POST CYCLE THERAPY...Part 1

PCT...
What does it mean?
Post Cycle Therapy.

What does it do?
It returns your Hypothalamus / Pituitary / Testicular Axis (HPTA) back to producing its own endogenous testosterone production.

How long does it last?
Good question, but in my opinion the normal 21 to 30 day protocol is too short unless suppression of the HPTA is minor.

Ok, you produce about 7 mg of testosterone a day or around 49 mg a week on average, some more, some less (usually for older guys). So, you go on a cycle of, let’s say 500mg of testosterone a week, or about 10 times your natural production. The body sees this as too much testosterone and will lower production of testosterone to try to maintain homeostasis (balance). The body loves homeostasis.

Testosterone in men gets converted into two other hormones; one of those hormones is DHT (dihydrotestosterone). This is accomplished by an enzyme called 5-alpha-reductase. DHT is actually about 3-5 times more androgenic than testosterone. The other hormone it gets converted to is Estradiol (E2), which is a strong estrogen but from now on we will just refer to it as estrogen even though there are 3 different kinds of estrogen. Testosterone gets converted into estrogen by another enzyme called aromatase. This conversion is called aromatization.

The body will tend to convert more testosterone into estrogen in order to maintain homeostasis, so the more testosterone available, the more estrogen. For most, this estrogen influx is not a problem. But for some, it will be a problem and this extra estrogen can give side effects like gynecomastia (gyno) or water retention. But one big problem is estrogen’s suppressive effects on Luteinizing Hormone or (LH). LH is what the pituitary gland sends as a chemical hormone to the Leydig cells in the testicles where the testicles will produce testosterone. Estrogen is probably 100-200 times as suppressive as testosterone.

So when LH production stops (exogenous, or dosed testosterone will do this too) the testicles will stop producing, and much like anything not being used, they will begin to atrophy.

What does this all mean?

You will get some small balls, no kidding! Mine have been the size of almonds without the shell.

OK, so you come off a cycle, the exogenous testosterone is tapering down and after a couple of weeks (this is the clearance time for testosterone Cypionate and Enanthate) you end up with low levels of testosterone as your endogenous production has long been suppressed. Now here is where the problem starts. At this point, you potentially have the testosterone levels of a woman, and extremely high estrogen levels from all that aromatization.

This can be a recipe for disaster…why you may ask? Because men need testosterone to feel normal, and all that hard earned muscle will be eaten up by being in a catabolic environment, not to mention there is still going to be some suppression because of elevated estrogen...

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