Last Throw of the Dice - advise on Arimidex dosage

Some logical thinking:

1. Unlikely this is water retention because the diuretic did not help significantly.

2. Unlikely this is intestinal gas/bloat due to colitis because the pics show volume and flabbiness at love handles, pecs, arms.

3. Most likely this is fat.

- Reduce your daily carbs and calories. Formulas to estimate the basal metabolic rate are very inaccurate and your experience clearly shows that your current calorie intake is above your basal metabolic rate. Reduce the daily calories to 1500. Eat more meat than carbs.

- Do more cardio exercises than weight training. Weight training does not burn significant amount of calories. The best daily exercise for losing the fat is daily walking, minimum 1.5 hours each day. It should be low intensity, continuous (not split), long time. That turns on the fat burning.

- Try the suggested change to a testosterone cream or lower the testosterone dose.

Lowtuk said:

unfortunately my only option is sustanon as I’m in the Middle East and we only have access to sust or neibido

Wouod this still work to drop from 25mg per injection to 15mg?

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I think I would start with a drop to 20 mg per injection and give it at least two months. If things seem to be going in the right direction then you could try the lower dose. With the dominance of longer esters in Sustanon you can't go as low on the dosing as you could when using a blend high in propionate. Frequent injections of Sustanon lead to minimal variation in serum testosterone. Also keep in mind that lowering the dose can lead to some temporary low-T-like symptoms.

DixieWrecked said:

Man you really went out on a limb here and made some assumptions. Diagnosed the dude with body dismorphia and everything. Sorry but it's very real that longer esters result in more water retention. I've experienced this first hand and anyone with experience knows it can happen. If you don't that's awesome or maybe you haven't tried shorter esters. At any rate it's not up to you to decide what another person should accept as a part of their therapy. We all weigh out the pros and cons and optimise things the best we can.

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You don't think I've seen fluid retention? He is not suffering from significant fluid retention. If he was, there would be significant edema in the lower extremities. The fluid retention when one First starts testosterone is almost always self limited and resolves on its own with time as long as men will cut out their sodium intake and clean up their diet and drink plenty of fluids and get plenty of cardio. He needs to leave it alone for 6 to 12 months.

DixieWrecked said:

There's been a few times where I got it down. In my experience controlling estrogen does help some. But the best thing seems to be using shorter esters. The longer the ester the greater the water retention. Prop was dryer than cyp and cream was the driest. But the shorter esters don't seem to be as useful for actual lean mass gain and strength. There's just no free lunch. You just gotta choose what you want but it sounds like a shorter ester would be more beneficial for your application of endurance training.

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Love this. My personal experience with long and short esters of testosterone is that short esters do cause a dryer look but with less anabolism, while longer esters cause a much waterier look and belly bloat while also being more anabolic. Long esters cause my belly to distend even when controlling for estrogen. For a ‘best of both worlds approach’, I’ve found it useful to combine esters either on the same day or alternating days.

Lowtuk said:

How much cardio?

I run 7-12k 3 times per week. Cycle 40k twice and do a 100k on a sat plus 2 swim sessions?

Could add some events on top of the 2X half marathons and half Ironman so far this year?

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If you're doing all that cardio, did you must be eating a ton of calories because you don't have the body fat of someone that's putting in that much cardio. Sorry man but somethings not adding up. Maybe you should try some high intensity interval training and more importantly, maybe you should try cutting back on the calories. Your pictures do not correlate with how much activity you say you get. The diet is your issue then. The fluid retention that a man can get when he first starts testosterone is usually self limited and goes away within a few months as long as they clean up their diet.

RobRoy said:

You don't think I've seen fluid retention? He is not suffering from significant fluid retention. If he was, there would be significant edema in the lower extremities. The fluid retention when one First starts testosterone is almost always self limited and resolves on its own with time as long as men will cut out their sodium intake and clean up their diet and drink plenty of fluids and get plenty of cardio. He needs to leave it alone for 6 to 12 months.

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The other fact is people on trt are too hyper aware of every little thing they never would have thought twice about. People that aren’t on trt get bloated and hold water too. Have days where they piss a ton and other where they barely piss. To much damn micro managing.

RobRoy said:

If you're doing all that cardio, did you must be eating a ton of calories because you don't have the body fat of someone that's putting in that much cardio. Sorry man but somethings not adding up. Maybe you should try some high intensity interval training and more importantly, maybe you should try cutting back on the calories. Your pictures do not correlate with how much activity you say you get. The diet is your issue then. The fluid retention that a man can get when he first starts testosterone is usually self limited and goes away within a few months as long as they clean up their diet.

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This is the whole reason I’ve started the thread as it isn’t adding up to me! As I said previously. I’ve cleaned up my diet, cut out alcohol, taken a meal plan to keep me in a calorie deficit. Started all this training in October last year until now and I dropped 116 to 112 in a matter of weeks and then have been at 112kg since. So my issue is that something isn’t adding up here as I should be losing weight easily with activity vs diet.

I’m in a vicious cycle of pin, put in 2-3kg and have it drop off by the time it’s time to pin again so came here for help. Changed my dosage and inj frequency but still same cycle

DS3 said:

Love this. My personal experience with long and short esters of testosterone is that short esters do cause a dryer look but with less anabolism, while longer esters cause a much waterier look and belly bloat while also being more anabolic. Long esters cause my belly to distend even when controlling for estrogen. For a ‘best of both worlds approach’, I’ve found it useful to combine esters either on the same day or alternating days.

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I wish we had more options over here so I could try different esters but we are stuck with sustanon unless I get it on the black market and then no idea of it’s legit etc…. When you say a mix of long and short, would sust fall into that?

Cataceous said:

I think I would start with a drop to 20 mg per injection and give it at least two months. If things seem to be going in the right direction then you could try the lower dose. With the dominance of longer esters in Sustanon you can't go as low on the dosing as you could when using a blend high in propionate. Frequent injections of Sustanon lead to minimal variation in serum testosterone. Also keep in mind that lowering the dose can lead to some temporary low-T-like symptoms.

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Ok will reduce even further and get my bloods checked in a few weeks again to see where we are at

Lowtuk said:

I wish we had more options over here so I could try different esters but we are stuck with sustanon unless I get it on the black market and then no idea of it’s legit etc…. When you say a mix of long and short, would sust fall into that?

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Sustanon would fall into that category. It gets a bad wrap in the U.S., but I believe it’s actually a good mix of esters. My typical combination is testosterone propionate and testosterone enanthate.

Lowtuk said:

Ok will reduce even further and get my bloods checked in a few weeks again to see where we are at

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Lowtuk said:

As you may have seen from my other thread my TRT journey has been anything but smooth and have thought about coming off numerous times. Even actually came off twice to have kids which thankfully went very smoothly.

I have been back on since Nov last year but have really struggled with water retention in the chest, arms and stomach. Have played around with the protocol, magnesium and potassium supplementation, water pills, reduced dosage and increased injection but still blowing up like a balloon despite cutting out alcohol from my diet, hitting weights 3 times a week along side training for an ironman. I also have a super clean diet via a meal plan delivered to me. I Wanted to come off but thought I'd give a lower dose and higher injection frequency a go before I gave up.

Long story short. I'm on 25mg test (sust250) 3 times a week, M/W/F.

My Estradiol was high on the last blood test so am going to try Arimidex to bring it down to see if that helps. I'd like some help re: dosing. Should I take half a tab .5mg once per week on Mondays with my injection and see how I go?

If this doesn't work then my doc is suggestion I try and transition to HCG instead of Test as my trt treatment - anyone tried this? he said because my FSH and LH were low when I first came in before TRT then he feels like HCG alone could boost my Test numbers without the water retention sides I am experiencing with Test?

FSH 5.45. Ref Range 1.5-12.4
LH 7.32. Ref Range 1.7-8.6

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My two cents: I’ve played around with high and low doses on my TRT journey. I have never felt good on low doses. My preference is for 175 mg weekly for my protocol (EOD dosing). I was at 75 mg weekly of Testosterone Enanthate for 1.5 years and felt old and brittle - zero recovery, low libido, low confidence, mental fog, etc.

I have also never done well on TRT without HCG. I feel mentally ‘off’ without it. I take HCG at 250 IU EOD with my testosterone.

Longer esters like Cypionate and Enanthate have always caused noticeable water retention accompanied by major stomach bloating. This side effect remained even with Anastrozole. I would say I may have gotten worse with Anastrozole. In my 10 years of TRT, the ONLY solution I’ve found for my physiology that allows me to take longer esters without water retention and bloat is adding in a low dose of Primobolan (10 mg EOD with testosterone). With this dose, estrogenic symptoms, bloat, and water retention are gone. I am not advocating you dabble with Primobolan, despite its relatively benign nature. I just sharing my experience and stating that Anastrozole may not work for you. Another alternative would be to use low dose Proviron which may be available in your country. 25 mg daily is typical and does well to reduce estrogenic symptoms and water retention.

With short esters, primarily Testosterone Propionate, I do not have to worry about bloat and experience significantly less estrogenic symptoms to the point to where at 20 mg per day of Propionate, I only pair it with 250 IU of HCG (No Primobolan). I respond very differently to Propionate than I do longer esters.

Your journey will require experimentation. @Cataceous may be right in his recommendation to reduce your dosage. Try it for 2-3 months and reassess. My recommendation would be to bump your dosage at that point if the lower dose doesn’t work and up the dose to 140-175 mg weekly, add in a low dose of Proviron if legal in your country, and add in a low of HCG. Split your HCG and Testosterone into every other day dosing, and take the Proviron daily. This is based on my experience, but it this approach doesn’t work for you, at least you’ll be wiser.

DS3 said:

My two cents: I’ve played around with high and low doses on my TRT journey. I have never felt good on low doses. My preference is for 175 mg weekly for my protocol (EOD dosing). I was at 75 mg weekly of Testosterone Enanthate for 1.5 years and felt old and brittle - zero recovery, low libido, low confidence, mental fog, etc.

I have also never done well on TRT without HCG. I feel mentally ‘off’ without it. I take HCG at 250 IU EOD with my testosterone.

Longer esters like Cypionate and Enanthate have always caused noticeable water retention accompanied by major stomach bloating. This side effect remained even with Anastrozole. I would say I may have gotten worse with Anastrozole. In my 10 years of TRT, the ONLY solution I’ve found for my physiology that allows me to take longer esters without water retention and bloat is adding in a low dose of Primobolan (10 mg EOD with testosterone). With this dose, estrogenic symptoms, bloat, and water retention are gone. I am not advocating you dabble with Primobolan, despite its relatively benign nature. I just sharing my experience and stating that Anastrozole may not work for you. Another alternative would be to use low dose Proviron which may be available in your country. 25 mg daily is typical and does well to reduce estrogenic symptoms and water retention.

With short esters, primarily Testosterone Propionate, I do not have to worry about bloat and experience significantly less estrogenic symptoms to the point to where at 20 mg per day of Propionate, I only pair it with 250 IU of HCG (No Primobolan). I respond very differently to Propionate than I do longer esters.

Your journey will require experimentation. @Cataceous may be right in his recommendation to reduce your dosage. Try it for 2-3 months and reassess. My recommendation would be to bump your dosage at that point if the lower dose doesn’t work and up the dose to 140-175 mg weekly, add in a low dose of Proviron if legal in your country, and add in a low of HCG. Split your HCG and Testosterone into every other day dosing, and take the Proviron daily. This is based on my experience, but it this approach doesn’t work for you, at least you’ll be wiser.

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Don’t want to derail the thread, but just to clarify, ur doing well, in all aspects currently, using 175mg of test enanthate per week, 35mg of primo per week, and about 875iu’s of HCG per week?

Thanks for all the detailed responses guys. It is very much appreciated for you to take your time to give your view and your advice to help.

By way of an update and my plan based on the advice above.

On weds I ended up taking .25mg of adex out of desperation! Got my sensitive estradiol tested on the Thurs and it had dropped from 49 to 22 and felt good, no heavy bloated feeling, no bloat, sustained energy.

Woke up this morning with morning wood for the first time which was a pleasant surprise and I’m 3kg lighter than I was on weds when I took the pics. (Comparison pics attached) so deffo think there was some high E2 issues here re: ED and water.

Today is injection day and I’m dropping down to 20mg and hoping this won’t aromatize as much and will help keep my E2 mid 30’s. From my previous tests my levels had returned to 39 in my trough and this was the best I felt then and I feel even better now a little lower.

The plan is to manage the E2 by injection frequency and lower dosage and reduction in body fat. I really don’t want to be adding adex in as a constant but at least now I know I have it on hand and can take a little dose if neccesary to realign but hopefully it was a one off. (Altho the tabs were USD 130 so exspensive quarter of a tablet but 100% worth it).

So plan is 20mg today, 20mg Mon then test Tues to see where TT/free/E2 is and hopefully all in a Good range and I can move smoothly with 20mg 3 times a week. Will have regular tests to keep on top of everything and will keep updated on here.

Felt much better energy and mood wise yesterday and wood this morning and drop in water weight so all in all a good end to the week! Fingers crossed for no E2 spike from todays injection

Gman86 said:

Don’t want to derail the thread, but just to clarify, ur doing well, in all aspects currently, using 175mg of test enanthate per week, 35mg of primo per week, and about 875iu’s of HCG per week?

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Yes. Except I’m taking 162.5 mg Test Enanthate and 20 of Test Propionate. But yes on the rest.

DS3 said:

Yes. Except I’m taking 162.5 mg Test Enanthate and 20 of Test Propionate. But yes on the rest.

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Awesome, glad to hear it! Real quick, do u feel any benefits from the primo, like mood, energy, sexual function wise, or are u strictly taking it to reduce water retention?

Gman86 said:

Awesome, glad to hear it! Real quick, do u feel any benefits from the primo, like mood, energy, sexual function wise, or are u strictly taking it to reduce water retention?

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Strong mental clarity, General good mood, can be more aggressive, less social anxiety that testosterone causes by itself, paler/drier skin - seems to have a significant impact on estrogen expression in the integumentary system - may not be good for GI tract, sexual function is good but ejaculatoty is much less even at the low dose I’m taking. I also feel less masculine taking it compared to testosterone by itself, which actually contributes more positively to my mood and well-being.

Lowtuk said:

On weds I ended up taking .25mg of adex out of desperation! Got my sensitive estradiol tested on the Thurs and it had dropped from 49 to 22 and felt good, no heavy bloated feeling, no bloat, sustained energy.

Woke up this morning with morning wood for the first time which was a pleasant surprise and I’m 3kg lighter than I was on weds when I took the pics. (Comparison pics attached) so deffo think there was some high E2 issues here re: ED and water.

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Unlikely the anastrazole had anything to do with this dramatic 1 week transformation and improved erections. You obviously became more intelligent and mature, which confers resistance to high estrogen symptoms according to @RobRoy .

Well I don’t know how to read those numbers cause they are different than what my lab offers. Below is what I can offer from my 14 years of being on TRT

Aromasin to control estrogen NEVER Arimidex. And only when taking HCG

Always cycle in HCG for LSH and FH healthy levels

Keep t levels between 800-1500

Estrogen levels between 30-50

Just another source of information from an MD Endo

Oestrogen related side effects of TRT
1. Fatigue – counterintuitively, TRT can cause fatigue. This is usually when the dose is too high or someone converts a lot of testosterone into oestrogen. If oestrogen is raised then men often experience fatigue.

2. Nipple itchiness or gynaecomastia – raised oestrogen can also cause the irritation, and later growth, of breast tissue. This process usually starts with sensitive of itchy nipples.

3. Water retention – high oestrogen levels can cause water retention. This is a common side effect of TRT and a good indicator that oestrogen levels are raised. It is often seen by men on TRT as an increase in weight or swollen ankles. This can be a serious side effect if left untreated in men with heart conditions.

4. Increased emotional lability – this means being more emotional than usual. High oestrogen makes men more emotional – crying at things they wouldn’t usually find very emotional is a common complaint.

5. Anxiety – in some men, raised oestrogen can cause anxiety.

6. Low mood – as with anxiety, high oestrogen levels can make men feel down.


How to deal with common side effects of oestrogen from TRT
Most side effects from TRT are easily treated, and raised oestrogen is no exception.

There are a few ways to treat this issue, some require medications whereas others use changes to the way testosterone is administered.

1. Prevention is better than a cure – the best way to stop oestrogen related side effects is to use a protocol that prevents oestrogen build-up.

2. Higher frequency of injections with a lower dose reduces spikes in oestrogen levels.

3. Smaller doses rather than large ones reduce that amount of oestrogen converted from testosterone.

4. Using compounds such as Cypionate and Enanthate with less fast-acting esters which increase oestrogen spikes.

5. Aromatase inhibitors act on the aromatase enzyme to prevent the conversion of testosterone into oestrogen.

6. Tamoxifen may be used in some cases to block the oestrogen receptors in the breast tissue and prevent issues with gynaecomastia and nipple irritation.

7. Lose body fat – body fat contains high levels of aromatase. The more body fat you have, the more conversion of testosterone into oestrogen will occur.

One more source because I am an intelligent mature man

"Blocking estrogen negates one of the major benefits of TRT, the reduction in visceral fat! It also comes with other undesirable effects. In this video I talk with C.G. Bronson, M.D., an internal medicine doctor and newly-minted Testosteronologist™ about these effects, how to avoid them, and how to adjust testosterone dosing to manage estrogen rather than jumping straight to estrogen blockers. We also discuss the more rare cases where estrogen blockers can make sense."