Coming Off

[genetic freak]

Well I didn't make it to 8/1. It wasn't terrible, but it sure as hell wasn't great. I could certainly have made it, but I kept running into the question of "why?" I don't have natural production. Even if by some miracle my natural production resumed (before it fell to the double digits ten years ago), we're talking about a TT in the 200's/300's. I started back last night and already feel better. However, I have dropped Primo. I dropped Anavar and Proviron, as well.

I started back on Test P and Mast P at 20mg daily each (reduced from 30mg daily each). I also resumed Creatine, Vitamin D (sublingual), Cialis/Tadalafil, and hCG. Will pop 0.25mg of Arimidex as needed (based on bitchiness, irritability, food cravings, prostate pain, etc.). I was supplementing a lot more but am going to go with this minimum spread for the foreseeable future. Edema is gone completely. It's nothing but skin on bone in lower legs. Be interested to see if that holds over the next few weeks. I can already feel "contractibility" improved (not sure if that's the right word in this case, but muscles are harder and respond better). Also a bit more fullness noted.

I do not think I felt too bad after a month or so, because I did end up recovering into the 500's when I did labs at the 45 day mark. Some said, why even go back on TRT at 500, because why would you want to be half a man when you can be a full man with a little assistance?

 

[beefnewton]

Feeling pretty good now. Taking about 1/3 total of what I was previously and feel just fine. Blood pressure is great. Even when I think it's high and I feel stressed, it's great. Like just now, I've been up walking around, sat down and immediately took BP.... 130/64 without resting a few minutes first. I have noticed my estrogen a lot more, and that had to be the loss of Primo. I have proven to myself time and again, even with labs, that it actually suppresses E2 for me. Given that, I reintroduced a small amount of Primo along with Test and Mast. I think these are the trifecta for my continued feeling of well-being. So far, absolutely no edema, and since resuming the Primo, estrogen seems to be smoothing out (I get breast irritation, irritability, prostate pain, food cravings, etc. when it's higher.. it's very obvious nowadays). Also the Primo just makes me feel better overall mood-wise and makes my muscles feel more full. No more orals. I'm done with them on a regular basis. I may run a true cycle of one in the future, but I'm done with this year-round stuff with orals.

Below is what I'm taking currently. I seem to do better with less hCG. The iron is temporary for a few weeks after having donated blood. Blood Nutrients is me trying to figure out a very long-term issue with pumping out mutant RBC's. Credit for Natto goes to Massive G and is a recent addition (will take for a few months and reassess from labs). The HumaPro really does help me, hype or not. For my use case, it allows me to put calories into other macros, but it may very well be that I actually need those "extra" calories that I think I'm not getting from the HumaPro. I go back to late last year up through February, and my macros had protein 275g-300g, carbs around 225g, and fat 40g-50g daily. With this distribution, I was lean as fuck (for me) and still losing fat (slowly). Along the way, I got distracted with personal shit, stopped the HumaPro because I'm cheap and now have a 10# muffin top. Went from 11.5% body fat back up to 14.5%. Fuck. That being said, I have re-adopted my previous spread and actually feel better. I felt like I wasn't eating enough at all. I'm around the same calories, but at around 200g protein, 200g carbs, and 50g-60g fat daily, it just "felt" too low. If you try to work those numbers, they won't make sense; it's the HumaPro that "allows" it. I don't do well at below 30g of fat, but above 50g of fat doesn't seem to work either. My window seems to be 40g-50g.

Morning
----------
-x3 Doctor's Best Nattokinase 2000FU
-x1 Carlson Blood Nutrients
-x1 ProFerrin ES

-100iU hCG (MWF)
-250mcg MT2 (and pre-tan)
-20mg Test P
-20mg Mast P
-10mg Primo E
-x1 Tadalafil Pro 20mg (sublingual)
-x1 Superior Source Vitamin D3 10,000iU (sublingual)
-x10 HumaPro
-x1 scoop MTS Creatine (NWD)
-0.5mg Semaglutide every Friday

Lunch
--------
-x10 HumaPro (NWD)
-x1 ProFerrin ES

Workout
-----------------
-x10 HumaPro
-x1 scoop MTS Creatine

Dinner
---------
-x1 ProFerrin ES
-x5-x10 HumaPro (variable based on day's food)

 

[beefnewton]

Ok, have a full set of labs. Frustrating and confusing numbers really, especially given that I completely dropped orals and reduced Test Prop from 30mg daily to 20mg daily. My body is apparently just circulating androgens and not even using them. Look at my TT and FT, for example. CBC continues to be a pain in my ass, and I'm sure that's related to my persistent iron problem. Even supplementing expensive heme-iron supplements at max dose yields no boosts to Ferritin and other Iron metrics... so silver lining is I can just drop that and save the money (I actually haven't taken any in months anyway). For some reason I am not absorbing dietary iron very well, so when I do have to dump some RBC's because of my hematocrit, it's especially hard on me because I can't absorb iron properly enough to make normal RBC's. DHEA is another wtf. It was fine on previous labs and is now low. Creatinine is because of Creatine and eGFR is calculated from Creatinine, so no concern there. I'm off all orals (taking Proviron and Anavar for years, year-round), and my lipids are slightly worse now (with exception to HDL, which did come up by about 15 points). So since Anavar doesn't seem to really hurt my lipids, why the fuck am I off of it? Proviron, with these labs, though... not really sure what it was doing for me. I haven't had either since the beginning of this thread. SHBG is always low.

I feel fine... good even. I'm having great workouts and morning erections. Guess I will just keep going. I will try supplementing DHEA again, but it makes me irritable as fuck. Completely at a loss with the iron/ferritin problem... and why my body doesn't seem to be consuming any androgens. Come on.. a TT of 1100 at 20mg of Test Prop daily? FT of 445 and DHT of 68?

By the way, Quest totally fucked up the formatting and layout of these results and had them scattered all over. I snipped and pasted everything into a new image, grouping relevant results together (what a concept, Quest). I left out urinalysis, LH, FSH, and a bunch of verbiage.

 

[Glycomann]

You can get iron dextran injection at some vet stores online. you have to be careful though with this stuff becaue it can be so toxic if levels get to high. As far as DHEA, you might try going further up the pathway and supplement with pregnenolone or try using hCG which should stimulate production. the other stuff looks pretty good unless i skimmed past something. Lipids are OK, creatinine is what it is for big guys. Red cells are high and small, probably from high androgen and low ferritin.

 

[genetic freak]

I stopped dumping red blood cells, because it doesn't really do anything, meaning, it is not fixing the problem. A lot of times you will dump them and your RBC/HCT will be back to what it was before or higher within two weeks if you are doing the same things you were doing before. Also, I wouldn't consider your numbers even being close to high. When your HCT reaches 55, I would say start paying attention and when it hits 57 you probably need to do something about it. My normal, even when I was not on anything is 54-55. When I was living at 4900 ft elevation and on TRT it would get as high as 60. Doctor would just say, "You want to watch that."

Your free test being that high is kind of strange. If you were on a DHT it would make a lot of sense.

 

[beefnewton]

Well I am using Mast P daily, as well. I probably should have listed it out again.

-200iU hCG (MWF)
-20mg Test P
-20mg Mast P
-20mg Primo E

There are a few other things, but nothing AAS-wise. Primo I use for E2 control; it works very well for me. It's just crazy because I dropped the dosage on all and now have much higher values.

Back before I came off for a month, I was also using:

Anavar: 20mg morning, 20mg afternoon
Proviron: 25mg morning, 25mg afternoon

I can't tell the Proviron actually did anything at all lab-wise. Nor can I tell anecdotally. Anavar, however, did lend some "oomph" to my workouts, which I miss. I really had hoped coming off them would improve my lipids, but aside from HDL coming up (admittedly quite a bit), other values are actually worse (slightly).

 

[Glycomann]

Well I am using Mast P daily, as well. I probably should have listed it out again.

-200iU hCG (MWF)
-20mg Test P
-20mg Mast P
-20mg Primo E

There are a few other things, but nothing AAS-wise. Primo I use for E2 control; it works very well for me. It's just crazy because I dropped the dosage on all and now have much higher values.

Back before I came off for a month, I was also using:

Anavar: 20mg morning, 20mg afternoon
Proviron: 25mg morning, 25mg afternoon

I can't tell the Proviron actually did anything at all lab-wise. Nor can I tell anecdotally. Anavar, however, did lend some "oomph" to my workouts, which I miss. I really had hoped coming off them would improve my lipids, but aside from HDL coming up (admittedly quite a bit), other values are actually worse (slightly).

That makes more sense now. gf is right Those dhts will pump the test levels up some.

 

[beefnewton]

I'm going to take your suggestion on the hCG, Glyco. I reduced my dosage from 500iU to 200iU, after that month hiatus from everything. Supplementing Preg and DHEA in the past have repeatedly yielded no results at best. The last labs for DHEA were normal, and I was on 500iU during that time. 200iUcertainly does not lend itself to any bit of plumpness or fullness to testicles; it may not be enough for the other things as well.

Going to try a different iron product, Ferrex, known in Canada as Feramax. Maybe I've been misplacing my faith in Proferrin ES. Certainly misplacing my money. Also going to return to taking Anavar. But no point in the Proviron based on these labs results.