considering going on HRT / TRT.. A good read.

[mrgeeky]

copied and pasted from another website.

"A Primer for those considering HRT

This is not a specific protocol recommendation but more a 'HRT Theory' that I developed over the 3 years I was on HRT and 25 years of AAS study.

1) Use the least amount of pharmaceutics you can to elicit the most significant effect. Why? Because you are going to be taking these drugs for the rest of your life and you want to limit the overall potential for "long-term" side effects.By using less drugs, you will have a better chance of avoiding long term usage effects.

2) Most guys start with too much test! The goal of HRT should be to push you to a comfortable high level of test - approximating what your body would otherwise manufacture if you were 100% HPTA functional. I've seen protocol with guys starting at 300+ mgs of test a week. In my years of HRT and AAS usage and study, that is just way too much. In fact, it is a light cycle for 95% of the guys out there. If you are testing consistently above 1500 ng/dl, you are using too much test.

When you start with too much test, you wind up having to use more support drugs to control the issues associated with too much test - read Adex. So, start your protocol with 100 mg split up over 2 injections every 84 hours (50 per shot) and get tested every 4 weeks so you can adjust upward. Adjusting 1 drug upward is a lot easier than trying to fine tune multiple drugs.

3) Inject more frequently with smaller amounts. The long ester test that is used by most is positioned IM and is released from the depot over time. HOWEVER, this release IS NOT LINEAR. It occurs in an elongated sinusoid pattern. I've done the computed area of the integral for myself using 5 days worth of consecutive blood draws and as I mention, 84 hours an injection schedule works really well for test cyp in terms of blood level stability with minimal highs and lows. More frequent injections really don't improve the distribution of highs and lows very significantly. What I found by doing this was that for me personally, if I had around 30 mgs of active drug in my blood daily, I did not aromatize to any marked extent and I didn't need to us an AI at all during my protocol. Above 30 mgs of active drug a day in the systems and I kick into significant aromatization and had to use an AI. Now, with 30 mgs of active test in my system, I was able to maintain a total test level between 1100 - 1500 ng/dl. So there is another reason to work to keep you test levels under 1500, it limits your need for other drugs, my Crit number never budged above 48.8% and my BP never moved out of the 120/60 range. Again, see point 2 above.

4) Depending on your goals, HCG is not a requirement for HRT. In men, HCG is a messy messy drug. I could write a dissertation on this from what I've learned over 25 years with and personally tested. Simply, if you are not concerned about having kids in the future, you may want to consider foregoing HCG although. Maintaining a sperm count is all it is really good for.

 

[mrgeeky]

Obviously he's talking if your on injectables..  and he fails to include, HCG will stop the nads from shrivelling up.. At some stage the old fellas will need to be restored to their original size, the alternative if on TRT for too long is to have them more or less dissapear and become quite painful,

No shut down on oral Testosterone so your crown jewles shrivelling up is not an issue..