HMG
human menopausal gonadotropin / menotropins
HMG (human menopausal gonadotropin / menotropins) is a hormonal & sexual research compound. Purified gonadotropin preparation carrying both FSH and LH activity. HCG, already in the Vault, mimics LH alone — HMG brings the FSH arm as well, which is the half that acts on Sertoli cells and spermatogenesis rather than on testosterone output.
HMG quick facts
| Route | Subq or IM |
| Frequency | 3x Weekly |
| Half-life | FSH component ~30-40 hrs |
| Forms | Injectable |
| Evidence level | Approved (fertility); human |
Sits directly beside HCG and answers a different question. Dosed in international units, not milligrams — a unit error here is an order of magnitude, and the reconstitution calculator will not catch it because IU and mg are not convertible without the preparation's specific activity. The 75-150 IU range is the approved one; the 3x-weekly cadence is Cam's protocol rather than the daily schedule used in fertility medicine.
How HMG works
Purified gonadotropin preparation carrying both FSH and LH activity. HCG, already in the Vault, mimics LH alone — HMG brings the FSH arm as well, which is the half that acts on Sertoli cells and spermatogenesis rather than on testosterone output.
Proposed benefits
Researched for libido, hormonal signaling and reproductive / sexual function.
✅ Clinically validated
- Approved and long-used in fertility medicine, typically 75-150 IU under monitoring. Menotropins are purified from postmenopausal urine and carry both FSH and LH activity. The IU range here is the approved one; the 3x-weekly cadence is protocol practice, not the daily schedule the fertility approvals were written around.
- Dosed in international units, never in milligrams. IU and mg are not interconvertible without the preparation's specific activity, so the reconstitution calculator cannot catch a unit error here — and a unit error is an order of magnitude.
📊 Correlative data
- Decades of use in assisted reproduction, always with monitoring. The known hazard of the class is ovarian hyperstimulation in women; in men the practical issue is that the FSH arm is what supports spermatogenesis.
🧪 Theoretical / extrapolated
- HCG mimics LH alone. HMG brings the FSH arm as well — the half acting on Sertoli cells rather than on testosterone output. That is the whole reason it sits beside HCG rather than replacing it.
These tiers tell you how much human evidence exists — not how well something works. This is the research space, and most of what’s in here is new rather than disproven. Something sitting at “theoretical” usually means nobody has funded the trial, not that the trial was run and failed.
The trap runs the other way too: something can be clinically validated and still do very little for you specifically. A statistically significant result in a study population is not a promise about your body.
- ✅ Clinically validated — human randomised trials or meta-analyses support it. The strongest footing available.
- 📊 Correlative — observational or epidemiological data. Suggestive, and genuinely useful for direction, but it cannot establish cause.
- 🧪 Theoretical / mechanistic — the mechanism is understood and often demonstrated in cells or animals, and the human trial doesn’t exist yet. Unproven is not the same as ineffective. Plenty of what’s standard practice today sat here five years ago.
✗ is a safety flag, not a grade. Where you see it, the concern is harm — not a disappointing trial. A compound tested for one purpose and found not to help there can still be worth studying somewhere else, so a negative result never gets rendered as a cross. It sits alongside the tier, because something can be both well-studied and genuinely risky.
My job is to tell you which one you’re looking at, and let you make the call. Grading something low isn’t me dismissing it — it’s me refusing to oversell it. This is the research space, and being able to reason forward from a mechanism matters as much as waiting for the trial.
HMG — safety, predicted from mechanism
Much of this compound class has never been through a human safety trial. Rather than say nothing — or print a generic warning — this is what its known mechanism predicts could go wrong, and what you can do about it. Predictions are labelled as predictions.
What the mechanism predicts
Derived from what this molecule does, not from a trial.
- HMG carries both FSH and LH activity, and the FSH arm is the whole difference from hCG. LH activity acts on Leydig cells and drives testosterone; FSH acts on Sertoli cells and drives spermatogenesis. That is why this sits beside hCG rather than replacing it — it answers the fertility question hCG alone does not.
- Stimulating the gonad raises testosterone and estradiol together, so the aromatisation-driven effects arrive as part of the response rather than as a complication of it: gynaecomastia, fluid retention, and mood change.
- In women the FSH arm carries a named emergency — ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. Recruiting several follicles at once produces abdominal distension, pain and vomiting, and in the severe form fluid shifts out of the circulation, the blood concentrates, and the thromboembolic risk becomes real. This is precisely why fertility medicine monitors with ultrasound and serial estradiol instead of dosing to a calendar.
- Multiple follicle recruitment also means multiple gestation, which is a foreseeable outcome of the mechanism rather than a complication of it.
What has actually been reported
- Well characterised — this is an approved fertility drug given under monitoring, so unlike most of this section the human experience is real and documented. Gynaecomastia and fluid retention are the common male complaints; OHSS is the serious female one.
How to reduce the risk
Each of these follows from the same mechanism as the prediction.
- Do not convert between international units and milligrams. This preparation is dosed in IU, the two units are not interchangeable without the specific activity of the exact preparation in your hand, and the reconstitution calculator cannot bridge them. An error here is an order of magnitude, not a rounding difference.
- Anyone using this to stimulate ovulation needs monitoring rather than a schedule. Abdominal swelling, rapid weight gain or breathlessness in the days after stimulation is an urgent presentation and not a wait-and-see.
- If gynaecomastia or fluid retention is the complaint, the lever is the estradiol response, and sensitive E2 is what tells you whether that is actually what is happening before anything is added to manage it.
What it does to your bloodwork
A fact about the assay, not a guess about the drug.
- LH and FSH, total and free testosterone, and sensitive estradiol specifically — this raises E2 more than people expect and a standard estradiol assay is the wrong instrument for reading it.
- If fertility is the reason you are running it, a semen analysis is the outcome measure. Hormones are the process; sperm is the result, and only one of the two answers the question you started with.
Don't run this if
- Any hormone-sensitive cancer, unless an oncologist is directing it — in which case it is their protocol and not one to self-manage.
- Untreated thyroid or adrenal dysfunction, or a pituitary tumour. The axis above the gonad has to be intact for the response to mean anything.
- Unexplained abnormal uterine bleeding, or an ovarian cyst not caused by polycystic ovarian syndrome.
The honest unknown
- The male fertility-restoration use — which is what most people reading this page are doing — is far less characterised than the approved female indication. The mechanism transfers cleanly; the dose schedules, durations and outcome rates do not.
Not medical advice. If you take prescription medication or have a diagnosed condition, check this with a pharmacist or doctor.
Where to get HMG
Buy HMG at Disguised Alpha →HMG — interference & stacking
Predicted from mechanism, not from an interaction study. There are no trials of these combinations — what follows is what the biology implies, so treat it as a reason to watch something, not as a finding.
What HMG moves on your bloodwork
These are the markers this compound is expected to move, and which direction. Knowing that in advance is mostly about NOT panicking: some of these moving is the compound working.
- Complete Blood Count (CBC) with Differential — ↑ expected to rise
Haematocrit and haemoglobin rise — androgens stimulate erythropoiesis. This is the most reliably predictable movement of any compound in the Vault.
What to do: This is the number that decides whether you keep going. Baseline and every 3 months. Dehydration on the draw day inflates it, so hydrate normally or you will chase a false reading. - Total Testosterone — ↑ expected to rise
Expected. Trough vs peak matters enormously — the same protocol reads completely differently depending on when you drew.
What to do: Draw at the same point in the cycle every time or the trend is noise. - LH & FSH — ↓ expected to fall
Suppressed by negative feedback. This is the mechanism, not a side effect — and it is why exogenous androgen shuts down your own production.
What to do: Relevant if fertility matters to you. Worth knowing before, not after. - Estradiol, Sensitive (LC/MS-MS) — ↑ expected to rise
Aromatisation converts a fraction to estradiol, and it rises with the androgen. Use the sensitive (LC-MS/MS) assay — the standard immunoassay is unreliable in men and produces numbers people then medicate.
What to do: If you are reading estradiol in a man, the assay choice matters more than the result. - SHBG (Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin) — ↓ expected to fall
Falls with androgen exposure, which raises the free fraction — so free testosterone can climb faster than total.
What to do: Read total and SHBG together; total alone understates what changed. - Lipid Panel (Cholesterol, HDL, LDL, Triglycerides) — ↓ expected to worsen
HDL falls, sometimes markedly. Oral 17-alpha-alkylated compounds do this far more aggressively than injectable esters.
What to do: Baseline and 12 weeks. ApoB is the better long-term read than LDL-C. - PSA (Total + Free + % Free) — ↑ expected to rise
Androgens can raise PSA modestly. It does not create prostate cancer that wasn't there, but it can unmask it.
What to do: Baseline before starting matters — without it, a later number has nothing to be compared against.
- Which compounds push the same lever, and why the dose adds up faster than people count
- What blunts it — the stacks that waste your money
- What compounds the risk, so a side effect arrives sooner than any one of them suggests
- Coach Cam's read on running it alongside the rest of your protocol
Get the complete breakdown for HMG — inside the Academy alongside the full interactive Vault.
Unlock in the Academy — $10/mo →- Dose range and how to work up to it
- When to take it, and why that window
- Cycle length
- Time off between cycles
- Fasted or fed, and when in the day
- Needle gauge and injection site
- Coach Cam's personal notes
Get the complete breakdown for HMG — inside the Academy alongside the full interactive Vault.
Unlock in the Academy — $10/mo →Bloodwork to run alongside HMG
Run these before you start, and again after 8–12 weeks. A baseline you didn’t take is one you can never go back for.
| Marker | What it’s watching for |
|---|---|
| Total Testosterone | The baseline you can't reconstruct later |
| Free Testosterone | The fraction that does anything — total alone misleads |
| SHBG (Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin) | Explains a normal total sitting on top of a low free |
| Estradiol, Sensitive (LC/MS-MS) | The other half of the ratio, and the source of most symptoms |
| LH & FSH | Separates a testicular problem from a pituitary one |
The Low T? Rule Out the Reversible Causes First panel covers these in one order — 11 markers, $211.50 with the discount applied.
Check results you already have → · All 102 markers A–Z
HMG — frequently asked questions
What is HMG?
HMG (human menopausal gonadotropin / menotropins) is a hormonal & sexual research compound. Purified gonadotropin preparation carrying both FSH and LH activity. HCG, already in the Vault, mimics LH alone — HMG brings the FSH arm as well, which is the half that acts on Sertoli cells and spermatogenesis rather than on testosterone output.
Where can I find HMG dosing and protocols?
Dosing, the reconstitution calculator and Coach Cam's full HMG protocol are available to members inside the Academy. This public page covers what HMG is, how it works and the evidence.
What is the half-life of HMG?
HMG has an approximate half-life of FSH component ~30-40 hrs, which is part of what determines how often it's dosed.
What's the evidence behind HMG?
Current evidence level: Approved (fertility); human. HMG is offered for research purposes only and is not an approved medicine.
Want Coach Cam's exact HMG protocol?
Dosing schedules, stacking, cycle timing and my personal notes live inside the Academy — plus the full interactive Vault of 237 compounds & 350 supplements.
Join the Academy — $10/mo →