Testing HCG potency with pregnancy test / Buying HCG in liquid form

[dickielongate]

Hi,

I recently purchased some HCG in error. I thought I had ordered powdered form as usual, but realised my mistake when it arrived and I found it was premixed.

What's confusing me is I thought HCG once mixed only retains full potency for about a month, and that is when stored at the correct temperature (refrigerated). But the product I received had an expiry date of months away, so I assume that doesn't apply in all cases. Perhaps when supplied premixed, the situation is different?

My concern is that it may not have been stored at the right temperature, and at the very least, it was shipped to me over a two week period, meaning it has been in transit unrefrigerated for some time.

I have some pregnancy tests that detect 10 mIU / ml, whereas my mixed HCG is 5000 IU/ml, or 5m mIU/ml. So that seems to suggest that to simulate urine concentrations, I would need to dilute to somewhere less than 500,000 times. Realistically I figured 1:50,000 would do it as I know pregnancy HCG levels can be way higher than the 10 mIU/ ml. The smallest unit I can probably measure out is about 0.05 ml, so it seems I would need to put that into 2.5 l of water to be in the ballpark.

I'm looking at this from the point of view of having the ability to test HCG moving forward, as I want to be able to test potency if I am keeping it over the 30 days in liquid form. I understand potency declines gradually.

HCG really works for me, but being in the UK I am having to hustle to get a reliable supply, so it would really help to be able to test. Anyone have any experience or thoughts that might help?

Much appreciated

* I should add that I have no option to order a fresh supply of powder form HCG at least for a few weeks, so I would like to know what state this liquid stuff is in. BTW, it's Sifasi Aqua 5000 IU

 

[dickielongate]

I will answer as the test was quite conclusive.

My control sample was a batch of powdered HCG that I mixed myself nearly 3 weeks ago. I went for a dilution of 20 miu/ml, which involved taking 0.05 cc and diluting twice. Since the test threshold is listed at 10miu/ml I wanted to make sure to give a chance of a positive.

Sure enough, I got a pretty decent test line showing up, not fully saturated but close.

Sadly for the stuff that shipped mixed, as I suspected, either it was a dud batch or it has just not been stored correctly, and definitely not while in transit.

With two dilutions, one for 20 miu/ml and one for 80 miu/ml to make sure, the tests came out with not even the faintest of lines

 

[dickielongate]

Actually I was wrong, there was a very faint line for the 80 miu/ml mix. So I tried 160miu/ml and got a half decent line. This means it's 8x weaker than the good stuff. Still I have 5 bottles of 5000 IU.

Any reason not to use?

Is HCG that has reduced potency still safe to inject, given that I'd need to use higher doses?

 

[Cataceous]

First off, that's a nice guide to hCG testing. I'm saving the link.

So your results suggest that you effectively have five vials of 625 IU each? I'm not sure I'd bother with it. But as far as I know it shouldn't be a problem—nobody has said that the breakdown products of hCG are harmful. Maintaining sterility is usually the overriding thing.

 

[dickielongate]

Thanks, I would have guessed it wouldn't have been an issue.

Also, since I wasn't very specific and you said it might be useful, I wanted to provide a more precise description of the test procedure in case someone else can use this.

The idea is to get a simulated urine sample in the range specified by your pregnancy test, in my case this was 10 mIU/ml, which I believe is on the sensitive end. We don't our fake urine too strong, otherwise even weak stuff will just ace the test, so we need to shoot for a strength over the minimum, but not by too much.

To avoid having to mix huge amounts of our fake urine, we will 'double dilute' the hCG mix, that is dilute, then dilute again into the same mount.

You need to jot down :

- How much hCG you have in IUs (h)
- How much bacteriostatic water this is diluted in (w)
- What volume of water you will double dilute your hCG in to test (d)
- Test solution strength you are shooting for in mIUs (t)
- How much water you will use for your double dilution, (d), in this case we will use 50ml

Then you can use this formula to determine the sample size in ml (s)

s = (t*w*d*d) / 1000 * h

For example, you have 5000 IUs in 3ml of water and will double dilute into 50ml. You are shooting for a fake urine strength of 33.33 mIU/ml, so:

s = (33.33*3*50*50) / 1000 * 5000
s = 0.05 ml, or half a tenth of a ml, easy enough to measure on a 1ml syringe, not too much wasted.

So to action the test, you would take 0.05 ml of your premixed hCG, and dilute this in 50ml of plain water. Next take 1ml of this new mixture, and dilute that into 50ml of water. Now you have your fake urine, and can test it with the pregnancy test kit. You should expect something less than a solid bar with the numbers used here.

It is also possible to start with a sample size set, and tune in your double dilution volume, but the formula is not so fun (sqr = square root):

d = 31.6 * sqr((s * h))* sqr((t*w))

Hope this helps someone - I am really liking my ability to test hCG potency now. I just bought some (powdered this time) from a new supplier, and was comforted to know it at least contained some hCG, even if it was a bit weak.

BTW, I chose the example of 5000 IUs in 3ml of water because this is how I dose, giving me 166.7 IUs per day, and meaning you can buy the 5000 IU stuff, which is cheaper, and it doesn't expire because it runs out after a month. I use this on a 333 IU EOD basis. Having tried TRT, I can honestly say just hCG + exemestane (aromasin, 12mg EOD) ticks all the boxes and just works, at least for the past year. I can't see me injecting T again. It is my view (probably uninformed) that more TRT providers should encourage men to try this before going with T

The real formulas need a small tweak on the dilution volumes, but it makes it more of a fiddle and doesn't change anything so I left it out.