Ashim Matthan: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Episode 7 of the RHINOMIGHT podcast. Today’s topic is going to be about the role of HCG in TRT. And so, you know, what’s fun is that it’s taken us six episodes before we started talked about testosterone. And we are a TRT clinic. We talked about all these things, and then in Episode 6 we got into testosterone. Episode 7 is going to be about fertility and testosterone replacement therapy. That’s how HCG comes in. 

So the first question that people ask is, is HCG necessary? I think Dr. Kanishk will chime in here to say that HCG is necessary if you care about your fertility. But in addition to that, it is also important for lot of people because of immunity. So why don’t we talk about that?

Dr. Kanishk Jain: Yes. So HCG is very, very important to be run along with TRT, because it makes sure that your natural production of testosterone is maintained, as well as your fertility is maintained. So you are not breaking any systems for the production of testosterone. You are just enhancing them. So testosterone just becomes a supplementation on your base value of testosterone. Let’s say if your testosterone value was 400 nanogram per decilitre (ng/dL) as a starting point, even post TRT that 400 should be maintained during the course of it. And whatever dose you take should be on addition to it to fulfill the requirements, you will get into the level where you feel good. 

Ashim Matthan: So that’s why a lot of the nurse don’t really like say TRT because hormone replacement, we are not only replacing anything. What we are doing is we are adding on to what is already going on inside your system. So it’s like you got your endogenous production going on plus exogenously you are also taking testosterone. So what it becomes into is TST, which is testosterone supplementation therapy.

Dr. Kanishk Jain: Not thyroid supplementation.

Ashim Matthan: Yeah. So with HCG, yes, if you care about your fertility, and I think you should care about your health in general, then HCG is important for a lot of people. Because of convenience, they don’t like it. And now in the US, what we’ve been reading is that there are some stuff, I’ve not gone into this because it is not only applicable to us in India, but in the US there is some stuff going on with HCG and insurance paying for it etc., and it is not going to be part of the insured TRT or whatever that they have.

In India, the benefit is that HUCOG HCG, which is the one that’s available at your pharmacy, so I’m not doing a plug-in of any brand or anything like that, but this is the HCG that’s available at almost every single pharmacy out here. It is (a) super potent, (b) really, really affordable. I think 2000 IU is for 400 and something rupees, which is nothing compared to like what you, I mean, it’s not much to think about when you’re going to consider like your health and fertility high in the balance of them. 

So now there are three, normally with our patients, we always give them like three options for fertility and for HCG. The first one is that, and this is the one that is our most preferred method. It’s what we practice and what we love, which is you micro dose HCG. Like I said, HCG is super potent. So in India, you only need 100 to 200 IU per injection. So that’s 600 IU a week that you are getting. Anyway from 300 to 600 IU a week is your overall weekly dosage, and you are taking it three times a week. So it’s split into three doses. So 3 x 100 to 200 IU is pretty much what you need. This is option one. 

Option two is when you do it cyclically, where you do it every three months or maybe if you want to do it even every two months, it’s okay. But think of it as like a PCT that you are running along with your TRT where you are going to be taking 1,000 IU, 1,000 IU of it every other day and for like one or two weeks depending on how frequently you are running it. And this is like cyclical HCG treatment. 

And the third one is when you just don’t care about your testicle volume. You don’t care about your fertility. You don’t care about any of that stuff, and you are willing to forego all of it in which case you just don’t have to bother with HCG at all. I do want to mention that because Testosterone is bioidentical. And Testosterone is — so what bioidentical means is that it is already there in your body. You are not adding something that is synthetic that your body doesn’t have any that doesn’t — that your body doesn’t know. So Testosterone is not the same thing as say, for example, tenderloin. Testosterone exists in your body. Tenderloin does not. So that is the difference. 

And you are taking a bioidentical hormone like testosterone. You may not even experience a shutdown. Your body might. Your testicular volume might be the same. Your testicles might not interfere. They might be producing your say, for example Kanishk mentioned your baseline Testosterone was 400, and it probably would not be 400, but it might not drop to zero. It might just be anywhere in between in which case your natural production is still going on. This does happen quite often. So I don’t want to write it off and say the second you take Testosterone, you are going to experience a shutdown. You are going to experience a situation where your body is no longer producing its own endogenous Testosterone. That’s not the case. There is no blanket statement like that that is applicable. So you have to take that into account and you might want to choose option three.

One of the things that we should also discuss is how do you know whether your HCG is working for you? And I am going to hand this over to Kanishk because Kanishk is going to get into the details of how the HCG is working for you. 

Dr. Kanishk Jain: So one of the clinical signs that you see is a thickening in your sperm volume. If you are on HCG and you are running TRT along with it, you will notice that your sperm quantity will increase means the quantity and the thickness of your sperm will increase. In practical sense, you see that if your sperm was a little watery before, you see that it’s coming out like a chewing gum or in clumps, in clusters. That is when you know that the HCG is working for you. This is the dose for you. This is right for you. So we suggest that you start at the lowest possible dose, which may be 100 IUs. And if you’re not feeling the benefits of these kind of things where you are not able to notice the benefits in the sperm volume and the quantity, you increase the dose till you see it. It may be 150. It may be 200. But in our clinical experience, we never had the need to cross 200 IU for any person. 

Ashim Matthan: Including guys who have been in the game for a really long time, probably haven’t even done ECG, even for them it’s not really required. One of the things I’m going to also mention is that you could be doing your contest prepping. You may not even be doing TRT. You may just be running a cycle, like, you know, blasting and cruising where you are on TRT during your cruises and then you are blasting other chemicals. There is still no reason to takeout HCG. 

And I think one of the pro bodybuilders in the US that has also spoken about this is Dusty Hanshaw. In his Q&As, he’s always said that like there is no reason that you should stop HCG at all. And I think that clinically, we are pretty much are in line with him.

Dr. Kanishk Jain: Yes. Yeah. If it is inconvenient, let’s say that you are traveling and you cannot carry your HCG everywhere. A big shot before you travel will carry you over for at least a week. 

Ashim Matthan: So what happens, I’m just going to throw out a scenario, because it’s good that you mentioned travel. And I think the only time when people are apprehensive about TRT or apprehensive about injections and like HCG and all the baggage that comes along with it in terms of how much effort and time that you are going to invest behind this on a daily basis or whatever is when people are used to traveling a lot. Right now because of COVID, nobody is traveling that much, and businesses in general are slowing down. 

But let’s say things get back to normal and whatever people who are watching this are going to be concerned about that. And let’s say that I am travelling, and I am a frequent traveler. What if I take my HCG infrequently in the sense that depending, okay, when I am at home and I am going to be in the city, my home city for whatever amount of time, that time I’m taking HCG regularly 600 IU divided into 100 IU shots three times a week, and I am doing that. 

And then let’s say I take a gap. But my TRT is on because instead of carrying so many syringes and in the sense double the number of syringes, I am taking only my Testosterone syringes. I am not taking my HCG with me, and I am travelling, and then I come back. So what if there are like gaps in between breaks in your HCG? How does it affect me or how will it affect anybody in that time? 

Dr. Kanishk Jain: When you are running TRT and you are running HCG along with it, your fertility has an insurance where you will lose your fertility. HCG will maintain it. When you are taking HCG infrequently, your fertility may go down. You will never lose it. Even though it is infrequent, it is enough to keep your fertility and your sperm production going. The body never gets a stimulus to not produce any sperms or any basically gonadal separation. That tends to happen with a higher anabolic steroid. Testosterone does not do that to that level. 

Ashim Matthan: Correct. 

Dr. Kanishk Jain: It will not make your infertile. 

Ashim Matthan: Okay. So what you were saying is that even if I take, you are saying that it’s better to take it infrequently than to just not take it at all. 

Dr. Kanishk Jain: Yes. 

Ashim Matthan: Correct? 

Dr. Kanishk Jain: In short, that is the answer. 

Ashim Matthan: That’s a long story short like that’s what we are getting at, right? Okay. And I think this is pretty much it, and this is all that we wanted to cover. So if we just recap quickly like we do in most of our episodes, is HCG necessary? It is necessary if you care about your health, your immunity, and your fertility. If you don’t care about these things and your testicular volume, if you want to forego all of that, you don’t have to care about HCG at all. 

There is also a caveat to this that when you are taking Testosterone because it’s bioidentical, you may not even experience a drop in your natural endogenous production of it. A lot of the times what is considered as conventional TRT or what is labeled as TRT is not only Testosterone Replacement Therapy, but it is Testosterone Supplementation Therapy because when we introduced HCG into the mix, your fertility is maintained, which means that your endogenous production of testosterone is maintained. You are taking Testosterone as an exogenous supplementation to it. 

There are three types of protocols that you can follow when it comes to HCG. You can do — actually, Kanishk, why don’t you talk about that? What are the three protocols in use? 

Dr. Kanishk Jain: So the three protocols are based on your goals. If you are able to take HCG, the ideal way to take it would be three times a week between 100 to 200 IU is taken subQ with an insulin needle. 

Ashim Matthan: So what you mean is micro dosing HCG. 

Dr. Kanishk Jain: Micro dosing HCG. 

Ashim Matthan: Okay. Number two. 

Dr. Kanishk Jain: The second would be cyclical, where you take it once in one or three months, one to three months where you run HCG at the dose of around 800 to 1,400 IUs for one to two weeks split as every other day. So these will be big doses taken every alternate day. So it would be Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. 

And the third option is if you don’t care about your fertility, and you don’t care about your ball size, and you don’t care about–

Ashim Matthan: Testicular size. 

Dr. Kanishk Jain: Yeah, testicular size basically. You don’t care about all of these things, you don’t take HCG. And you just take Testosterone. 

Ashim Matthan: Right. Okay. So that’s a good wrap up on the topic of HCG. Thanks a lot for watching this video, guys. And if you’ve got any other questions for us, please ask them. Please contact us.