18 hours ago, CapeBretonDadBod said:

They are not allowed to question you , they have to provide you with exactly what you ask for.

Unfortunately this does not stop many pharmacists and assistants from being difficult and tedious. They have a certain degree of responsibility for customers' safety (ensuring correct meds, dosages, etc) so it is no surprise that people regularly get an inquisition on ancillaries as well - their fundamental mandate is to be thorough so that nobody ends up dead...

I just accept that if I go to a bricks and mortar pharmacy there is a significant possibility that it is going to be a hassle. Also, I have found that not all pharmacies are well stocked so they might not even have what you want (ie preferred syringe, needle length, needle gauge, etc) which can further complicate the transaction because you have to keep asking what they DO have.

For me it is just easier to order online. No hassles and I get exactly what I want. Just have to a little more organized ahead of time...

Depends what you mean by minimum sides. For me that would be whatever test dose manageable  without an AI.

Welcome,

Since you did not mention caloric intake I'll suggest that it is probably a diet issue.

1) Need to figure out target daily calories for the desired rate of weight gain. Google 'how to calculate base metabolic rate maintenance calories'

2) Create a meal plan with measured portions to meet that target.

I usually use https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/download-datasets.html website to look up nutritional values for whole foods that do not come with nutritional info (ie branded products.) Type the food into the search field and go from there.

Method dont repost that. Just report it. Best to edit it out.

41 minutes ago, CapeBretonDadBod said:

@Fizzyx I have to also agree with you too @GainTrain delivery could have been better , I think we can all agree that all of use test as a base I believe it’s the proper thing to do, if we sift through they both have some points , we have two passionate individuals trying to make points can’t really fault them for that, I think it should be put to bed tho before it gets too out of hand and someone gets spanked by a mod. Let’s chalk it up to agree to disagree and move on. Bickering will get us nowhere we are here to learn and support each other , we don’t want to end up like other boards out there .

Word.

Let's hope those responsible figure that out.

9 hours ago, CapeBretonDadBod said:

I’m going with @GainTrain on this one ! Let’s move past this folks it’s getting ridiculous and out of hand. To each their own, just don’t mess up newbies.

As ambiguous as Method's logic may seem to be, he is making an attempt at a rational discussion. GainTrain is the one doing the belittling and hurling the insults - attitude leaves a lot to be desired...

This line of discussion started because it was asked if DHB can be used alone in a cycle. If I understand correctly, Method's point was in essence:

- All AAS are somewhat suppressive of endogenous test production in males

- Endogenous estrogen in males comes from the aromatization of that testosterone

- So, using an AAS that does not aromatize to estrogen itself and is suppressive of endogenous test production,  in the absence of exogenous test (ie using that AAS solo), may lead to low estrogen levels because of insufficient test (exo or endo) to convert in the first place.

Logical questions for the initial inquiry are then: How suppressive is DHB and does it aromatize (if so, how much)?

Yes, in BB circles it is generally assumed that one always runs at least a TRT dose test to maintain basic function on a cycle but this should not preclude discussion of alternatives in light of new information.

Lastly, the question posed to Greg Doucette was oversimplified and lacked the context of the discussion.  

Can start here:

Yes it is ok to change doses mid-cycle and I agree that 300 is a good place to start. Just have to be aware that it may mask your actual thresholds for side effects. Say you get some estrogen side effects then you won't really know if your threshold for needing an AI is 300 or 500 mg/wk (or somewhere in between). Not the end of the world.

Also, are you are using the HCG on cycle (which I think is a good idea btw)? It will prevent total shutdown of your own testosterone so you will continue to produce some of your own - say around 100mg/wk. So factor this into your total (ie right now you could be at 500 + 100 = 600 when you drop to 300 you would actually be around 400). Another thing is that HCG is also somewhat estrogenic. I suspect that the reason why they recommended running Arimidex is because 500mg/wk + HCG will probably aromatize a fair bit. 

24 minutes ago, usernamebig said:

 As I stated the first bottle was uncomfortable but I figured it was prop ester and it was livable. The second vial I chalked up to one bad shot, took another and that second shot crippled me. 

Were you using the Mast Prop straight or mixing it? If so, with what?

Some folks like myself are particularly sensitive to solvents. Plus prop esters are a pain if the oil is absorbed before the compound and crystals settle out in the muscle. Ironically more solvents will allow higher mg/ml ratios but the less oil to mg of compound means more likelihood of PIP.

So it could be that you are getting a solvent reaction followed by PIP from the prop ester. Comparing it to your T400 experience is not really fair, it is a different animal.

The issues went away for me once I diluted with sterile oil. Using multiple compounds with different esters per pin helps with PIP as well since their solubility is not mutually exclusive. However the latter won't help with preventing solvent reactions if all the compounds use a lot of it. Sterile oil can be a godsend.  

How are the joints on it? I remember reading that it was up there with Deca for being beneficial for joints. Old farts like me really benefit from that. 

Can't really provide a recommendation without knowing what your goals are. Do you just want to look better than the average guy in the gym or do you want to work towards a 'holy fuck look at that guy' monster?

The longer the cycle and the higher the doses the greater the potential for side effects and negative impacts on your health. You will get different recommendations from different people because different people have differing ideas on acceptable risks (see question above).

IMO the potential for keeping gains long term post cycle is overstated. Those plateaus only stay broken as long as your are on. Unless you are well below your natural limit of muscular development beforehand then I would not factor it in. If you are then why not stay natty until you are. Like Blitz said, after training with AAS, training without sucks donkeys, lots of donkeys...

Consider using HCG during cycle to mitigate shutdown. If you do, keep in mind that it will keep you testes producing endogenous test and factor that amount to your regimen (ie add 50-100 mg/wk). Also it is a bit estrogenic so it may up your needs for an AI.

According to the original post it would be roughly the same time as your last dose of test C (unless running very high doses).

Personally I like to run low dose HCG a little longer (1 or 2 weeks) as a bridge to standard PCT (nolva, clomid, aromasin, etc).

Gyno issues are highly individual. Different people aromatize estrogen at different rates and have different breast tissue estrogen receptor sensitivities. If one's receptors are highly sensitive then estrogen levels will have to be kept in the normal range to prevent issues. Letting estrogen 'ride' would likely be problematic but have to make educated guesses in the absence of lab numbers. 

Additionally, maximizing gains by not controlling estrogen levels can lead to side effects like bloating, moodiness, and hypertention (stressful on kidneys). IMO 500mg/wk of test is a pretty beefy first cycle so I would not be too concerned about compromising a bit of gains for maintaining estrogen levels - but that is just me.

I aromatize like a bitch and am susceptible to gyno issues so I tend to be more aggressive. Since the 0.25mg 2X/wk is insufficient, I would double down on CBDB's recommendation and go with 1mg arimidex twice per week (on injection days) and add in 40mg nolva on the same schedule of twice per week. arimidex half-life is about 2 days so twice per week dosing is stretching it a bit but should still work. The idea is to hit it hard in the short term to get the gyno under control asap and reduce any tissue before it hardens. If you are not lean, there is often more tissue than appears because body fat will conceal it.  Once the tissue hardens it can really only be removed by surgery.

If things settle down after a couple of weeks you could try reducing the arimidex and nolva doses by half and see. If not, you might even have to increase. If you get low estrogen sides you'll have to reduce the arimidex early.

Of course you can also reduce your test dose as part of the equation although this is usually a last resort for most people.

Hope this helps. 

Yes, I get almost all my whey from them.

I prefer unflavored because I have my own smoothie recipes but it is somewhat tough to come by. Canadian Protein has bulk unflavored concentrate for $150 for 10kg including shipping. Great value IMO. 

On 3/11/2019 at 10:19 PM, Nixter said:

1.25mg

Finasteride will not help against Proviron. Finasteride blocks test conversion to DHT. Proviron is a DHT derivative and so 'already reduced.'

First off I would question why your doc had you off weights for 10 weeks. Usually once the initial inflammation and overt pain subsides, commencement of rehab exercises is recommended. Are you doing rehab exercises now and/or have you implemented a rotator cuff preventative maintenance routine? If not then you really should IMO. As you have discovered, neglecting to train rotators, even when healthy, is a great way to eventually end up with an injury.

I pretty much agree with Physlifter. Don't rush it. One of that hardest parts of dealing with injuries is finding the patience.

On 7/22/2019 at 5:53 PM, CapeBretonDadBod said:

I’m sure most pharmacy’s sell bac water don’t they ?

Not from my experience - although I only asked at a couple. Staff at both did not seem to know what I was asking for and offered me sterile saline...

24 minutes ago, Shelbysdad said:

Does HCG make you shoot s bigger load? Lol, I heard it does but I've never used it.

Yep, dosage dependent. HCG mimics FSH and LSH which get suppressed when on cycle.

As you have found from your research, there is no simple solution to BPH (benign prostate hyperplasia) complications from steroid use.

Tren has been shown to cause protaste growth in rats: https://www.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpendo.00440.2010 . Tren does not reduce to DHT so finasteride will not help with any BPH caused by it.

1500mg test plus 30mg M1T is a fairly large does of test overall so not sure how much finasteride will help. You would have to experiment.

Saw palmetto never did anything when I had issues.

I can't speak for Cialis effectiveness but I am aware that it is recognized for reducing BPH.

From my research and experience these are the options:

1) reduce steroid dosages

2) switch to more BPH friendly compounds such as Deca

3) take finasteride to reduce DHT conversion from test (note their may be an issue with taking finasteride with Deca so 2 and 3 may be mutually exclusive)

4) go off cycle if no improvement from 1, 2, 3

5) surgery

5 hours ago, Iron4life said:

Would nolvadex work as well? 

Yes. Different mechanism though.

Quote

 

Metabolism. 1986 Aug;35(8):705-8.

Treatment of gynecomastia with tamoxifen: a double-blind crossover study.

Parker LN, Gray DR, Lai MK, Levin ER.

Abstract

Benign asymptomatic or painful enlargement of the male breast is a common problem, postulated to be due to an increased estrogen/testosterone ration or due to increased estrogenic or decreased androgenic stimulation via estrogen or androgen receptor interactions. Treatment at present consists of analgesic medication or surgery. However, treatment directed against the preponderance of estrogenic stimulation would seem to represent a more specific form of therapy. In the present double-blind crossover study, one-month courses of a placebo or the antiestrogen tamoxifen (10 mg given orally bid) were compared in random order. Seven of ten patients experienced a decrease in the size of their gynecomastia due to tamoxifen (P less than 0.005). Overall, the decrease for gynecomastia for the whole group was significant (P less than 0.01). There was no beneficial effect of placebo (P greater than 0.1). Additionally, all four patients with painful gynecomastia experienced symptomatic relief. There was no toxicity. The reduction of breast size was partial and may indicate the need for a longer course of therapy. A followup examination was performed in eight out of ten patients nine months to one year after discontinuing placebo and tamoxifen. There were no significant changes from the end of the initial study period except for one tamoxifen responder who developed a recurrence of breast tenderness after six months, and one nonresponder who demonstrated an increase in breast size and a new onset of tenderness after ten months. Therefore, antiestrogenic treatment with tamoxifen may represent a safe and effective mode of treatment for selected cases of cosmetically disturbing or painful gynecomastia.

PMID:

 

3526085

[Indexed for MEDLINE]

 

Hey, sorry you haven't received any replies yet. I think your case is somewhat unique so ppl might not have much experience to lend. I found the following post on another site:

Quote

The problem we face is that often we don't really know or fully understand/appreciate just what effect the many different steroidal compounds are elliciting on our endocrine system. If there was only androgens and estrogens our job would be easy but sadly there are other contributory influences which, without proper blookworks to ascertain different hormonal levels, is often "best guess" regarding avoidance/treatment. 

Firstly, there is no "prolactin gyno". Gyno from elevations in prolactin in the absence of other hormonal elevations is almost unheard of. People often confuse prolactin with progesterone but they are not strongly linked. If you are lactating, then there are drugs which will help such as Dostinex, though such drugs will not lower progesterone. That said, elevated prolactin is a favourable environment for gyno! Progesterone can by controlled by certain drugs, most notably RU486 (abortion pill), the only problem being that many of these drugs are also anti-androgens which is not great as I'm sure you can imagine. Prolactin incidently is also influenced by estrogen so an anti-estrogen would also assist against prolactin. The prolactin/progestone link on forums occured when studies of female animals were cited. Unfortunately, data from menstrual or pregnant women or rats is not a great deal of use when considering the effects in males, although interestingly, elevated progesterone in male rats was linked to lowered prolactin levels, which was not witnessed in female rats. It is clear that we must be cautious in extrapolating data to human male bbers! 

So that leaves us with the two obvious potential bad guys; estrogen and progesterone. 

Estrogen is relatively easy to control. You can either inhibit conversion to estrogen through the use of an Aromatase Inhibitor (arimidex, letrozole etc). These drugs to a more or lesser extent will interfere with the aromatase process to estrogen formation. Or you can use so-called anti-estrogen drugs such as nolvadex which occupy the estrogen receptor so that circulatory estrogen cannot "dock" and activate the signalling process. Nolvadex is actually a weak estrogen itself, otherwise receptor binding would not occur from the drug, so it is not beyond the realms of possibility that nolva itself could create estrogenic issues by virtue of it's receptor binding signal, though in reality the risk is very low since it is so weak. For those particularly gyno prone, then a combination of the two methods may be appropriate. It's worth noting though that AI's will not assist against drugs that do not aromatise, at least against those which do not aromatise through the normal process (enzyme aromatase). It is thought that certain steroids may convert through other metabolite pathways, or are even capable of direct activation of the estrogen receptor, though data supporting such ideas is scant. 

  
Progesterone, or progestinal drugs are more difficult to get the head around. Progestins such as trenbolone will rarely cause issue gyno issues in the absence of elevated estrogen (tren does not aromatise). However, this does not explain some reports of gyno problems whilst running tren by itself so it is reasonable to assume that there is a pathway available for progesterone to be problematic. It is true that nolvadex can actually worsen a progesterone problem as it will upregulate the progesterone receptor so it would be unwise to attempt to treat gyno from a suspected pgr only angle. Of course, if someone were running a cycle of testosterone (which aromatises) and trenbolone (a progestin that does not aromatise), you could be forgiven that you would be caught between a rock and a place that is rock-like. However, it brings us back to the earlier point that gyno problems are mostly estrogen related so it would be prudent to assume that estrogen control should be the first line of attack. 

Incidentally, it is not just elevations in estrogen or progesterone that create problems. Low androgens with normal or low estrogen/progesterone can also lead to issues. This point is clearly demonstrated in ageing men with severely declining androgen levels suffering "manopausal" symptoms! 

Since you're only running 250mg/wk of test and you have some Adex going, I will guess that the Tren is the main culprit. Is it Tren Ace? I think your revised protocol looks good. Personally I have zero tolerance for gyno risk so if it were me, I would slash the Tren dose, get things under control, and then ramp it back up incrementally so that you know where your personal thresholds are...

On 3/12/2019 at 9:10 AM, NorthernLifters said:

its an interesting topic but if i use more iu slin and increase carbs and proteins,more is better than depends on goal i suppose?

That is my two cents.

Figure out your calorie needs and then match the insulin. Don't just consume 100g of dextrose just so you can take 10-20iu of insulin. Those are shit carbs for one. Also those extra 400 calories might just go to fat if you're already eating enough for your goals. That's why I say there is a (practical) limit to insulin dose...

Not to mention that if you are not (effectively) a diabetic, your body is producing its own insulin which will take care of the job so you don't necessarily have to push the limits with going hypoglycemic to get all the nutrients metabolized. Meaning if you're at 1iu/5g and you consume 50g, you need a total of 10iu insulin. If you only take 5iu, your body will produce the remaining 5iu to get your blood glucose level back to baseline. IMO taking exo insulin becomes more beneficial when on high calorie diets and AAS which combined might push insulin needs beyond what your body can handle naturally (ie. effectively becoming diabetic).

Hope that makes sense.

On 3/12/2019 at 9:10 AM, NorthernLifters said:

is there any details that specify that 10iu can and will transport x amount of calories?

The 1iu for every 10 grams of carbohydrate is a guideline for diabetics. All calories consumed will have an impact on insulin requirements. However, the reason that carbohydrate is generally only specified is because conversion of protein into carbohydrate is quite variable and, while the medical community knows that fat impacts insulin, it does not really understand the mechanics. So the 1 for 10 tends to be conservative. So no, in practice there is no ratio of insulin vs calories.

On a lean bulking diet, 500kcal meals with 40g of carbs I use about 5 iu. So about 1iu/8g.

On a cutting diet: 1iu/10g to 1iu/20g.

On a mild cycle and a bulking diet: 1iu/6g.

If I go for a power hike up the mountain I might not take any insulin with my pre-meal since the activity can burn through all of the glucose. I have to decide how fast I think I'm going to go ahead of time.

I am type-1. Yes I use insulin.

The dosages were just for the sake of argument.

I was referring to insulin, not peptides in general - I know nothing of the latter.

In case (1) the individual would see an increase in lean anabolic effects (yes likely at diminishing returns). In case (2) the individual would be consuming an additional 8000 kcal (@4kcal/g) just to boost insulin dosage and most likely would turn into a fat bastard - not desireable. Insulin usage/production has to be matched with your food energy intake which should be determined by your goals whereas AAS necessarily do not.

What I am trying to illustrate is that insulin levels cannot be described as normal vs supra-physiological as say testosterone. Beneficial effects from insulin are quite situational. In the context of the OP's question, he only needs to take supplementary insulin if his natural production cannot keep up with the incremental requirement due to any additional resistance from the HGH.

From posts over the years it seems that people often think of insulin in the same way as AAS in the context that 'more is (generally) better.' IMO that is erroneous. 

33 minutes ago, Corey5150 said:

How would insulin have an upper limit if sufficient glucose were present? Thus negating hypoglycemia.

It wouldn't.

Let's put it this way:

1) Lifter goes from TRT dose of 100mg/wk to 1000mg/wk then to 2000mg/wk. Not considering possible side effects, what sort of results would you expect?

2) Lifter goes from 100g dextrose PWO w/10iu insulin to 1000g w/100iu then to 2000g w/200iu. Assuming all dextrose calories are in addition to a bulking diet and there is no hypoglycemia sides, what sort of results would you expect?

So if (1) makes sense why not do (2)?