I've noticed that when people post here asking about castration, we tell them to do chemical first before doing anything irreversible. That makes sense, and chemical before surgical is probably the smart thing to do.

But the question becomes is chemical castration fully reversible, as we imply by saying that and many here likely believe? The belief seems to be that chemical castration requires little forethought or caution because it can be stopped at anytime and everything will return completely back to the way it was.

Ken has been off Androcur for almost 2 years. He was on it for about 9 months. He has found that things are not the same as they were pre-Androcur, even with as long as he has been off. Libido is nowhere near what it was, among other things. I suspect that if we took a T level now and had a pre-Androcur baseline to compare it to, we would find a significant difference.

I have seen the same happen to others who have done chemical castration, and the same also tends to happen with people who use steroids. Basically it seems that when the testes are shut down, whether by using drugs that do their work for them (in the case of steroids, including exogenous T), or by using drugs that directly attack them and block their work (in the case of chemical castration drugs), we risk causing permanent damage. They may resume function at some point, but T levels are unlikely to ever reach what they were before the offending drug was introduced into the body.

So if we establish that chemical castration may be to some extent irreversible by causing some degree of permanent change, the question becomes how long is needed before this damage takes place. I have heard of steroid users who permanently damaged their testes and required lifelong TRT after only one "cycle", which is usually 10-12 weeks. So could it be that after just a few weeks of Androcur or other chemical castration drugs, some degree of irreversible damage occurs?

When I tell people to consider chemical castration first, I also tell them that chemical castration is not necessarily irreversible either and that they could permanently damage their balls. I wonder whether more of us should do this as well, or whether we should even adopt an official position that chemical castration may carry some degree of irreversibility as well?

90% of patients on chemical castration for a year or less recover in 6 months or less, or so conventional wisdom goes, there are exceptions. Sometimes a "kick start" is used with certain drugs often used to induce puberty before Testosterone or Estrogen is tried, sometimes after a very long time, such as 2 years, recovery becomes near impossible. Often, if estrogen is added, such in the case of transsexuals, the ability to process T is damaged in the body, there is a test specific to see if your metabolizing T, ill look it up later and ad it to this post.

My head is a little foggy this morning so this may seem a bit scattered.

It seems to me the EA has a long history of harm reduction and to me that is one of the things that really benefits the community. Of course there is always room for improvement and I think Plix has raised a very good question.

If we agree that some form of DIY is occurring or is likely to occur with folks seeking advice here at the EA, and that we have no real power other than to give our best advice, we should be practicing harm reduction.

As far as medications in general go that would be to have them prescribed by a doctor. Failing that perhaps we could post a sticky some where with the known and published side effects of meds like Androcure and others.

I am very cautious about giving advice of any kind relating to the issue of castration or medication, other than to recommend that some one considering chemical or surgical castration seek out professional help first.

Of course this is not always an option and we also need to understand that many people who are coming here have already been down that road and have long since given up and are then left with very few options. Either live life with what nature/god/whatever has given them or do something about it on their own. I don't know how many choose the first option but we know that many here at the EA choose to take matters into their own hands in one form or another.

Looking only at folks with medical (testicular pain), gender or sexuality issues, DIY seems to come in three & a half flavors around here, and it begins with Self Diagnosis which usually precedes coming to the EA, then it either moves on to Self Medication, or Surgical Castration via a trip to the good Doctor in Philly, or auto-castration with farm implements or other makeshift surgical items, followed by a trip to the ER.... and a nice relaxing weekend or two at Hotel 5150.

I agree that it makes sense to warn people about the likelihood of permanent changes. I only used Cyproterone Acetate (50mg daily) for 1 week and it had a powerful and surprisingly delayed and long lasting effect. Within a day or two of starting on the drug I had hot flushes which kept me awake at night. This became intolerable, which is why I stopped taking the drug. A week later, when I anticipated returning to 'normal', I was still becoming increasingly impotent. It was several more weeks before my potency began to return. A couple of months later I was back to 'normal' potency, ie. good erection quality, but even now (nearly a year later) I still don't think my libido is as strong as it was. I'm quite happy about that, but if someone is looking to experiment with testosterone suppression using this drug I would point out that although the drug companies publish info about Cyproterone Acetate saying that the effects are fully reversible there are several members of this forum who seem to be suffering long term, possibly permanent, after effects.

That is a good point. Pharmaceutical companies are not totally upfront about the risks of using their products. So we shouldn't really on their word alone.

righto, and that's why a big bold warning just got added to my protocols posting.

oh, and that test is 3A Androstanediol G, reference range 260-1500ng/dl. This is a metabolite of testrostone, its level SHOULD correlate to your T level, example when mine was 1832ng/dl on the test im looking at, the 3A test showed 1319ng/dl, showing my bodies maxium uptake of T. The rest of the excess T was being converted to excess DHT and E2, so it wasn't all converting into androstanediol properly.

My libido is somewhat diminished as well, I did 3 separate Androcur periods, usually 3 months at a time with a 2-3 month recovery time.

I have been on 2mg of Estrogen for almost 2 years now.

I would s ay from my own experience, yes, there is a reduction.

The funny part is my left testicle has shrunk to half of it's normal size and whether that's related or not, I don't mind. I like where I'm at with a v ery low libido, just enough to have fun should the need arise....

But chemical is still better than surgery for testing the waters, and if there is a permanent reduction it may satisfy the needs of the person that almost went with surgery with out trying chemical first. So that can't be all bad - save for cases where prostate issues were the reason for chem castration (Do they do that or is it snip-snip?)

Tclosetgirl (imported) wrote: Thu Jan 03, 2008 5:23 pm So that can't be all bad - save for cases where prostate issues were the reason for chem castration (Do they do that or is it snip-snip?)

some doctors will do the snip and some refuse and force you to come back for monthly or quarterly lupron injections, that is a real racket there, lupron depot is 1200$ for a 4 month shot, castration in a hospital i have seen around $4500-6000, so a year or so of lupron...

Chemical castrationis definitely reversible. I have done it twice, one to see what would happen and the second time due to running out and a delay reordering. Did not like the gaps and hope for a permanent solution this spring.

On sort of a similar slant to this before I made up my mind to treat my orchialgia with surgery ( orchiectomy ) I was talking to my GP about the testicular atrophy. I mentioned drugs like Clomid and HCG as ways that might restore my goofed up testicles to working right. Her comment was that long term use of this drug had not been studied. And she felt that by taking over the job of signaling the testes to produce with a drug that the part of the brain that was supposed to do this function would eventually just quit for good (thus brain = fried) I spoke to two other doctors who agreed. So, taking that one step further. If you shut down the testicles for long periods of time are you not in effect starving them? And will this not "damage" them if done for too long. I know that long term use of castration meds is supposed to cause irreversable sterility for example. Humm.... Maybe thats for m2f transexuals? I'm probably getting things mixed up.

I think the goals of the Archive that are most noble are those that promote people NOT hurting themselves. Either by do it yourself surgery or self medication etc. And that every time one of us promote people seeking direction from trained doctors, shrinks etc we are doing a good thing.

Plix - for what this is worth I think part of sex drive is getting active sexually and thus it not being unusual or weird. A great deal of this (for me) was mental and you have to put your head into the game so your ass will follow. Sorry bad quote but so true.

Normal levels of hormones taken for a long time become less ahhh... can't think of a good word for this. Ok, when your off HRT and asexual then start taking this stuff and its in the right zone you might feel strong urges that seem weird and ubber powerful. This happens to some people. I think mostly those that had low levels for long periods of time? Not sure. Then it becomes less and less "urgent." You will have sexual drive and needs but its not so up front and unusual. I wonder if Ken is feeling that "normality" and it seems almost like little to no sex drive because its not so suddenly black/white?