My doctor has me on 5000iu twice per week. I know this a huge amount however due to coming off 1.5 years of TRT such an amount may be needed to stimulate the testes. (There is a study showing athletes testosterone response to HCG/LH after an anabolic steroid cycle was reduced 10 or 20 fold).
Obviously 10000 IU per week is far more stimulation than any LH signal produced by the pituitary and the eventual goal ~3 months is to switch to clomid. I don't want to be left in a situation where the testes are used to responding to an unnaturally strong signal and thus don't produce T when switched from HCG to clomid. Or is it a case where the response to the signal is capped anyway way before the 10000iu mark and thus lowering the dosage, testosterone would hold steady?
The only way I can think to work this out is to find someone who has been on high dose HCG monotherapy and lowered the dose considerably or switched to clomid and experienced no drop in T output.
I started HCG monotherapy earlier this year. My reason for starting was to increase my lower than normal testosterone numbers since libido was a huge issue for me. My endo chose HCG monotherapy because my wife and I are currently trying to conceive and being on testosterone wouldn't have worked for that. Therefore I started injections in February with 1000 units 3x per week. I never completed a sperm analysis beforehand so I don't know if the HCG helped me in that area. My endo thought I had secondary hypogonadism so she went this route to stimulate my pituitary to send the signal to increase testosterone and sperm production. From my experience it did little to nothing for me. My testes did not fill up as expected, but I did see an increase in semen volume. Total T stayed the same and actually went down a few points from 396 to 383. My Free T improved slightly, but it was very minimal and the level was still low normal. As far as symptom relief I felt none at all. My libido, strength, mood, and erections did not improve. Perhaps my E2 was heightened because of the HCG and my high BF%, but when I last checked it it was on the border of being above level.
Before HCG she had tried Clomid on me, but that was a nightmare. I was having like 7 hot flashes a day so she stopped it immediately. Obviously my E2 must've been going through the roof which is why she decided to not even tinker with it even more.
In May I met with my doctor and took a look at the numbers with her. She then recommended 2000 units, 3x per week so I did that for 2 weeks and I started to feel a little bit better, but then my insurance stopped covering it and I had to stop it cold turkey. The withdrawal effects were bad; depression, anxiety, severe ED, no libido (at least I had an inkling before), and energy levels all went down. I panicked, went back to my endo, asked her to petition the insurance, but they did not budge. I then gave up and started TRT even though I knew I was giving up on my fertility. My mood, strength, confidence came back full blast, but my libido is still not there. I also have ED issues which I believe is because I lost my confidence when my levels crashed after stopping HCG.
I wish I could be the bearer of good news, but just from my experience it did not work. Perhaps it will for you, everybody is different. Others who have heard my story suggested that I may be primary hypogonadisim. The thing is my numbers have never been below normal, they are just real low for my age, 42. I believe my testes are just not working on all cylinders, but still tried to produce just enough to get me going. I hope this works out well for you.
