Frontloading SERMs

[Sworder]

Why wouldn't you front-load a SERM?

It will take about 11-15 days to reach the levels desired if you take Tamoxifen Citrate @ 20mg ED or you could take 120mg day 1 and then after that take 20 mg ED. Why is this concept rarely used (on Clomid it is done often but not so much Nolva)?

 

[Transhuman]

Why wouldn't you front-load a SERM?

It will take about 11-15 days to reach the levels desired if you take Tamoxifen Citrate @ 20mg ED or you could take 120mg day 1 and then after that take 20 mg ED. Why is this concept rarely used (on Clomid it is done often but not so much Nolva)?

Because they have yet to discover the great advice dispensed here by Bill Roberts... !

 

[Sworder]

It would be great if he could chime in and share his thoughts.

Your statement makes me assume he has promoted this approach before do you have a link for it?

 

[Transhuman]

It would be great if he could chime in and share his thoughts.

Your statement makes me assume he has promoted this approach before do you have a link for it?

I know I read it here first some time ago. Frontloading SERMs and frontloading steroids. That and the hcg-during-cycle recommendations.

 

[Sworder]

Ok, I have been searching for any statements he has made about the subject at hand without success.

 

[Transhuman]

I found this from Bill on frontloading Clomid:

A standard usage of Clomid or Nolvadex will be fine.

For Clomid, my preferred method is 300 mg on day 1 (50 mg taken at 6 separate times: I don't know for a fact that absorption is better dividing it like this, but it's more certain) and then 50 mg/day after that; or Nolvadex at 140 mg on day 1 divided into 3 or 4 doses, and 20 mg/day after that.

The reason for day 1 being such a large dose is that these are drugs with a long half life, so in general -- but not at the start of usage -- at the time of having just taken a dose, one doesn't just have that day's dose in the system, but 6 or 7 days' worth of doses in the system. The only way to get to the intended levels promptly is to frontload the drug.

An alternate method is to use double dosages (100 mg/day for Clomid, or 50 mg/day Nolvadex) for 3 or 4 days. This doesn't get one up to the intended levels in the first day, and really I don't know of a reason to prefer this method, but it's another way to do it.

It's often recommended in the case of Nolvadex to double the dose for longer than this, but that's not necessary.

For such a brief period of use, 2 weeks should suffice. There would be no harm to 4 weeks if you want to.

 

[Bill Roberts]

Yes, I've posted it both as 140 (above) and 120... One-twenty is simpler as it can be three doses of 40 mg and it works fine.

Actually people routinely do a slightly slower and less accurate form of frontloading with Nolvadex, taking 40 mg/day for a while before dropping back to 20 mg/day. This results in overshoot, but does work.

 

[Sworder]

Okay, I am surprised that this concept isn't more common when recommendations are given. I think it is a lack of understanding half-lives that contributes to the aforementioned.

 

[Bill Roberts]

I think it's not an intuitively clear concept that taking an amount such as 120-140 mg on Day 1 will get one to the same level that's eventually reached with 20 mg/day dosing. I can easily appreciate that intuitively, it just sounds like too much.

But if one wants to try to grasp it intuitively, basically, when having taken a drug for a while so that levels have stabilized, if it's a drug with a long half-life then on a given day when you take a tablet, you have in your system not only the drug in that tablet, but much of the dose from the day before, some from the day before that, some from the day before that, etc.

The amount already in your system happens, conveniently, to be the same as the amount that on average you take in as many days as the drug has a half-life.

So for example if we figure the halflife of tamoxifen as say 6 days, then ordinarily (after you've been using the drug a while and levels have become steady) you have 6 days' worth of tamoxifen already in your system each time you take a tablet.

But when starting use, you don't have that amount already in you.

So the frontload needs to provide that, to promptly get levels to where they need to be, and will stay with the ongoing daily dosing.

 

[REK]

Great information, I may front load for my next Serms treatment.

Cheers Rek

 

[Sworder]

Amount of Nolvadex(mg) metabolized when taking 20mg/day. Assuming 6-7 day halflife.
Day 1: 2
Day 2: 4
Day 3: 6
Day 4: 7
Day 5: 8
Day 6: 10
Day 7: 11
Day 8: 11
Day 9: 12
Day 10: 13
Day 11: 14
Day 12: 14
Day 13: 15
Day 14: 15

And so forth until it goes up to 20. The amount being the same is because the numbers are rounded.

Amount of Nolvadex(mg) metabolized if you use 140 mg Day 1 and then 20mg/day after that.
Day 1: 15
Day 2: 15
Day 3: 15
Day 4: 16
Day 5: 16
Day 6: 16
Day 7: 17

And so forth until it goes up to 20 by week 3.

 

[Bill Roberts]

The value has been reported in the literature as being between 5 and 7: if one uses 6 days, it should come out exactly. If not, I'd guess it's from a calculator not integrating it but doing step-wise calculation.

(Sort of like the difference between continually-compounded interest on money, and interest compounded only at intervals. Not exactly the same. In this case, it might be that the calculator is figuring rate of metabolism in jumps at distinct time points, even though levels are changing continuously, which would introduce a small difference.)