I've noticed most cycle recommendations end with .25 or .50 of arimidex daily. Is arimidex really that much better than nolvadex? I was told it helps a lot more with water retention problems. (Wich I seem to have) than nolvadex. My reservations about it is price and availability. Nolvadex is a piece of cake to get and should you get ripped-off your not out that much money. Arimidex on the other hand I've seen prices anywhere from $236 to $336 for 28 1mg tabs wich while expensive if it really works that much better than nolvadex for water retention (and vascularity) is worth it. But finding a reliable source is the problem. One, I'm having a hard time getting over. the thought of sending over $500, and crossing fingers,makes me nervous. Unfortunately all the sources I've found are unproven to me at this point. Is it really worth the gamble or is nolvadex or nolv/pro perfectly suitable.

armidex is different then nolvadex. nolvadex stops estrogen from binding to the receptor. armidex eliminates estrogen from forming altogether. Femara is even stronger then armidex. so id say armidex is better for fighting gyno and as a anti'e . it also helps with blaot.

Hey Bro Here is an article I found a while back. Its a good read.......

The Best Anti-E

theres been a lot of talk on other boards about this lately, and a lot of bad information thrown out as well. i wanted to share the good info.

somone keeps posting how letrozole is the strongest and doesnt negatively affect cholesterol. this is not true. letrozole is NOT the strongest and it DOES negative affect cholesterol/lipid profile in a bad way.

aromasin(exemestane) is the best. this is why

both arimidex/ldex/anastrozole and femara/letrozole hurt your cholesterol. the way these 2 anti e's work is they inhibit the aromatase enzyme. by inhibiting the enzyme which converts testosterone to estrogen, you reduce or even come close to eliminating estrogen production. we need some estrogen to be healthy. the major drawback to this is without estrogen, your lipid profile gets fucked.

exemestane works differently. it does not stop the body from producing estrogen. rather, it makes it so the estrogen is unable to bind to receptors by deactivating the binding enzyme. if the estrogen cannot bind, you simply will not get bloated or get gyno. the estrogen is crippled due to exemestane. however, since the estrogen is still floating around, it will not negatively affect your lipid/cholesterol profile.

anastrozole doesnt cause a rebound effect, and neither does exemestane, but letrozole does. this means after you stop the letrozole, your estrogen rebounds and goes pretty high for a while, eventually it normalizes. you can avoid this by tapering your letro dose down before stopping it, but that is a pain in the ass. higher than normal can mess many things up post cycle when you stop. since the hpta has a feedback loop is primarily controlled by estrogen, high estrogen will tell your hpta to produce less testosterone, because it thinks the high estrogen is caused by too much testosterone. this is fact. now post cycle, dont we want to raise our test levels, not lower them? of course! so rebounds are bad. if you use letro taper the dose off to zero over a couple weeks.

fyi- nolvadex(tamoxifen) is a SERM(Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulator). this means on certain tissue it can act antagonisticaly or agonistically. in the case of lipid profiles, it acts agonistically. so, running tamoxifen with your anti e's will IMPROVE your cholesterol profile even if not on cycle or using any gear or other anti e's. its just plain good for cholesterol.

one thing to keep in mind though when runing tamoxifen with letro. letro reduces blood levels of tamoxifen by over 50%. a study showed 2.5mg letro ed made nolva levels drop to 40% of what they were before adding letro. this does not mean you cant use tamoxifen with letro, it just means you need to use more, about double. 20mg of nolva will act like 8mg if running letro. so make sure you are aware of this because you will need to buy more nolva to compensate. this does not happen when mixing tamoxifen with anastrozole or exemestane, it only hppens with letro.

also, many people and myself experince a reduction of libido on letro. this doesnt happen w/ ldex or exmestane as far as i know, and in my own experience, and ive run all 3 quite a bit.

the best combo IS exemestane and tamoxifen together. your cholesterol will be as good as can be considering your on a cycle of steroids. the dose of aromasin will vary depending on the users needs and how much aromatizing gear is being taken. usually 10-25mg ed works well. run 10mg ed nolva to improve your cholesterol.

second best combo i feel is anastrozole(ldex) and tamoxifen. ldex dose ranges from usually .15mg ed to 1mg ed. run 10mg nolva ed to improve cholesterol.

thierd best is letro and nolvadex. letro doses usually range from 1-2.5mg ed. run 20mg ed nolva to improve cholesterol w/ letro.

you do not need to run nolva with any of these 3, i do recomend it though as it will improve cholesterol compared to using the anti e's alone without nolva.

so in order of strength, on a dose per dose basis(not mg per mg) aromasin is def the strognest, next is letro, and then ldex.

ive been running aromasin now for about 4 months, i wont switch back to ldex or letro. it works much better and its much healthier for cholesterol profiles.

i think we all need to stop only worrying about side effects that we can see visually. cholesterol KILLS many people around the world everyday(well not directly kills but leads to it). steroids are hrting us badly in this sense. steroids do mess our cholesterol up pretty badly, and we will pay for it later in life. now not many of us are going to stop using gear because of that, but we should at least take the proper other drugs to help minimize.

aromasin is only a little bit more expensive than ldex or letro, and its actually about the same price as many places sell ldex or letro for. but its more powerful and healthier. people spend money all the time on steroids which dont have as many side effects as some of the harsher, cheaper steroids. a few extra bucks for the proper anti e's is def money well spent.

Thank you for the info. it seems every question I have answered introduces even more. O.K. so it seems aromasin is the way to go (with a nolvadex chaser) but its not exactly big on the "easy to obtain" list . Its even worse(and more expensive) than arimidex. $164 from canada with a prescription or $350 from overseas without. Ouch! I would assume that aromasin is a fairly new drug?

Aromasin is available alot cheaper. If you're interested, shoot me a PM and I'll hook you up.

ARIMIDEX RAISES YOUR LIVER VALUES.

There's one issue here when using exemstane and tamoxifen. According to the prior post these both block estrogen from binding to receptors but neither prevents aromatization. The problem here is that there has been some evidence to suggest that aromatase itself can be harmful to the leydig cells in the testies.

Personally I want to make sure that both aromatase is blocked in addition to the estrogen receptors. Since tamoxifen is used specifically to prevent estrogen from binding to the reseptors in breast tissue this is probably the better choice for those predisposed to get gynocomastia.

As far as raising cholesterol, this is indeed something to take notice of. What I would like to know more specifically is if it raises just LDL or HDL or both. HDL is actually a good guy as it helps keep LDL under control and from sticking to the walls of arteries etc. Also cholesterol can be managed or courteracted by other means.

I'd have to take some amout of exception to the comment that we shouldn't worry as much about the side effects we can see. While cholesterol is an issue, it can be managed in many ways. However I do think large bodacious ta-ta's look better on the women and not so desireable on the men.

I am also concerend about the effect of aromatase on the leydig cells. This can occur with the aromatization of steroids as well as heavy or large amounts of HCG. This can lead to primary hypogonadism which is a permanent condition. This can cause a permanent reduction or cessation of endogenous testosterone production.

I personally would want to choose both a SERM as well as a anti-aromatase when on gear that aromatizes. My personal choice would be arimidex as well as tamoxifen for this purpose.

I am also interested in any comments anyone has on the use of proviron.