bblazer said:
Some points
1) I am having this done at my local hospital and paying cash.
2) Often we check levels before and after a cycle for a baseline analysis. I never see any testing done during a cycle. Doesn't it make sense to get an idea of how a drug is affecting you? Or to be even more specific, what a dose or dose range does to your particular levels? How do I know if 400 test c a week is too much or not enough? What about estrogens at this dose? Do I have room for more? We get really specific about PCT, but why not have that same specificity during? Maybe if we had things checked during a cycle we may be able to adjust dosages to prevent things like gyno from happening before it's too late and we have to add another chemical to our systems.
3) As I said in my OP, I am on 400 test c per week. That's it.
4) IMHO, quantifying what we are doing here is not a waste of money. We do it with the results don't we? As in "I gained 12 lbs lean muscle and lost 4 lbs of fat and gained 3 " in my arms." Wouldn't it be nice to know that you did that on a serum test level of 865, and you needed X mg/week to get that?
B-
An easy way to determine it without a blood test is to see what dosage works for most people. For example, we know that 500 mg per week of test generally produces good results for most people, hence the recommendations of 500 mg you often see on the board. Also, I have seen charts that show serum test levels based on dosages, and know for example, that for most people 200 mg of test will produce about 1300 ng/dcl 3 days after injection. You can then calculate the levels through the week based upon half-life. I am sure there are charts out there that have the figure for 400 mg/week.
Regarding adjusting PCT/gyno prevention to your bloodwork, once again, there are too many variables to draw such specific conclusions about what dosage of x you should take in response to a given serum level of y. A certain amount of estrodiol/progesterone may cause gyno symptoms in one person and not in another. So knowing the levels of these is not going to help you much. The best line of defense is simply to take what is generally recommended when you take test - an aromatase inhibitor like aromasin - through your cycle, and then simply watch your body and be observant about gyno symptoms and take measures to curb it if they come up. Once again you don't have to reinvent the wheel, since we generally know what things help with gyno if you are taking test (nolva, for instance). Same with PCT. We know your natural test levels will be very low, and we know generally what helps bring them back, and at what doses.
Further, getting readings of something at one stage in your cycle does not mean much since these readings could change as your cycle progresses, so do you want to keep getting tests?
I guess, if you don't care about the money, etc. great get the blood work done mid cycle. It would be interesting as matter of pure curiosity, but I doubt it will help much in deciding what you should take for PCT or gyno prevention, etc.
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