Good PCT basics article

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POST CYCLE THERAPY...Part 1

PCT...
What does it mean?
Post Cycle Therapy.

What does it do?
It returns your Hypothalamus / Pituitary / Testicular Axis (HPTA) back to producing its own endogenous testosterone production.

How long does it last?
Good question, but in my opinion the normal 21 to 30 day protocol is too short unless suppression of the HPTA is minor.

Ok, you produce about 7 mg of testosterone a day or around 49 mg a week on average, some more, some less (usually for older guys). So, you go on a cycle of, let’s say 500mg of testosterone a week, or about 10 times your natural production. The body sees this as too much testosterone and will lower production of testosterone to try to maintain homeostasis (balance). The body loves homeostasis.

Testosterone in men gets converted into two other hormones; one of those hormones is DHT (dihydrotestosterone). This is accomplished by an enzyme called 5-alpha-reductase. DHT is actually about 3-5 times more androgenic than testosterone. The other hormone it gets converted to is Estradiol (E2), which is a strong estrogen but from now on we will just refer to it as estrogen even though there are 3 different kinds of estrogen. Testosterone gets converted into estrogen by another enzyme called aromatase. This conversion is called aromatization.

The body will tend to convert more testosterone into estrogen in order to maintain homeostasis, so the more testosterone available, the more estrogen. For most, this estrogen influx is not a problem. But for some, it will be a problem and this extra estrogen can give side effects like gynecomastia (gyno) or water retention. But one big problem is estrogen’s suppressive effects on Luteinizing Hormone or (LH). LH is what the pituitary gland sends as a chemical hormone to the Leydig cells in the testicles where the testicles will produce testosterone. Estrogen is probably 100-200 times as suppressive as testosterone.

So when LH production stops (exogenous, or dosed testosterone will do this too) the testicles will stop producing, and much like anything not being used, they will begin to atrophy.

What does this all mean?

You will get some small balls, no kidding! Mine have been the size of almonds without the shell.

OK, so you come off a cycle, the exogenous testosterone is tapering down and after a couple of weeks (this is the clearance time for testosterone Cypionate and Enanthate) you end up with low levels of testosterone as your endogenous production has long been suppressed. Now here is where the problem starts. At this point, you potentially have the testosterone levels of a woman, and extremely high estrogen levels from all that aromatization.

This can be a recipe for disaster…why you may ask? Because men need testosterone to feel normal, and all that hard earned muscle will be eaten up by being in a catabolic environment, not to mention there is still going to be some suppression because of elevated estrogen...

http://www.getanabolics.com/2007/06/post-cycle-therapypart-1.html

[Livewire]

POST CYCLE THERAPY...Part 2

...I have seen big strong men carry on like crying women in this state; it is very bad, sex drive plummets to zero, they have no energy, they’re emotional and insecure, the list is long…

So, what can you do?
First of all, in my opinion bringing the nuts back online is very important, maybe even the most important. This is done with the use of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG).

It’s basically… pregnant woman’s urine. HCG mimics LH, and as we learned above LH is the chemical hormone that stimulates the Leydig cells to produce testosterone. HCG is very strong and many times stronger than the amount of LH that the pituitary puts out.
The typical dose is anywhere around 350iu to as much as 2500iu, and even in some cases more, but I don’t recommend this. My best advice is to use as little as possible to achieve success at bringing the nuts back to life from their nice little vacation.
The half life of HCG is around 3 days or so, so Subcutaneous (Sub-Q) shots or Intramuscular Shots (IM) are done about Every Other Day (EOD) or Every 3 Days (E3D). If you use too much for too long, desensitization of the Leydig cells can occur and this is not good.

One other thing is, HCG aromatizes pretty heavily. So an anti-estrogen is always recommended if you shoot more than 500iu and if you are gyno prone it would eve be a good idea to add an anti-estrogen.

HCG comes in two bottles or vials, one is powder, and the other is a solvent or bacteriostatic water. The bacteriostatic water gets added to the powder and this is called reconstitution. Once HCG is mixed it must be refrigerated. In bacteriostatic water it will generally last about a month.

Next we want to block the hypothalamus and pituitary gland from that excess estrogen as it is in of itself, highly suppressive. How is this done? With a drug called Clomiphene Citrate (clomid). This is actually a drug designed to help women ovulate but it acts as a Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulator (SERM). Or rather, it occupies the estrogen receptors in the hypothalamus and pituitary and blocks estrogen’s exertion on those glands. It’s like putting a key in a lock but not turning the key. It is basically just occupying that space without really doing anything.

Clomid in my opinion works better than another SERM that many people use called Nolvadex. Both pretty much do the same thing but together I have found to be far superior than using any of them by themselves. Both Clomid and Nolvadex are in pill form as well as liquid form.

What these do is block estrogen (at the receptor sites of the hypothalamus and pituitary gland). The body can see it is low in testosterone and that estrogen’s suppressive effects are not there as the receptors are blocked. So it sees this as “low testosterone” and “low estrogen” so the body turns on the hypothalamus to produce Gonadotropin Releasing Hormone (GnRH) which in turn tells the pituitary gland to produce LH and FSH (follicle stimulating hormone). FSH is another hormone that stimulates the Sertoli cells in the testicles to produce sperm.

Ok, so let’s put this all together… there are a couple of ways you can do this.

First you can take HCG in small amounts during the cycle to maintain testicular function or you can take it after the cycle is finished to start your PCT. Either way is fine but if the cycle is very long then long use of HCG can be a problem due to the possibility of desnsitization of the Leydig cells. That’s pretty much the last thing you want to do, as you want your own LH production to keep the testicles producing testosterone.

So what you can do is, wait about 2 weeks for the testosterone to clear your system or be around base levels of normal production of testosterone and start your HCG, Clomid and Nolvadex all at the same time.

You don’t have to worry about aromatization because both Clomid and Nolvadex are anti-estrogens or at least act as anti-estrogens in the body. By the way, Nolvadex is used in estrogen sensitive cancer tissues like in treating breast cancer.

MY WAY:
Here’s what I take:
- Clomid at 50mg twice a day (12hrs apart) for 30 days
- Nolvadex at 20 mg a day for 45 days
- HCG, Anywhere from 1000iu EOD to 2500 EOD for 8 shots (16 days)

So the HCG is taking care of the nuts and taking them “off vacation” and putting them back to work and the Nolvadex and Clomid will help the hypothalamus produce GnRH which will tell the pituitary to produce LH and FSH.

Once the testicles are producing test on their own you need to stop the administration of HCG and let the body take over, kind of like handing a baton over during a relay race.

The type of gear, length of time you’re on it and the amount of gear all play in this factor of recovery, or lack there of it, not to mention the genetic factors involved in shutdown. I shutdown very hard and I notice atrophy in as little as 3 weeks. But the good news is, recovery is possible within about 45 days.

from:
http://www.getanabolics.com/2007/06/post-cycle-therapypart-2.html