Plan going forward

Train lately has taken a back seat to vacations, and to a building project at the house. Which doesn't mean there's been no training, just that it's been sporadic and inconsistent. Not that I'm ever 100% consistent because of my job. I do shift work, 12 hour shifts.

Also, I have blood work and a doc appointment coming up, so I've backed off my TRT dose to keep him happy. Not that I'm ever extremely high, dosage wise, I just don't seem to tolerate more than 180 MG a week, for some reason.

Anyhow, I have 1 more trip planned between now and the doc, so the plan going forward starts in mid October.

At that point, I intend to focus on training and eating; bring my TRT dose back up to 180, higher if I can keep my plumbing functional, and add in Mc igf-1 at 60 mg per day. I want to try to gain about 10 lbs of muscle.

Last time I took a shot at this, I timed it very poorly but in spite of that I seem to have gained about 4 lbs after all was said and done. Hopefully this time I won't have disruptions and will be able to keep at it for a solid 6 months. Hoping for slow, steady gains and not too much fat.

I'm 198 right now, first thing in the am, fasted. I want to end up at 210 if possible. I'll be happy with 205 or so, as long as I finish at about 10% fat.

Sounds very plausible to me daddio!

and wheres the trip planned to? if u dont mind my being nosey and jealous lol

do you have bloodwork at 180mg? seems you just need to manage your estrogen with an ai

That's the best way to do it. Small reasonable goals factoring in some time to do other stuff and enjoy life. When I'm on vacation I don't do anything at all even remote related to bodybuilding. I just have a blast. When I'm back I'm super motivated to get into shape again

Sounds good my friend hope u reach every goal u set for yourself brother

Presser said:

and wheres the trip planned to? if u dont mind my being nosey and jealous lol

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Vegas. Renting a bike and riding to Yosemite. We lived there (Vegas) for a couple of years, we seem to go back annually now....

3J said:

do you have bloodwork at 180mg? seems you just need to manage your estrogen with an ai

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3J, I have tried to manage estrogen using Anastrozole (which I still use when needed), and have experimented with estradiol all over the map trying to find the "sweet spot". No matter what, it seems if my serum test level is above 1400 or so, my Dickinson just quits working regardless of estradiol level. I've had it aseems high as 80 with test level at 1475 and everything was working great. That was at 175 mg per week, split I to 2 doses (100 Fri and 75 Tues). I go up to 200 mg (100 and 100) and it's like the switch was flipped to "Off". Subsequently started with Anastrozole at .5 mg/week with no luck. Back off the test a little bit and everything works great.

I've tried more Anastrozole in the past. Had estrogen in the 20's and still no luck. Even had it as low as 7 at one point and still a wet noodle with test too high.

I don't understand it, but that's how it is. I don't think the issue is estradiol because of all the experiments. Maybe prolactin or something else? I just don't know. I could dig through my folder of blood work and find an example, probably.

The Dude said:

That's the best way to do it. Small reasonable goals factoring in some time to do other stuff and enjoy life. When I'm on vacation I don't do anything at all even remote related to bodybuilding. I just have a blast. When I'm back I'm super motivated to get into shape again

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Dude, you got that right. Sometimes I'll train when on vacation, depending on where we are and what we're doing. In Vegas, for example, it's almost a sure thing I will. My buddy will get me in to LVAC for nothing for the week, and frankly, I'm bored in Vegas pretty quickly, so the gym will be a welcome thing to do. But most of the time training waits until we get home!

I know that aromatase inhibitors fuck my sex drive up. Even the smallest amount. My body just prefers higher estrogen for sex drive I guess. Idk I seem to be the opposite of other people.

btw those total test numbers are really good for how much test you were running.

trekrider215 said:

I know that aromatase inhibitors fuck my sex drive up. Even the smallest amount. My body just prefers higher estrogen for sex drive I guess. Idk I seem to be the opposite of other people.

btw those total test numbers are really good for how much test you were running.

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Ai's fuck up your sex drive? Interesting. Be specific, please: there's a difference between "sex drive" or "libido", which is the DESIRE for sex vs erectile dysfunction - a non functional dick. This would be independent of the desire. My problem when my test level is too high, is that my sex drive is just fine. That is, the mental side of it. But the Sargent just won't do his duty. Or, he comes to attention for a short time, then goes down and won't come back up. Usually just at the critical moment.

I am trying to upload pix of blood work in response to 3J's inquiry, but can't seem to get the damned images resized. New phone... used to be easy to resize images, now that function doesn't seem to be available on the new phone.....

hmmm, it should be easy to do in a thread

Presser said:

hmmm, it should be easy to do in a thread

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Can't seem to make it happen. And don't have time to fuck with it right now. My old phone I could "edit" the pic and choose a resolution, which would allow it to be uploaded. This new one either doesn't have that option or it's hidden away somewhere and I haven't found it. If there's a tool to do that within the MC pic uploading page, I don't know where that is, either.

Anyway, after going back through my collection of blood work since being on TRT, I am thinking that my problem when test levels get higher is prolactin. I mentioned this once to the doc (actually a PA) who was administering TRT to me when I first started on it and he dismissed it, saying it wasn't high enough to cause problems.

However, I have since learned to question pretty much everything a doc tells me, for one thing, and looking at the blood work, prolactin is high during the periods I've had the limp dick problem, and it's NOT high when the plumbing is working.

Also, I've read on here that prolactin follows estrogen. But that isn't true either, at least not for me. The highest estradiol level I have seen is 80, and prolactin was around 15.4 or something like that. Test was 1377 at this time (this is on 175 mg per week, split into 2 doses, 100 on Friday and 75 on Tues). This was the best I've ever felt, and Sargent was busting his ass to do his duty, even waking me up in the middle of the night.

Going back a couple years, when I first started this and was going to a clinic for weekly injections, I was at 180 mg a week in one shot, was taking an astronomers (I think it was .25 mg a week, though it could have been .25 2x a week). Test level right before my weekly injection (so the 8th day following the previous) was 858 or so, (definitely right around 850), estradiol was 24, but prolactin was 19.8 (high end of the range is 15.7 or something like that).

Sorry, I'm pulling these numbers out of my memory from yesterday afternoon looking at them, they may be a few 10ths off, but close enough for discussion).

These aren't the only examples I looked at, I have 4 years of blood work I went through. Much of the time, however, only test and estradiol are checked. Comprehensive blood work every once in a while.

So anyway, I'm back to suspecting the prolactin.

Who said Prolactin Follows estrogen? and yeah man, all my past limp dick issues were progestinic in nature

I can't remember who said that, I read a lot of shit on here... He'll, it may not have been here, but I think it was.

So prolactin is a progestin?

Also interesting to note that I don't get the limp dick problem if I "sneak up" on 175 or 180 mg a week (depending on which test I'm running: I had some TC250 from Legend for a while but usually run the 200 mg/ml from the pharmacy). If I go straight to 175 or 180 from a lower done. So assuming I'm right about prolactin being the culprit, I wonder what changes with that?

Is prolactin a product of some sort of conversion similar to aromitization?