Ross,
You are partly correct about the proviron and primo being only very mildly suppressive. But this is not the case with 17aa orals.
Letting up on the brakes of suppression by 10-20% is not going to allow anybody to recover. You cant expect to take a “less suppressive” AAS in hopes of allowing your testes to kick up production. Hell, your HPTA can barely recover when AAS are dropped all together, and even super-physiological doses of HCG therapy takes time to reach full recovery.
Let me dip into the cookie jar…
Here is Dbol as contraceptive at only 15mg/day (I like to call this shutdown) -
Effects of an anabolic steroid (metandienone) on spermatogenesis.
PK Holma
Contraception, Feb 1977; 15(2): 151-62.
A 15mg/day dose caused a 50% reduction in LH & FSH and a 69% decrease in testosterone levels. -
Effect of an anabolic steroid (metandienon) on plasma LH-FSH, and testosterone and on the response to intravenous administration of LRH.
P Holma and H Adlercreutz
Acta Endocrinol (Copenh), Dec 1976; 83(4): 856-64.
Only 2.5mg/day of anavar suppressing Lh 40% and testosterone production 50% -
Malhotra A, Poon E, Tse WY, Pringle PJ, Hindmarsh PC, Brook CG 1993 The effects of oxandrolone on the growth hormone and gonadal axes in boys with constitutional delay of growth and puberty. Clin Endocrinol 38:393–398
Anavar in ratz brought LH to undetectable levels and FSH below 88% of base line. -
The effects of an anabolic steroid (oxandrolone) on reproductive development in the male rat.
BH Grokett, N Ahmad, and DW Warren
Acta Endocrinol (Copenh), Feb 1992; 126(2): 173-8.
In only 14 days of 10mg/day stanozolol lowered testosterone 55% -
Alteration of hormone levels in normal males given the anabolic steroid stanozolol.
M Small, GH Beastall, CG Semple, RA Cowan, and CD Forbes
Clin Endocrinol (Oxf), Jul 1984; 21(1): 49-55.