Ashim Matthan: Hi everyone. Welcome to the RhinoMight podcast. My name is Ashim, this is Dr. Kanishka.

Kanishka Jain: Today’s question is that if you’re running a Test blast, can you use Proviron as an Aromatase Inhibitor along with it?

Ashim Matthan: Right. So the gentleman in question is from Reddit. And he is currently cruising on TRT so he’s on Test. And he’s going to be transitioning from TRT levels of Test to a blast. And he has stockpile Proviron. So, he wants to know if you can use that as an AI. And before we get into this, we should probably consider various aspects of this question. So we’ll go about in a structured manner. We’ll talk about what a Test blast is. We’ll talk about what AI’s are, we’ll talk about DHTs and then we’ll get to the actual question of whether the Proviron is a good AI.

Kanishka Jain: Yes, so before that we have to first start with what is a Test blast. A Test blast is any dose of Testosterone which exceeds your weekly TRT dose. So, usually your TRT dose ranges from anywhere between 100 milligrams a week, to 300 milligrams a week. So, anything in excess of that is called as a Test blast.

Ashim Matthan: Right, and then you can go up to whatever exorbitant levels that bodybuilders push this to.

Kanishka Jain: Yeah.

Ashim Matthan: Okay. So, that leads us to topic number two, which is — What is an AI?

Kanishka Jain: What is an Aromatase Inhibitor?

Ashim Matthan: Right. So Aromatase is the enzyme in the body that converts excess Testosterone to Estrogen. The excess Testosterone is going to be different from person to person. It’s also going to be different for you within your lifespan in the sense that on a day to day basis. For example, there are lots of triggers which can convert Testosterone to Estrogen. You’ve got.. if say for example, you fall sick and you take a certain antibiotic. That could be the trigger. So you’re taking other chemicals on top of Testosterone those could also be the trigger. So there are various things that come with it. It’s just that this is your threshold limit and beyond that whenever your body registers or there is too much Testosterone, I better convert it to Estrogen. And then it will get converted to Estrogen. That’s what Aromatase does as an enzyme.

Kanishka Jain: Yes. So why do people run Aromatase Inhibitors on a cycle?

Ashim Matthan: Because the most problematic thing that any AI will do, there are lots of side-effects that AI… of high Estrogen, some of them are like cosmetic, like people get lot of flushing of the skin, stuff like that, which most people would not care about. But the thing that you will care about, that most of us should as men care about is that it can go into your chest, into your breast tissue and make it into Gynecomastia.

Kanishka Jain: Yes. Also, in addition to that, it can cause bloating and it can take away from the lean muscular look that you’re aiming for when you’re running a Test blast.

Ashim Matthan: Right, exactly. Yes. So the reason why people would want an AI on hand is more so because of the gyno as priority number one, the most dangerous thing that they would put it down to.

Kanishka Jain: And so, what is DHTs and what is its role with Estrogen?

Ashim Matthan: So, DHTs are your end product of Testosterone. In the life-cycle of Testosterone in your body the finished product would be DHTs and so firstly Proviron is a very weak DHT, it’s a poor DHT. And what DHTs do, is that they also similar to Estrogen just roam around your body. It’s a product of your free Testosterone.

Kanishka Jain: Yeah. So Dihydrotestosterone or DHTs are like Proviron, Masteron, which is Drostanolone. And other compounds, which are used in a lean gaining cycle or a lean cutting cycle where they work to displace Estrogen from your system and give you the Androgenic manly look that you’re looking for and the lean cut look.

Ashim Matthan: Right. So, the reason why you would want to take a DHT instead of an AI, so we firstly, let’s go back a little bit. We don’t like AIs.

Kanishka Jain: Yes, we don’t like AIs.

Ashim Matthan: We don’t like AIs, there were lot of side-effects and it’s not a good long-term to take the AIs. If you must take an AI, it should be done short-term. We’ll get into that at the end. So you don’t want to take an AI. So you take a DHT because the same receptors that Estrogen sits on is the same receptor where a DHT can kick Estrogen out of and occupy that space, right?

Kanishka Jain: Yeah. Because in addition to that, because DHTs are most sensitive for those receptors, the androgenic receptors. Those are the ones which are DHT on them when they are not, when the DHT is not there, it will have an Estrogen market.

Ashim Matthan: Correct. So it’s not possible for each Estrogen to kick a DHT out of their receptor, but it’s possible for a DHT to kick an Estrogen out.

Kanishka Jain: Yes.

Ashim Matthan: So that’s why they say that if you have gyno, and if you want to know whether the Masteron that you have on hand is good quality, high quality Masteron, you can blast Masteron and Masteron should reverse the gyno on its own, you should not need any AI. That’s the thing, that’s why he wants Proviron because in the list of DHT analogs Proviron is one of them.

Kanishka Jain: Yes, correct.

Ashim Matthan: Okay. So if you have an AI, so what, how would we do this? Like, because… let’s go back to this question. The fundamental root cause of this problem because he doesn’t want high Estrogen levels, which he feels are going to happen when he takes a high amount of Test. So he wants to keep Proviron on hand as an AI. So short and simple answer is Proviron a good AI?

Kanishka Jain: No. So, in our experience, Proviron is not a good AI. It is a weak DHT. Thus it becomes a weak AI. It cannot displace Estrogen and prevent gyno. It can be an add-on to TRT for some people when they’re running small doses of TRT and they want a sudden look.. like they want a cut lean look. You can run Proviron for a short period of time, but you we wouldn’t suggest that.

Ashim Matthan: So, just to get certain things clear, DHTs are also bioidentical hormones.

Kanishka Jain: Yes.

Ashim Matthan: And Proviron falls into that category, but it’s a weak synthetic version of that Masteron or any of the others will be cycling more powerful, better, more closer to the original real deal. So if you want to have like a flow chart of how you go about selecting something like this first you want to know is do you value your hair. Obviously you and I know don’t but say someone does value their hair then they’re going to say that they’re not, then they will not want Masteron or even Proviron because it can trigger hair loss, right.

Kanishka Jain: Yes. So, if you are at risk of it, that is if your dad, your brother or anybody in your family or if you have any experience of running these compounds before, and they’ve caused hair loss, then definitely Masteron is not the answer for you.

Ashim Matthan: Right. Even if you have, normally we do blood tests, right? The DHT test that we do, And if the values are very high, close to 900. Then we say that, okay, you’re at risk of it. Yes. You probably should stay away from these things. So if your career or whatever if you care about your hair fall, don’t get into these DHTs, it’s a risk that you’re taking. In order for them to take care of… to be an AI, you can take the DHTs and you have to take a whole bunch of precautionary measures to run them and protect your hair from falling. But as an AI, it’s not the first thing that we want to use them in that case, because these are the values that we have. So if you care about hair fall, don’t get into this. If you don’t care about hair fall then DHT, a good strong DHT is a good AI.

Kanishka Jain: Yeah. So if you don’t care hair fall or if you are not at risk of having any hair fall then run these compounds, then you can try a compound for some time, like a Masteron or something and see that are you getting hair fall on it. If you’re getting hair fall on it, so hair fall is more than 100 hair follicles a day, yeah so a fall of more than 100 hair follicles a day because that is our turnover of hair. So, if you’re exceeding that amount, you should be very wary of using Masteron if you value your hair.

Ashim Matthan: So, let’s look here, let’s say that someone who had, so whenever you run any of these chemical compounds, you should have a doctor who is monitoring you, it’s good for… it’s just safety. In India, it’s the legal way of doing it. If you want to run steroids, anabolic steroids, you should have a doctor who is going to monitor you. So, say we have a patient, say we have a case, a patient, who wants to increase his Test usage. How would we go about it? How would we systematically do it in a safe manner? The emphasis of course would be safety first.

Kanishka Jain: So, lets say that if somebody came like that and he’s done a cruise right now, you would not straight away taper the dose upto 500. That is a shock on the body. You slowly, slowly taper up, you keep your doses very, very frequent — you don’t give big, big surges of Testosterone. You use a slow picking esther like Enanthate or Cypionate. And week to week you can start at 200 then go up to 250 then 300, 350. And as soon as you start experiencing effects of Estrogen or high Estrogen, you know, that is the time that you should have an AI on hand to run it.

Ashim Matthan: Right. So you would keep let’s say Armotraz or Arimidex or Aromasin you keep some of these things on hand, whichever agrees with you because everybody is different. You have to know which one works for you which one doesn’t. We like Aromasin because it peaks in an hour, right? So you know that as soon as you take it, whether or not you should start feeling better. So it’s one of those compounds Exemestane.

Kanishka Jain: Exemestane.

Ashim Matthan: Is just a chemical term.

Kanishka Jain: Yeah. So, we have AIs and we have weak AIs which are SERMS, which go and target only the breast tissue. We should have both on hand. So something like Tamoxifen or a Nolvadex can also work as an AI to prevent just gyno. But the other effects are not going to be reversed of high Estrogen. So what are the other effects of high Estrogen that a gyno notices when they are doing AI?

Ashim Matthan: You’ll get bloating. Yes. A lot of bloating, water retention, you get flushing of the skin. Yes. Right? And Estrogen levels jumping all over the place can also cause like a fluctuation in your sex drive, in your libido.

Kanishka Jain: Yes.

Ashim Matthan: And in your paranoia.

Kanishka Jain: Yes.

Ashim Matthan: And irritability.

Kanishka Jain: So, let’s say that you’re at risk of dying. Let’s say that you’re running 300 milligram of Testosterone, you’re not even tapered up to 500. The first time that you may see is itchy burning nipples.

Ashim Matthan: Yeah.

Kanishka Jain: As soon as you notice that and that means that even when a t-shirt touches it, you will just scream in pain. That is how much sensitivity it induces. Because Estrogen is not what our body likes, a man’s body does not want Estrogen.

Ashim Matthan: Beyond the point.

Kanishka Jain: Beyond the point. It’s very good, it’s anabolic, it’s very good for us.

Kanishka Jain: It has Nootropic effects in the normal range.

Ashim Matthan: Yeah. And if you have Estrogen in good ranges, it should have all the benefits of Estrogen, none of the bad side effects… we want that. We don’t want it to beyond, in too much of an excess and that will cause all of these bad reactions to start happening. But the second you notice that oh yeah, I’m getting that my nipple is a little sensitive, don’t do it. Start your AI post immediately.

Kanishka Jain: Yes. So let’s say that you are at 500 milligrams a week, and you had no gyno…

Ashim Matthan: No.. I’m going to interrupt you, sorry. Can you scale back, let’s say that we’re at 300, I’m at 300, and I started noticing that okay, my nipple is a little sensitive, so what should I do.. what’s the first thing that I do?

Kanishka Jain: So, the first thing is that, let’s say that you have Letrozole on hand, Letrozole is one of the most, cheapest AIs available out there. You take one tablet of it, it peaks in the blood within 4 to 6 hours.

Ashim Matthan: Okay.

Kanishka Jain: Let’s say that you took it in the night the next day morning your gyno should be better.

Ashim Matthan: But do I take my shot?

Kanishka Jain: Yeah.

Ashim Matthan: So, what we normally do is whether you’re on TRT or whether you’re blasting or whatever you’re doing, we like very, very frequent injections as frequent as possible. So let’s just say that you are one of those people who is able to handle seven days a week. So you have seven injections a week. So everything is going to be in multiples of seven. So your TRT dose will not be 200. It’ll be like 210. Then if your blast also might not be 500, it might be 490. So, it’s going to be stuff like that. You’ve got to like, take this, you’ve to like do these small calculations, but this is the intricacies of it. So if you say I’m supposed to take an injection today, I felt that gyno yesterday, I was at 300 and I took my AI, I took Letroz at night. And this morning I wake up and I still feel that there is a little bit of gyno, it’s improved but it’s still there. So, what am I supposed to do?

Kanishka Jain: So let’s say that you took a Letrozole in the night.

Ashim Matthan: Yeah.

Kanishka Jain: Your gyno has gone away. You will take your shot the next day. Letrozole lasts in your system for three days.

Ashim Matthan: But what if it’s not gone? What if it’s still there?

Kanishka Jain: So, if it’s still there, I will repeat the dose of Letrozole the next day.

Ashim Matthan: Okay. And what about the Test?

Kanishka Jain: And the Testosterone shot as well

Ashim Matthan: Okay.

Kanishka Jain: The next shot will be taken with this thing. Because the effect of Letrozole is best when there is Testosterone running in the system so that it can start countering the Estrogen.

Ashim Matthan: Also, you don’t want to stop the Test suddenly because it will be a drop and there is no need to subject it to these shocks.

Kanishka Jain: Yes.

Ashim Matthan: You wanted the levels to be as stable as possible. Right?

Kanishka Jain: Yeah. So option one would be that you take your Test shots every day and you take the Letrozole. Letrozole is a very strong AI, it is going to reverse your gyno at one point or the other. So, for the dosing, you have to find out that at what dose it working, with the Testosterone dosing because you’re not going off the Testosterone.

Ashim Matthan: Right.

Kanishka Jain: So, ideally, let’s say that it is one tablet every 3 to 4 days that works for most people. You may be an anomaly and it may be 3 tablets in 7 days that you need to take based on how your gyno is progressing or if your gyno is not improving at all.

Ashim Matthan: Right. So.. we actually deviated a little bit from the topic, but as is this is going to happen. So, back to this gentlemen’s question, The answer is — Proviron is not what we recommend.

Kanishka Jain: Proviron is not going to prevent your gyno.

Ashim Matthan: Yeah. It’s not going to prevent his gyno, it’s not even going to be a good AI nor is it going to be a very good DHT, especially not at that dosage. Like if you’re going to be taking 500 mg of Test a week, then you’re like in the big-boy league. So you should be having big-boy compounds also that are there with you. Proviron is very, very weak. So, you want to take Masteron or you want to take any of the others that are there instead.

Kanishka Jain: Yes.

Ashim Matthan: Okay. And I think this is the answer to the question for the day. Thanks a lot for watching. If you have any questions, please go ahead and ask them. Thank you.

Kanishka Jain: Thank you.