My lady has been taking 2iu hgh 5 days a week since Jan 1. She currently takes her female hormones progesterone, oestridiol, test. She eats clean and works out twice a day 5 days a week. She is 49 yrs young. She takes her potassuim supplement in the morning and evening but still retains water. she recently stopped taking hgh for about a month, we were building a house and moving so busy month for us both. As she stopped the hgh she noticed looking a tad slimmer and of corse her weight is down a few pounds. What other ways are there to mitigate the water retention problem? Thank you in advance.
Bump for an answer. Started on gh for the first time ever, wife got curious too, so I've been giving her 2iu per day for the last week. She says she feels bloated. It seems a little early for ANY effect at all.
So, a primary effect of rhGH is sodium
and potassium retention, with greater retention of sodium and potassium with nighttime administration vs. daytime administration. This is beneficial in many ways, as it is responsible (coupled with lipolysis, especially of central/abdominal fat depots) for a bit of that "3D look" that describes rhGH. These effects occur immediately, and there is additionally (for the first 4-5 days of rhGH administration) activation of the renin-angiotensin system; though blocking it completely with ibuprofen still leads to increased serum and extracellular volume via nitrogen, potassium, sodium retention. These are major mechanisms for why rhGH works anyhow.
Just some guidelines clinicians use for rhGH in GHD adults: reduce the rhGH dose by 50% if a woman is switched from oral estrogen to transdermal estrogen and then to reduce it by one third if the woman discontinues transdermal estrogen, suggested by D.M. Cook, W.H. Ludlam, M.B. Cook, Route of estrogen administration helps to determine growth hormone (GH) replacement dose in GH-deficient adults, J. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab. 84(1999) 3956–3960
And some other notes I have on the topic: Systemic estrogen administration does not increase hepatic IGFBP-3 production despite clearly augmenting (endogenous) GH drive... this dissociation is consistent with relative (hepatic) resistance to GH action following high-dose estradiol exposure... A third evident distinction is that only (endogenous) estrogen secretion is characteried by concomitant ovarian production of androgen and (in the luteal phase) progesterone... in this regard, combined supplementation with estrogen and a synthetic progestin elevates both GH and IGF-I concentrations (2, 33, 34, 91) [80]. However, synthetic progestins in these contexts could act via the AR or PR.
Along with the intra-subject changes in volume of distribution, metabolic clearance rate of GH with estrogen-estradiol (it mimics obesity), may argue for HIGHER rhGH doses for women (given constant body mass) or the use of GHRH/GHRPs and Ghrelin mimetics.