, but am unsure what I should ask him to test.
If anyone can advise I’ll appreciate it. Also, I’m not sure if it matters but I’m in the UK.
thanks
What was your PCT and can you try that again?
You can see a doc and get labs for LH, FSH, TT, FT and E2 then see the numbers and feel the same. Then the best outcome is that you do a HPTA restart, basically the same as a proper PCT. Then you need to do the PCT, which you can do now anyways.
I recommend a PCT with sequenced hGH and SERM, with a proper taper off of the SERM, landing on an cruising on 0.5 mg anastrozole per week in EOD divided doses. Use that AI dose all the way through the PCT as well. The cruise prevents estrogen rebound that can stop a recovery.
You can find PCT details back on the steroid BB. But here, we will caution against high doses of SERM’s or hCG and against using both at the same time. Now that your HPTA is fragile, you need to avoid doing things that can desensitize your LH receptors which makes the outcome worse. We see guys here who have HPTA damage from prohormones and other internet garbage and stupid cycles like deca only. Restarts can work and are more successful with young guys. You cannot restart age related decline. Some young men will not recover and have what I term brittle HPTA’s that are vulnerable to any number of insults. And in these cases, such misadventures may be bringing events forward that were going to otherwise be spontaneous. We see a lot of spontaneous HPTA failures here in young guys. These events are rare and the google “quality” of the content here brings such guys who are searching to this forum.
Note that 5-alpha reductase inhibitors [for hair loss or BPH] can also kill off a man’s HPTA.
The brittle HPTA shutdowns really are often not recoverable.
My point of view is influenced by the fact that I have dealt with this HPTA wreckage for years. It is heart breaking for these guys and often they are married and this affects their relationship with their young brides.
thanks for the response KSman, I was hoping you’d respond.
I did a frontloaded PCT a la Bill Roberts. It was 300mg of clomid on day 1, and 120mg of nolva, with 50mg clomid and 40mg of nolva thereafter for 4 weeks. The Bill Roberts protocol actually calls for 20mg nolva but the caps I had were 40mg. I lost my libido during the PCT which didn’t happen the last time I cycled (this was my second cycle) and thought it was possibly due to me not controlling my E properly on cycle so I added 12.5mg of aromasin eod.
The last couple of days of PCT my libido came back so I stopped the drugs. In hindsight it may have been a little premature and I should have tapered down…
So my plan of attack is now:
Get bloodwork and see what’s what. If need be I shall
-do another PCT (I think maybe the SERMs I used were underdosed), but not frontloaded (no megadoses to mess with LH)
-use an AI during this PCT at a low dose
-taper down the drugs instead of just stopping completely in one go
should I use some hCG? I could maybe shell out for some hMG too if you think that’d help?
thanks again for your help thus far
One can use hCG alone for a while to get the testes to a physical end state, then switch to serms to get the top end of the HPTA in the game, then go from there. But SERM alone can work well too.
That PCT was typical bro-science garbage. Dangerous too. When LH receptors are over stimulated, you get two problems, LH receptors may not work right making recovery in doubt and high intratesticular testosterone levels create high amounts of T–>E2 inside the testes. AI cannot manage that and E2 is not controllable. Way to go Bill Roberts!
Without taper, you were asking for a estrogen rebound and shutdown. Taper is very important. Sort of explains the outcome.
Clomid can kill libido and cause mood problems for some guys, for that reason I always recommend against that.
You did not do PCT right, try again and forget the more is better crap.
well this has been eye opening to say the least! No more frontloaded PCT for me.
I shall PCT again. Clomid didn’t kill my libido last time, so I don’t think that’s to blame. I’ll try a second, nolva only PCT just to be sure. As for the taper, do you think I should do the first two weeks at 40mg a day, the second two weeks at 20mg a day and then taper off with 20mg every other day for a week? I’ll use a low dose AI throughout too.
My testes are at full size, and seminal volume is normal. Do you think I should still use some hCG or not? And if so, how much?
sorry for bombarding you with questions, you’ve been really helpful so far and I’m really grateful.
I do not know how fast the taper should be. You do not want to drag that on forever. The taper needs to allow the estrogen levels to fall as the SERM is reduced. So we need to know what the estrogen clearance rates are and I have never seen such data. Having the anastrozole on board will be very helpful.
Going to EOD will be very helpful.
cool well I’ll do the 40/40/20/20 then 20 eod for a week