I am thinking about trying TRT but don’t want to permanently shutdown my own production and be reliant on it for life. Can I take it with ASTB? 

TRT does not have to start as a lifelong commitment. You’re not getting married to TRT and even if you were, with every marriage divorce is always an option. You could start a TRT protocol and test drive it for three to six months and decide from there if you want to continue.  Three to six months is long enough to assess the benefits as well as the negatives and also not long enough to shut down natural production beyond the point of no return. Especially if you opt to use testosterone cream which is less suppressive than the shots.  If you decide it is not for you, you can gradually reduce the dosage and wean yourself off over time. If you were taking  Enclomiphene citrate, HCG (Human chorionic gonadotropin), or ASTB with your TRT regimen then you likely kept natural production going and will continue to produce testosterone when completely off TRT.  You could also choose any of these options after desisting TRT to get your own production pumping again. If ASTB or Clomid for example produce high levels of LH (Luteinizing hormone) in which levels are at the high end of the scale or even past it and you still have low testosterone levels then natural methods alone are unlikely to get you to where you want to be. At this point, you may want to consider combining natural production methods with some exogenous testosterone for ideal results. 

It makes sense to use TRT with a treatment option that will mitigate natural production from shutting down completely. Dr. Mark Gordon uses Clomid with many of his TRT patients for this purpose. An additional benefit of using Clomid with TRT is you generally won’t have to use as much testosterone to get your levels into the optimal range. For example, if your total testosterone is 550 ng/dl and free testosterone 85 pg/ml with Cloimid but you need to get over 800 ng/dl and over 120 pg/ml to feel your best then you will likely need less testosterone then someone who has a starting total testosterone level of 250 ng/dl and barely detectable free testosterone levels. Using protocols to keep your own production from shutting down will reduce the likelihood of testicular shrinkage as you aren’t relying completely on exogenous testosterone.  Using the lowest TRT dosage to get you feeling your best is also prudent to avoid negative side effects. Also, if you decide to stop using TRT, you can continue with Clomid, HCG, or ASTB to bring your levels back up as much as possible.