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I posted this on some other boards-hope my experience helps otheres and answers some questions.
Listen up and learn from my experience. The following is based on my actual experience and discussions with my 2 doctors: a fertility specialist and a urologist.
I’ll try to make this brief, some of you may know my story. Over one year ago, my wife wanted to get pregnant but because of her fertility issues, we visited a fertility doc for help. One thing the fertility doc does as standard procedure is to do a semen analysis to check your sperm count, motility, condition, etc.
I jizzed in a cup and my test came back ZERO sperm. Its called azoospermia. I told the fertility doc off the record about AS usage. He referred me to a local top urologist (they address male issues, among other things, like an endocrinologist would). They did not ask, and I did not offer the details of my AS usage other than when I took my last AS shot.
My AS usage: I was on AS for about 3 years, 3 nine month cycles with three months off between. On my last cycle, I used 600mg of deca a week, together with various dosages of test and some winny. I used mostly clomid between cycles, once I tried HCG. When my wife wanted to get pregnant, I stopped all AS usage and started clomid: 1 tab ED for 30 days and then 1 tab EOD for thirty days. After 60 days of clomid and no AS, the tests showed I had no sperm, testosterone levels of 87 (200-700 being normal) and below normal LH and FSH levels (don’t remember the exact numbers but they were LOW).
The urologist offered three courses of therapy: 1) do nothing, as the body will seek to normalize the hormonal levels over time (i.e. your HPTA will recover by itself over time [hopefully-see note below], but this normally takes 6-9 months, at the minimum), 2) take clomid and arimidex, or 3) take HcG, followed by HmG (Pergonal). I opted for the most aggressive therapy: the Hcg and HmG.
I was prescribed 5,000iu 3x per week of HcG until my testosterone levels (as shown by regular blood tests) moved into the normal range. The doc initially told me this would take as little as 3 weeks, but in my case it ended up taking about 6 months. So for 6 months I took 5,000iu 3x per week.
Once my testosterone levels moved into normal (they barely got above 200, even after 6 months of Hcg), the doc put me on 2000iu HcG 2x week and 75iu HmG 3x week. The HcG/HmG continued for three months:
The result: 97 million sperm in one ejaculation! We froze 58 million sperm for future use.
A little pharmacological background here: HcG is the exogenous equivalent of LH (I won’t get into a debate here about whether it IS LH or an analog since that has been hashed out on other threads. The point is that HcG mimics LH in your body and tells your body to start producing testosterone). After your testosterone comes up, your body needs FSH to tell it start producing sperm. The HmG is the exogenous equivalent of FSH. The theory of this therapy is to give your body bolus dosages of LH (hcg) and once the testosterone levels are high enough, bolus dosages of FSH (hmg) to stimulate sperm production. It takes 72 days to produce a mature sperm, so the HmG portion of the therapy will last about that long until you [hopefully] produce sperm.
A few notes:
Blood tests. You have to have continuous (monthly) blood tests for testosterone, LH and FSH. Too much HcG can screw up your thyroid function and the only way to monitor this is through regular blood tests.
Side effects: Gyno. I did not experience ANY gyno. I had an itch here or there, but nothing like the gyno sides I’ve felt on 750mg of cypionate per week. As a precaution, though, I popped an arimidex tab just in case.
Cost. A few thousand dollars. 5,000iu of Hcg costs about $30. Pergonal (Hmg) costs $75 per shot. My insurance did not cover it.
Administration. HcG is administered intramuscularly. My docs said to inject IM, and a representative of the manufacturer (profasi) said to administer IM. In fact, the insert says in caps “For intramuscular injection”. When I’m paying that much cash, I want to make sure it works properly so I followed the advice of the professionals and injected IM.
Live and learn….
Listen up and learn from my experience. The following is based on my actual experience and discussions with my 2 doctors: a fertility specialist and a urologist.
I’ll try to make this brief, some of you may know my story. Over one year ago, my wife wanted to get pregnant but because of her fertility issues, we visited a fertility doc for help. One thing the fertility doc does as standard procedure is to do a semen analysis to check your sperm count, motility, condition, etc.
I jizzed in a cup and my test came back ZERO sperm. Its called azoospermia. I told the fertility doc off the record about AS usage. He referred me to a local top urologist (they address male issues, among other things, like an endocrinologist would). They did not ask, and I did not offer the details of my AS usage other than when I took my last AS shot.
My AS usage: I was on AS for about 3 years, 3 nine month cycles with three months off between. On my last cycle, I used 600mg of deca a week, together with various dosages of test and some winny. I used mostly clomid between cycles, once I tried HCG. When my wife wanted to get pregnant, I stopped all AS usage and started clomid: 1 tab ED for 30 days and then 1 tab EOD for thirty days. After 60 days of clomid and no AS, the tests showed I had no sperm, testosterone levels of 87 (200-700 being normal) and below normal LH and FSH levels (don’t remember the exact numbers but they were LOW).
The urologist offered three courses of therapy: 1) do nothing, as the body will seek to normalize the hormonal levels over time (i.e. your HPTA will recover by itself over time [hopefully-see note below], but this normally takes 6-9 months, at the minimum), 2) take clomid and arimidex, or 3) take HcG, followed by HmG (Pergonal). I opted for the most aggressive therapy: the Hcg and HmG.
I was prescribed 5,000iu 3x per week of HcG until my testosterone levels (as shown by regular blood tests) moved into the normal range. The doc initially told me this would take as little as 3 weeks, but in my case it ended up taking about 6 months. So for 6 months I took 5,000iu 3x per week.
Once my testosterone levels moved into normal (they barely got above 200, even after 6 months of Hcg), the doc put me on 2000iu HcG 2x week and 75iu HmG 3x week. The HcG/HmG continued for three months:
The result: 97 million sperm in one ejaculation! We froze 58 million sperm for future use.
A little pharmacological background here: HcG is the exogenous equivalent of LH (I won’t get into a debate here about whether it IS LH or an analog since that has been hashed out on other threads. The point is that HcG mimics LH in your body and tells your body to start producing testosterone). After your testosterone comes up, your body needs FSH to tell it start producing sperm. The HmG is the exogenous equivalent of FSH. The theory of this therapy is to give your body bolus dosages of LH (hcg) and once the testosterone levels are high enough, bolus dosages of FSH (hmg) to stimulate sperm production. It takes 72 days to produce a mature sperm, so the HmG portion of the therapy will last about that long until you [hopefully] produce sperm.
A few notes:
Blood tests. You have to have continuous (monthly) blood tests for testosterone, LH and FSH. Too much HcG can screw up your thyroid function and the only way to monitor this is through regular blood tests.
Side effects: Gyno. I did not experience ANY gyno. I had an itch here or there, but nothing like the gyno sides I’ve felt on 750mg of cypionate per week. As a precaution, though, I popped an arimidex tab just in case.
Cost. A few thousand dollars. 5,000iu of Hcg costs about $30. Pergonal (Hmg) costs $75 per shot. My insurance did not cover it.
Administration. HcG is administered intramuscularly. My docs said to inject IM, and a representative of the manufacturer (profasi) said to administer IM. In fact, the insert says in caps “For intramuscular injection”. When I’m paying that much cash, I want to make sure it works properly so I followed the advice of the professionals and injected IM.
Live and learn….
