Returning to baseline after ceasing TRT

[sh1973]

A decade or so ago you always heard doctors saying that once exogenous testosterone was administered for any significant time, that your body would permanently cease to produce testosterone. I’ve been on TRT over 8 years and been reading about it for over a decade and I’ve never seen such a case documented. It seems that nearly anyone that stops returns to their old baseline or close to it. Every doctor I’ve had over the years have stated about half the men they’ve treated eventually stop TRT for a litany of reasons, mostly compliance. What I would like to know is, if anyone on here has ever completely stopped TRT after several years and not produced at all after a lengthy cessation of exogenous hormones. Hopefully one of the doctors that frequent the site will chime in and enlighten us. It would be interesting if there were more long term studies regarding TRT and if there’s a general point of no return as far as years being shut down that the body won’t recover.

 

[HealthMan]

A decade or so ago you always heard doctors saying that once exogenous testosterone was administered for any significant time, that your body would permanently cease to produce testosterone. I’ve been on TRT over 8 years and been reading about it for over a decade and I’ve never seen such a case documented. It seems that nearly anyone that stops returns to their old baseline or close to it. Every doctor I’ve had over the years have stated about half the men they’ve treated eventually stop TRT for a litany of reasons, mostly compliance. What I would like to know is, if anyone on here has ever completely stopped TRT after several years and not produced at all after a lengthy cessation of exogenous hormones. Hopefully one of the doctors that frequent the site will chime in and enlighten us. It would be interesting if there were more long term studies regarding TRT and if there’s a general point of no return as far as years being shut down that the body won’t recover.

Have you been taking HCG the whole time? I know of a few cases of long term testosterone use and then stopping and I have never seen anyone return close to their baseline levels. Your body will not stop producing it but return to baseline after so many years on TRT from my own experience and from close friends doesn’t seem likely unless your baseline was low. Again i have no proof that this applies to everyone (anyways everyone is different) just my own experience and of some friends.
Most likely scenario you will resume testosterone production and will have a significant below baseline level

 

[DragonBits]

Have you been taking HCG the whole time? I know of a few cases of long term testosterone use and then stopping and I have never seen anyone return close to their baseline levels. Your body will not stop producing it but return to baseline after so many years on TRT from my own experience and from close friends doesn’t seem likely unless your baseline was low. Again i have no proof that this applies to everyone (anyways everyone is different) just my own experience and of some friends.
Most likely scenario you will resume testosterone production and will have a significant below baseline level

One conflating fact.

Men lose on average 1% of their testosterone production after age 30. Average means many are above or below average.

So it's not really natural to return to the same level of testos if you were on TRT from age 30-40 or longer. You have to factor in the normal loss that would happen regardless of TRT.

I assume even if you took HCG during that time, if you quit both testos and HCG, you would drop below the level you were at age 30.


That sort of loss isn't because you were taking testosterone, it's because you are older.

 

[HealthMan]

One conflating fact.

Men lose on average 1% of their testosterone production after age 30. Average means many are above or below average.

So it's not really natural to return to the same level of testos if you were on TRT from age 30-40 or longer. You have to factor in the normal loss that would happen regardless of TRT.

I assume even if you took HCG during that time, if you quit both testos and HCG, you would drop below the level you were at age 30.


That sort of loss isn't because you were taking testosterone, it's because you are older.

Even taking that into consideration my experience tells otherwise. But again. Everyone is different. I stopped only after a couple of years and my levels after stopping were half of baseline. A few friends had the same experience

 

[CoastWatcher]

A decade or so ago you always heard doctors saying that once exogenous testosterone was administered for any significant time, that your body would permanently cease to produce testosterone. I've been on TRT over 8 years and been reading about it for over a decade and I've never seen such a case documented. It seems that nearly anyone that stops returns to their old baseline or close to it. Every doctor I've had over the years have stated about half the men they've treated eventually stop TRT for a litany of reasons, mostly compliance. What I would like to know is, if anyone on here has ever completely stopped TRT after several years and not produced at all after a lengthy cessation of exogenous hormones. Hopefully one of the doctors that frequent the site will chime in and enlighten us. It would be interesting if there were more long term studies regarding TRT and if there's a general point of no return as far as years being shut down that the body won't recover.

More anecdotal thoughts (conversations with my doctor). She reports that she has only seen a "very small number" of men over 50 return to baseline. Her experience with men younger than 40 is much better. The entire discussion was focusing on age and not, as you asked, time on a protocol, but it's part of the web.

 

[sh1973]

It would be interesting to see some studies on this so a person would know if they had to stop permanently for a medical reason or any other reason for that matter.

 

[CoastWatcher]

It would be interesting to see some studies on this so a person would know if they had to stop permanently for a medical reason or any other reason for that matter.

I wonder if we'll ever see such a study. Drug companies aren't going to be keen on investigating how successful a man might be in restoring his baseline level if he stops using their product. The money maze...

 

[sh1973]

Hopefully our fine government never tries to ban TRT or they’ll be a lot of us suffering for sure if levels don’t bounce back.

 

[madman]

It would be interesting to see some studies on this so a person would know if they had to stop permanently for a medical reason or any other reason for that matter.

https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(16)63068-6/fulltext

These may be a close as you would get to gaining some insight, although ancillaries were used. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5292276/

 

[sh1973]

Thanks madman, good articles.

 

[Vitamin_C]

I've known quite a few guys who have used TRT for a long time that had to quit, all of them returned to baseline. "TRT for life" is a myth.

 

[James]

Vitamin C's comment was my experience. I was on TRT for only 2 years before quitting cold turkey (never had taken HCG at that time), and 2 labs within the 6 months of so I quit TRT showed numbers almost identical to my baseline prior to TRT. Since then I have changed my protocol and I'm in a better place.

 

[sh1973]

James are you back on TRT? Did you feel ok back at baseline?

 

[sh1973]

It’s probably not too common but there are certain situations that could require stopping immediately. Some of those conditions could be sharply elevated psa, advanced prostate cancer or for that matter a severe unrelated heart attack. It would just be nice to see some studies of men intermittently stopping treatment after 5 or 10 years and not going to borderline castration levels. I’ve been on TRT over 8 years but have never had any testicular shrinkage. I’m assuming that means testicular condition is ok but who knows. Some guys say within a few months they shrivel up substantially after beginning TRT.

 

[James]

James are you back on TRT? Did you feel ok back at baseline?

Yes I felt ok, certainly better than I guess I was expecting to feel. I feel better with my new protocol, but from time to time still consider stopping. I've been on several dosing schedules during the last 4 years (started TRT in January of '14), currently I'm doing 50mg cypionate, twice weekly, for 100mg total. Even at that low dose, I take 1/8th mg of AI with each injection.