I post this to help out any guys like myself who have been using testosterone and other steroids for many years, and who still want to have children without going off test. It is possible, even for guys like me who have been taking steroids for a very long time.
I am 50 and have been taking test and other steroids for 26 years now...on and off, but mostly on. My last time off was in 2010, I have been on testosterone without a break for almost 8 years now.
I have children with an ex-wife, but got married to another woman in October of 2017. We each have our own fertility concerns, as I am 50 and she is 41, but we wanted to try for at least one more child of our own.
In November of 2017 I started on my fertility program, which has changed over the months but has evolved to the following:
200mg test cypionate per week
500iu HCG every other day
60iu HMG every day
50mg Clomid every day
25mg Proviron every day
2-4iu HGH every day
This program seems to have been successful. My wife and I had IVF done this week. They extracted 21 eggs from her, of which my sperm fertilized 14. So hopefully I will be a father again soon.
My sperm count started out at zero, completely azoospermatic. But as the months went on it rose to 4 million per ml, then to 7 million per ml, then eventually to 12 million. Sperm motility, morphology, and forward progression started out very poor, but continued to get better and better as the months went on.
The program evolved as it went along. I didn't have access to HMG for the first few months, which would have helped a lot more. I added small amounts of a Chinese generic HMG in April, then got pharma grade Menopur in July and Merional in August. My FSH and LH were zero when I started, but taking the Merional at 60iu per day brought FSH up to a consistent 5.0 on a range from 1.5-12.4 miu/ml. Having earlier access to HMG would have helped more, but I couldn't get my fertility doctor to prescribe it, and I was limited to what I could buy on the black market.
My fertility doctor wanted to increase my HCG to 3000iu every other day, but that was way too much for me and raised my E2 levels above the top of the range, 64.7 on a range from 0-60.7 pg/ml. This caused me gynecomastia, anxiety, lack of libido, and erectile dysfunction. My fertility doctor's response to this was to prescribe me an aromatase inhibitor, Letrozole, at 2.5mg per day. Again, that was way too much for me and crashed my E2, causing me even worse libido and erectile dysfunction, although it did help clear up my gynecomastia. I cut back on the Letrozole to .5mg every other day, but after 6 weeks my E2 was still crashed at <5.0 on a range from 0-60.7 pg/ml, so I cut out the Letrozole completely. If I had to do it all over again, I would have kept the HCG at 500iu every other day, and avoided the use of Letrozole completely. Moderate consistent low doses of the drugs has been much better to me than high doses of anything, although I can appreciate that there are studies where the high doses have worked for people.
Regarding Proviron and Clomid, I am not sure how much they helped or hurt depending on their effects. I started out with good free test numbers (21.0 on a range from 7.2-24.0 pg/mL, total test at 1014 ng/dL), but as the program went on my SHBG rose to very high levels (112.5 on a range from 19.3-76.4 nmol/L).
This obviously had a negative effect on my levels of free test and free E2, both of which are important to libido and erectile function, not to mention muscle strength and size. And my libido was good at first but much worse as the program went on, although obviously it is hard to separate out the combined effects of all the compounds involved (HCG, HMG, Proviron, Clomid, the letrozole my fertility doc had me on for a while before it drove E2 too low, etc.)
In the end, I can only be happy and grateful to God that the program seems to have worked. I was able to recover my sperm count after many years of steroid use, and successfully fertilize my wife's eggs, and hopefully we will have a baby in the near future. However, I am always interested if the program could have been better or worse, for other people who want to try a fertility program in the future.
But at least my experience has shown that the program did work, that even if men have used steroids for many years, and that you can have children without ever having to go off of testosterone. So I am grateful that it all seems to have worked out for the best.
I am 50 and have been taking test and other steroids for 26 years now...on and off, but mostly on. My last time off was in 2010, I have been on testosterone without a break for almost 8 years now.
I have children with an ex-wife, but got married to another woman in October of 2017. We each have our own fertility concerns, as I am 50 and she is 41, but we wanted to try for at least one more child of our own.
In November of 2017 I started on my fertility program, which has changed over the months but has evolved to the following:
200mg test cypionate per week
500iu HCG every other day
60iu HMG every day
50mg Clomid every day
25mg Proviron every day
2-4iu HGH every day
This program seems to have been successful. My wife and I had IVF done this week. They extracted 21 eggs from her, of which my sperm fertilized 14. So hopefully I will be a father again soon.
My sperm count started out at zero, completely azoospermatic. But as the months went on it rose to 4 million per ml, then to 7 million per ml, then eventually to 12 million. Sperm motility, morphology, and forward progression started out very poor, but continued to get better and better as the months went on.
The program evolved as it went along. I didn't have access to HMG for the first few months, which would have helped a lot more. I added small amounts of a Chinese generic HMG in April, then got pharma grade Menopur in July and Merional in August. My FSH and LH were zero when I started, but taking the Merional at 60iu per day brought FSH up to a consistent 5.0 on a range from 1.5-12.4 miu/ml. Having earlier access to HMG would have helped more, but I couldn't get my fertility doctor to prescribe it, and I was limited to what I could buy on the black market.
My fertility doctor wanted to increase my HCG to 3000iu every other day, but that was way too much for me and raised my E2 levels above the top of the range, 64.7 on a range from 0-60.7 pg/ml. This caused me gynecomastia, anxiety, lack of libido, and erectile dysfunction. My fertility doctor's response to this was to prescribe me an aromatase inhibitor, Letrozole, at 2.5mg per day. Again, that was way too much for me and crashed my E2, causing me even worse libido and erectile dysfunction, although it did help clear up my gynecomastia. I cut back on the Letrozole to .5mg every other day, but after 6 weeks my E2 was still crashed at <5.0 on a range from 0-60.7 pg/ml, so I cut out the Letrozole completely. If I had to do it all over again, I would have kept the HCG at 500iu every other day, and avoided the use of Letrozole completely. Moderate consistent low doses of the drugs has been much better to me than high doses of anything, although I can appreciate that there are studies where the high doses have worked for people.
Regarding Proviron and Clomid, I am not sure how much they helped or hurt depending on their effects. I started out with good free test numbers (21.0 on a range from 7.2-24.0 pg/mL, total test at 1014 ng/dL), but as the program went on my SHBG rose to very high levels (112.5 on a range from 19.3-76.4 nmol/L).
This obviously had a negative effect on my levels of free test and free E2, both of which are important to libido and erectile function, not to mention muscle strength and size. And my libido was good at first but much worse as the program went on, although obviously it is hard to separate out the combined effects of all the compounds involved (HCG, HMG, Proviron, Clomid, the letrozole my fertility doc had me on for a while before it drove E2 too low, etc.)
In the end, I can only be happy and grateful to God that the program seems to have worked. I was able to recover my sperm count after many years of steroid use, and successfully fertilize my wife's eggs, and hopefully we will have a baby in the near future. However, I am always interested if the program could have been better or worse, for other people who want to try a fertility program in the future.
But at least my experience has shown that the program did work, that even if men have used steroids for many years, and that you can have children without ever having to go off of testosterone. So I am grateful that it all seems to have worked out for the best.