ALRIGHT MY FRIENDS HERE'S SOME KNOWLEDGE THAT WILL CHANGE LIVES ON TRT FOREVER
-Originally wrote this as a reply to someone on a different thread, but decided to put it in it's own thread as well.-
This is how half lives work. For example, let's say you take 1mg of Arimidex EOD. The half-life of Arimidex is 2 days. So in 2 days when you take another dose, you still have 50% of the previous dose in your system. So if you took 1mg Monday, then took 1mg Wednesday, you have 1mg from Wednesday's dose, plus 0.5mg from Monday's dose. So 1.5mg total in your system. Then you take another 1mg Friday. You now have 1mg from Friday's dose, 0.5mg from Wednesday, and 0.25mg from Monday's dose. So on Friday, you have 1.75mg on your system. Then on Sunday, you will have 1mg from Sunday's dose, 0.5mg from Friday, 0.25mg from Wednesday and 0.125mg from Monday's dose. So 1.875mg in your system on Sunday. So on Tuesday, you will have 1mg from Tuesday, 0.5mg from Sunday, 0.25mg from Friday, 0.125mg from Wednesday, and 0.0625mg from Monday. So in total on Tuesday you will have 1.9375mg in your system. So do this math one more time for Thursday's dose. Which will equal 1.96875mg, basically 2mg in your system on the 10th day. On the 10th day you have now reached a "steady state" of this medication. This means from the 10th day on if you keep taking 1mg of Arimidex EOD, you will always have roughly 2mg in your system at all times. The amount of milligrams in your system does not continue going up from this point.
So moral of the story is, 99% of people on TRT don't realize that after 5 half lives of any medication, you will have double the amount in your system. Just multiply the half-life of a medication by 5, and this will give you how long it will take to reach a "steady state" of a medication a.k.a double the amount of that medication in your system compared to your first dose. For example, half life of Arimidex is 2 days. So 5x2 equals 10. So on the 10th day of taking Arimidex regularly, you will of reached the steady state of the Arimidex in your system. Here is how long it will take to reach a steady state of common medications
Testosterone Cyp (Half life 8 days) -Steady state in 40 days
Arimidex (Half life 2 days) -Steady state in 10 days
Aromasin (Half life 1 day) -Steady state in 5 days
HCG (Half life 2 days) -Steady state in 10 days.
Clomid ( Half life 6 days) -Steady state in 30 days.
Remember, the 5xhalf life of a medication = Steady state of that medication.
The half life formula for Depo-Testosterone in plasma states that at 8 days you would have 50% of the initial dose remaining, at 16 days you would have 25% of the initial dose, at 24 days it would be 12.5%, at 32 days 6.25% and so on.
Also remember, when you reach a steady state of a medication, you will have double the amount of milligrams in your system of the dose you are taking in-between each half-life. This is kind of complicated, but it doesn't matter how you space out the dosages or how often you take it. For example, 1mg taken EOD, or 0.5mg taken every day. It's still 1mg taken within one half life or Arimidex which is 2 days. So another example is test cypionate. Doesn't matter if you take 100mg once per week or split that into 50mg twice per week or 14mg every day. As long as it's 100mg within one half life, which is 8 days for test cyp. So by 5 half-lives of the medication, which would be 40 days for test cyp, you will have double the amount of medication in your system. Which would be 200mg. This part is pretty complicated, but just remember, whatever the dosage you are taking of a medication, after 5 half-lives you will have double the amount of medication in your system compared to starting.
This is why people say TRT started to work, and then it didn't. Or they say Arimidex worked when they first took a dose, but then it stopped working. If you take Arimidex and you feel great that first day, you are doing it wrong. You don't want to feel good when you first start taking it, you want to feel good after 5half lives, when you reach a steady state of the Arimidex, which for Arimidex would be 10 days. So you want to feel good on the 10th day on, not on the first dose. If you feel good after the first dose, just know you will 100% not feel good soon. It's just a mathematical inevitability. Because the amount in your system on the first day is going to change. The amount in your system on the 10th day is going to be double what it was on the first day. So there's no way that you can feel good on the first day, and also feel good on the 10th day when the amount in your system is literally double that of what it was on the first day. Just think about it, let's say you feel good on the first day because you have 1mg of Arimidex in your system and it brought your E2 down to 25. You think when you have 2mg in your system on day 10 that your still going to have your E2 at 25, or even close to that?? Nope. Your E2 is going to of crashed. You can have good E2 on the first day you take Arimidex, or you can have good E2 on the 10th day of taking that dose of Arimidex, but it's literally impossible to have both. What you really want is to not really feel anything after 1-2 days. Start feeling decent/ pretty good after 3-6 days. Then to hopefully feel amazing at 7-10 days. Because after 10 days, this is the amount of Arimidex that's going to be in your system for the long haul, so obviously you want to feel your best at the amount of Arimidex that's going to be in your system for good. Those timelines of days and how you feel are obviously just rough estimates, but you get the point I'm trying to make. You basically just want to feel your best after you've reached a steady state of a medication, not when you first start taking it.
I could go on for days about half-lives, to be honest, but just know that it is the most underrated aspect of TRT that nobody really knows, nobody really gets taught, nobody really takes into consideration and nobody really talks about. But just know, that if you can get down how half-lives of medications work, you will have basically zero problems with your protocol. Especially with AI protocols.
Here are the takeaways:
-Consistency is key. Keep dosages the same. For example, BaldEagle66 needs to take the same dosage of Aromasin and at a consistent frequency. That random 12.5mg on Sunday compared to his usual 25mg will throw the math off and decrease his chances of success greatly. Keep Aromasin at the same dosage and take it consistently,for example, ED, or EOD, or twice per week. NEVER, EVER take doses of an AI when you "feel symptoms", and then not take it when the symptoms go away for a bit. This will never work in the long run and is an extremely common thing I see guys doing. Either take it consistently or don't take it at all. People can obviously do what they want, I'm just saying this for guys that want to know how to be successful with TRT pretty much 100% of the time, and not leave it up to luck or chance whether it works or not.
-Always start low on dosages and work your way up. Slow and steady always wins the race. With AI's especially, always start off extremely conservative and work your way up. Always better to do it this way than to take too much, crash E2, and have to start over. Always start low dosage and be patient. It will save you so much time and aggravation, I promise.
-Only change medication dosage after you have reached it's "steady state". Always wait 5half lives of a medication to adjust the dosage. See the steady state chart above for the most common TRT medications. Quick examples are, don't change Arimidex dosage until at least being on it for 10 days at that specific dosage and frequency. Test cypionate: don't change dosage until at least on that dosage and frequency for 40 days.
-When you do adjust the dosage of a medication, do it by very small amounts. So for example, if you started taking 0.125mg of Arimidex twice per week (0.25mg total per week). After 10 days (5half lives), if you still had symptoms of high E2, don't double the dose and take 0.25mg twice per week. Just take 0.125mg EOD for basically a total of 0.375mg per week instead of jumping the gun and taking 0.5mg per week. Then what you do if after another 10 days you still have high E2 symptoms, add another 0.125mg to your weekly total, and now go back to taking the Arimidex twice per week. So now your at 0.25mg twice per week (0.5mg total per week). Then if E2 symptoms are still there after 10 more days on this dose, add in another 0.125mg and take the doses EOD again. And just keep going like this, you obviously get the point. This also applies to aromasin as well but just with different milligram doses. But roughly 1mg of Arimidex = 25mg Aromasin. So 0.125mg of Arimidex would roughly be the equivalent of 3.125mg of Aromasin. Also, keep in mind the peak time of Aromasin is half that of Arimidex, and it's in and out of your system in half the time as Arimidex. So with Aromasin you probably want to take it either every day or EOD. Twice a week is not going to be the best option for Aromasin. And you never really want to take Arimidex once per week. Twice per week is the lowest frequency you want to take Arimidex. EOD is preferable.
-Medication in system doubles when it reaches its steady state (5 half-lives of that specific medication) and then it remains relatively stable with certain variations that depend of the day/time of the blood test. So if you took 100mg of test cyp/ week, the milligrams in your body would constantly be increasing until roughly 40 days go by. That means at 40 days, you will have 200mg in your system, not 100mg anymore. So if you don't feel anything that great even after a few weeks on a specific dosage of testosterone, just be patient. Your total testosterone should constantly be increasing from day one until day 40. So with test cyp, only make dosage changes after 40 days of being on that specific dosage and frequency. This is why people always say it takes testosterone sometimes 3-6 weeks to “kick in”. It has to do with your receptors getting acclimated to these new testosterone levels, but it also has to do with the fact that maybe that 100mg in your system when you started didn't really make you feel that great or raise your testosterone levels high enough, but after 40 days (5 weeks), you now have 200mg in your system and your total testosterone should now be doubled from when you first started, and this amount of milligrams in your system might be just what you needed to feel good and get your numbers where they should be. Just think about it, 5 weeks is right there in-between 3-6 weeks. It makes perfect sense that people start feeling it around then, this is exactly when your body reaches a “steady state” on testosterone cypionate.
Like I said, I could go on for days on half lives, how important they are, and how to apply them to protocols to increase their success rates dramatically, but I'll just end it here. Any questions just message me or reply to this thread, more than happy to help anybody out that needs it. We're all in this together. BTW I'm a nurse by trade. It's honestly not important in my opinion, because anybody in 2017 can know more than a doctor about this stuff in less than a year with the right amount of research. I just thought I'd add that so everyone can kind of rest assured I know what I'm talking about on this stuff. Just so they feel more comfortable if they decide to apply it to their own personal protocols.
-Originally wrote this as a reply to someone on a different thread, but decided to put it in it's own thread as well.-
This is how half lives work. For example, let's say you take 1mg of Arimidex EOD. The half-life of Arimidex is 2 days. So in 2 days when you take another dose, you still have 50% of the previous dose in your system. So if you took 1mg Monday, then took 1mg Wednesday, you have 1mg from Wednesday's dose, plus 0.5mg from Monday's dose. So 1.5mg total in your system. Then you take another 1mg Friday. You now have 1mg from Friday's dose, 0.5mg from Wednesday, and 0.25mg from Monday's dose. So on Friday, you have 1.75mg on your system. Then on Sunday, you will have 1mg from Sunday's dose, 0.5mg from Friday, 0.25mg from Wednesday and 0.125mg from Monday's dose. So 1.875mg in your system on Sunday. So on Tuesday, you will have 1mg from Tuesday, 0.5mg from Sunday, 0.25mg from Friday, 0.125mg from Wednesday, and 0.0625mg from Monday. So in total on Tuesday you will have 1.9375mg in your system. So do this math one more time for Thursday's dose. Which will equal 1.96875mg, basically 2mg in your system on the 10th day. On the 10th day you have now reached a "steady state" of this medication. This means from the 10th day on if you keep taking 1mg of Arimidex EOD, you will always have roughly 2mg in your system at all times. The amount of milligrams in your system does not continue going up from this point.
So moral of the story is, 99% of people on TRT don't realize that after 5 half lives of any medication, you will have double the amount in your system. Just multiply the half-life of a medication by 5, and this will give you how long it will take to reach a "steady state" of a medication a.k.a double the amount of that medication in your system compared to your first dose. For example, half life of Arimidex is 2 days. So 5x2 equals 10. So on the 10th day of taking Arimidex regularly, you will of reached the steady state of the Arimidex in your system. Here is how long it will take to reach a steady state of common medications
Testosterone Cyp (Half life 8 days) -Steady state in 40 days
Arimidex (Half life 2 days) -Steady state in 10 days
Aromasin (Half life 1 day) -Steady state in 5 days
HCG (Half life 2 days) -Steady state in 10 days.
Clomid ( Half life 6 days) -Steady state in 30 days.
Remember, the 5xhalf life of a medication = Steady state of that medication.
The half life formula for Depo-Testosterone in plasma states that at 8 days you would have 50% of the initial dose remaining, at 16 days you would have 25% of the initial dose, at 24 days it would be 12.5%, at 32 days 6.25% and so on.
Also remember, when you reach a steady state of a medication, you will have double the amount of milligrams in your system of the dose you are taking in-between each half-life. This is kind of complicated, but it doesn't matter how you space out the dosages or how often you take it. For example, 1mg taken EOD, or 0.5mg taken every day. It's still 1mg taken within one half life or Arimidex which is 2 days. So another example is test cypionate. Doesn't matter if you take 100mg once per week or split that into 50mg twice per week or 14mg every day. As long as it's 100mg within one half life, which is 8 days for test cyp. So by 5 half-lives of the medication, which would be 40 days for test cyp, you will have double the amount of medication in your system. Which would be 200mg. This part is pretty complicated, but just remember, whatever the dosage you are taking of a medication, after 5 half-lives you will have double the amount of medication in your system compared to starting.
This is why people say TRT started to work, and then it didn't. Or they say Arimidex worked when they first took a dose, but then it stopped working. If you take Arimidex and you feel great that first day, you are doing it wrong. You don't want to feel good when you first start taking it, you want to feel good after 5half lives, when you reach a steady state of the Arimidex, which for Arimidex would be 10 days. So you want to feel good on the 10th day on, not on the first dose. If you feel good after the first dose, just know you will 100% not feel good soon. It's just a mathematical inevitability. Because the amount in your system on the first day is going to change. The amount in your system on the 10th day is going to be double what it was on the first day. So there's no way that you can feel good on the first day, and also feel good on the 10th day when the amount in your system is literally double that of what it was on the first day. Just think about it, let's say you feel good on the first day because you have 1mg of Arimidex in your system and it brought your E2 down to 25. You think when you have 2mg in your system on day 10 that your still going to have your E2 at 25, or even close to that?? Nope. Your E2 is going to of crashed. You can have good E2 on the first day you take Arimidex, or you can have good E2 on the 10th day of taking that dose of Arimidex, but it's literally impossible to have both. What you really want is to not really feel anything after 1-2 days. Start feeling decent/ pretty good after 3-6 days. Then to hopefully feel amazing at 7-10 days. Because after 10 days, this is the amount of Arimidex that's going to be in your system for the long haul, so obviously you want to feel your best at the amount of Arimidex that's going to be in your system for good. Those timelines of days and how you feel are obviously just rough estimates, but you get the point I'm trying to make. You basically just want to feel your best after you've reached a steady state of a medication, not when you first start taking it.
I could go on for days about half-lives, to be honest, but just know that it is the most underrated aspect of TRT that nobody really knows, nobody really gets taught, nobody really takes into consideration and nobody really talks about. But just know, that if you can get down how half-lives of medications work, you will have basically zero problems with your protocol. Especially with AI protocols.
Here are the takeaways:
-Consistency is key. Keep dosages the same. For example, BaldEagle66 needs to take the same dosage of Aromasin and at a consistent frequency. That random 12.5mg on Sunday compared to his usual 25mg will throw the math off and decrease his chances of success greatly. Keep Aromasin at the same dosage and take it consistently,for example, ED, or EOD, or twice per week. NEVER, EVER take doses of an AI when you "feel symptoms", and then not take it when the symptoms go away for a bit. This will never work in the long run and is an extremely common thing I see guys doing. Either take it consistently or don't take it at all. People can obviously do what they want, I'm just saying this for guys that want to know how to be successful with TRT pretty much 100% of the time, and not leave it up to luck or chance whether it works or not.
-Always start low on dosages and work your way up. Slow and steady always wins the race. With AI's especially, always start off extremely conservative and work your way up. Always better to do it this way than to take too much, crash E2, and have to start over. Always start low dosage and be patient. It will save you so much time and aggravation, I promise.
-Only change medication dosage after you have reached it's "steady state". Always wait 5half lives of a medication to adjust the dosage. See the steady state chart above for the most common TRT medications. Quick examples are, don't change Arimidex dosage until at least being on it for 10 days at that specific dosage and frequency. Test cypionate: don't change dosage until at least on that dosage and frequency for 40 days.
-When you do adjust the dosage of a medication, do it by very small amounts. So for example, if you started taking 0.125mg of Arimidex twice per week (0.25mg total per week). After 10 days (5half lives), if you still had symptoms of high E2, don't double the dose and take 0.25mg twice per week. Just take 0.125mg EOD for basically a total of 0.375mg per week instead of jumping the gun and taking 0.5mg per week. Then what you do if after another 10 days you still have high E2 symptoms, add another 0.125mg to your weekly total, and now go back to taking the Arimidex twice per week. So now your at 0.25mg twice per week (0.5mg total per week). Then if E2 symptoms are still there after 10 more days on this dose, add in another 0.125mg and take the doses EOD again. And just keep going like this, you obviously get the point. This also applies to aromasin as well but just with different milligram doses. But roughly 1mg of Arimidex = 25mg Aromasin. So 0.125mg of Arimidex would roughly be the equivalent of 3.125mg of Aromasin. Also, keep in mind the peak time of Aromasin is half that of Arimidex, and it's in and out of your system in half the time as Arimidex. So with Aromasin you probably want to take it either every day or EOD. Twice a week is not going to be the best option for Aromasin. And you never really want to take Arimidex once per week. Twice per week is the lowest frequency you want to take Arimidex. EOD is preferable.
-Medication in system doubles when it reaches its steady state (5 half-lives of that specific medication) and then it remains relatively stable with certain variations that depend of the day/time of the blood test. So if you took 100mg of test cyp/ week, the milligrams in your body would constantly be increasing until roughly 40 days go by. That means at 40 days, you will have 200mg in your system, not 100mg anymore. So if you don't feel anything that great even after a few weeks on a specific dosage of testosterone, just be patient. Your total testosterone should constantly be increasing from day one until day 40. So with test cyp, only make dosage changes after 40 days of being on that specific dosage and frequency. This is why people always say it takes testosterone sometimes 3-6 weeks to “kick in”. It has to do with your receptors getting acclimated to these new testosterone levels, but it also has to do with the fact that maybe that 100mg in your system when you started didn't really make you feel that great or raise your testosterone levels high enough, but after 40 days (5 weeks), you now have 200mg in your system and your total testosterone should now be doubled from when you first started, and this amount of milligrams in your system might be just what you needed to feel good and get your numbers where they should be. Just think about it, 5 weeks is right there in-between 3-6 weeks. It makes perfect sense that people start feeling it around then, this is exactly when your body reaches a “steady state” on testosterone cypionate.
Like I said, I could go on for days on half lives, how important they are, and how to apply them to protocols to increase their success rates dramatically, but I'll just end it here. Any questions just message me or reply to this thread, more than happy to help anybody out that needs it. We're all in this together. BTW I'm a nurse by trade. It's honestly not important in my opinion, because anybody in 2017 can know more than a doctor about this stuff in less than a year with the right amount of research. I just thought I'd add that so everyone can kind of rest assured I know what I'm talking about on this stuff. Just so they feel more comfortable if they decide to apply it to their own personal protocols.
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