Agreed and same. I never go above 150mg these days and I definitely get results.

10mg ED works well for me. No sides and visible changes.

I was seeing significant strength increase on 20mg/ED tren ace. Is that considered low dose? I think it to be. Only side I got was night sweats and slightly elevated liver markers but manageable.

It’s specific only to the ECLIA test for e2. Other labs may use another method.

I'll be damned. I've never had this effect. That's interesting to know for sure.

thanks for that info, learned something new today.
Check that thread, it looks like common knowledge...wonder how I missed it now

Brother, first respect for the honesty in this update. Week 12 instead of "mid-cycle," nicotine, no sleep, fasted 12 hrs, blood drawn at 5pm after an all-nighter. That context changes a few of the numbers, not all of them, and we'll go through which is which. The fact that you've already pulled the orals and peptides and dropped to a TRT-ish dose shows you took it seriously. That matters.
But I have to be straight with you about one thing before anything else:
You need to see a doctor. Not next month. Soon. I know that's not what you came to a forum to hear, and I know guys hate hearing it. But your panel isn't just "cycle bloods that look bad" it's a cardiometabolic picture that warrants real evaluation by someone who can put hands on you, listen to your heart, check your BP properly, run the tests a forum can't (CAC scan, sensitive E2, fasting insulin, maybe a carotid ultrasound), and tell you where you actually stand on risk. At your age, after 12 weeks at the doses you ran, "I'll fix it myself with lifestyle and a retest" is the kind of plan that works right up until it doesn't. A 20-year-old's body forgives this. Past 40, it doesn't forgive the same way, and the recovery curve is genuinely slower in ways that aren't obvious from the inside.
Find a TRT/men's health clinic that's PED-aware Marek Health, Defy Medical, or similar. Be honest about everything. They've seen worse. Book it this week, not after the June 1 retest. The retest gives you numbers; the doctor visit gives you a plan that the numbers fit into. Different tools.
Now what your update actually changes:
What the pre-test conditions adjust:
No sleep + fasted 12hrs + 5pm draw + all-nighter: This bumps cortisol, which inflates glucose and fructosamine slightly, worsens lipids slightly, and elevates inflammatory markers (CRP). So your fructosamine 286 is probably real but maybe 10-15% inflated. Your hs-CRP 6.69 might be 5-ish on a good day. Still bad. Still warrants action. Not "I'm actually fine."
Nicotine daily (vape): This is a real cardiovascular factor that nobody on the forum has flagged hard enough. Nicotine constricts blood vessels, raises BP, raises hs-CRP independently, accelerates atherosclerosis, and synergizes badly with the lipid picture you have. If you fix everything else perfectly and keep vaping, you're still doing damage. Quitting nicotine is probably the single highest-leverage cardiovascular intervention available to you right now, bigger than any cycle adjustment. I know it's not what you want to hear but it's the truth.
Chronic 4-hour sleep for 2 months: This explains a huge amount of the inflammatory and metabolic picture. Sleep deprivation that severe drives insulin resistance, raises CRP, raises cortisol, tanks recovery, and makes lipid management nearly impossible. Your body has been in a stress state for 2 months. Some of your numbers will improve significantly just from sleep recovery alone.
So the honest read: your panel is still bad, but maybe 15-20% of "bad" is acute lifestyle on top of cycle, and that part fixes fast.
Your new plan what's good:
Dropping all PEDs and peptides, correct call
Going to TRT dose 180mg test/week, good number, that's actual TRT-replacement range
Fish oil hard ✓ — 3-4g EPA/DHA daily is the dose that actually moves trigs and CRP, not 1g
Citrus bergamot ✓ — keep at 1000mg/day, real lipid data
CoQ10 ✓ — fine, especially if you end up on a statin
Zone 2 cardio 30 min/day ✓ — exactly right, this is the cardio that fixes metabolic stuff (high-intensity is good for fitness, zone 2 is good for the mitochondrial/lipid/insulin picture)
PPL split ✓ — fine, training isn't the issue
Your new plan — what's missing or needs adjusting:
The vape has to go. Not negotiable if you're serious. Nicotine is doing real cardiovascular damage independent of the cycle, and on your current panel it's a major risk amplifier. If quitting cold is hard, get nicotine pouches or gum to taper off the vape, then taper off the pouches over 4-6 weeks. Cycle damage you can recover from. Long-term nicotine vascular damage you can't.
Sleep has to be the priority, not the afterthought. Chronic 4-hour sleep will sabotage every other intervention you're making. The fish oil, the cardio, the dropped orals none of it works fully if you're still sleeping 4 hours. If your work schedule is the problem, that's a hard conversation but a real one. Magnesium glycinate 400mg before bed, no screens 1 hour before, cold room, no caffeine after noon, no nicotine within 2 hours of bed (vape disrupts sleep). If sleep doesn't improve in 2-3 weeks, that's a sleep study conversation with a doctor you might have apnea given your weight on cycle, and undiagnosed apnea would explain a lot of your panel.
Add 400mg magnesium glycinate + potassium-rich foods. BP probably wasn't great on cycle even if you didn't measure it. Get a home BP cuff ($30), measure daily for 2 weeks, bring those numbers to the doctor.
Retatrutide question keep it or drop it? This is actually a good question and the answer is nuanced. The lipid/metabolic benefits of GLP-1/GIP/glucagon triple agonists like reta are real improves insulin sensitivity, drops trigs, mildly drops LDL, reduces visceral fat which drops hs-CRP. For someone with your panel, those effects are exactly what you want. BUT: running reta solo, off-cycle, at a lower dose (1mg/week instead of 1.5-2.0mg every 5 days) for the metabolic benefits is a defensible call. The aggressive dosing you were running is more about weight loss than metabolic optimization. The right answer is: ask the doctor. This is exactly the kind of decision that benefits from medical oversight reta has real side effects (gallbladder issues, pancreatitis risk, GI stuff) and the right dose for "lipid help" vs. "weight loss" is different. Don't just keep running it on your own judgment.
On the June 1 retest timing:
Your instinct is right that you want to give the changes time to work. But here's the issue: some markers move fast (CRP, glucose, BP) and some move slow (HDL, ApoB, hematocrit).
My recommendation: don't push the retest later, push it earlier and add markers. Get a 4-week panel around June 18 or 20th focused on the things that move fast: hs-CRP, fasting glucose + HbA1c + fasting insulin (for HOMA-IR), basic lipids, liver enzymes, hematocrit, E2 (sensitive if available), total + free test. This gives you and your doctor a checkpoint to see if you're on the right track before doing the bigger retest July 1-15 with the full panel. Bloods are cheap, information is valuable, and right now you have no idea if the changes are working until then which is too long to wait if something's going wrong.
What to actually monitor at home in the meantime:
BP daily (cuff, same time, sitting, after 5 min rest)
Resting heart rate (watch is fine)
Sleep hours and quality (be honest with yourself)
Weight (don't obsess, but track)
Mood/energy (subjective but real data)
Any chest discomfort, shortness of breath on stairs, calf pain, vision changes → emergency room, not forum
The fact that you are in your 40s :
"Getting old sucks" yeah, but more specifically: recovery from cardiometabolic insult slows with age, the safety margin on cycle gets thinner, and the cumulative damage matters more because you have less repair runway. None of this means you can't keep using gear. It means the lane shifts lower doses, no orals, longer time between cycles or pure TRT, tighter monitoring, more attention to the boring stuff (sleep, BP, nicotine, alcohol). A 25-year-old runs 500/140/30 var and bounces back. A 45+ guy runs the same and his blood vessels remember it for years.
One last thing: the fact that you're worried, you stopped immediately, you've laid out a real plan, you're asking good questions that's a good sign. The guys who get into real trouble are the ones who get bloods like this and double down or hide them. You're doing the opposite. That bodes well. Now stack a doctor visit on top of it and you've actually got a complete plan.
You're going to be okay. But get the appointment booked this week.