Any of You Use Pregnenolne and DHEA?

Pharma / TRT Testosterone Replacement
1

I found this info written by TRT Dr. Crisler:

“I nearly always add HCG, DHEA and pregnenolone to the TRT regimen. Inserting these hormones helps restore natural hormonal pathways, “backfilling” them, if you will, once we have suppressed the HPTA with TRT. We will probably never know all the intermediary steps in these pathways, much less all the actions of each substance upon the body. In my professional opinion, this is the current state-of-the-art in TRT medicine.”

Any of you use pregnenolone or DHEA?

2

Not many, but DHEA does have a greater degree of use. Some have reported [not here] that pregnenolone allowed their adrenals to make more DHEA.

When I started TRT without hCG, my pregnenolone and DHEA went down. I assumed that this was from HPTA shutdown and less [or no] pregnenolone from the testes. There are many references to the testes been a major source of pregnenolone, however a few dispute this, perhaps misinterpreting a clinical research paper.

The HRT principle is that maintaining youthful levels will support youthful attributes and metabolism that supports ones sense of well-being as well as functional systems, and that this can not be intrinsically harmful.

3

one of my doctors prescribed those when I switched to him, and I was on both for over a year.

SIDE NOTE: oral DHEA is known to increase a certain enzyme. That enzyme is what clears drugs, hormones, DHEA, etc. out of your system faster - so the more oral DHEA you take, the faster your body clears it (per dr. mariano I think). DHEA can be beneficial, but only up to a certain amount (like 50mg daily I think) - and it is not for everyone.

for me personally, DHEA seemed to convert to Estriol bypassing Testosterone. while on DHEA, I had to take 1mg Arimidex a day or else I experienced symptoms (but 1mg Arimidex also caused symptoms of its own). Eliminating DHEA allowed me to drop my Arimidex to .25mg EOD.

Oral Pregnenolone can have a valium like effect on some people causing mental fog and other issues. Transdermal Pregnenolone does not show up in blood tests (per Dr. Crisler) and since it does not show up, it is hard to imagine that it is actually doing anything.

JanSz on another forum is doing an experiment and trying out Lipid Matrix Micronized Pregnenolone on the theory that it bypasses the first pass through the liver. He has had some remarkable results with it - taking less Cortisol, less Thyroid meds, etc.)

For me personally, I tested out different combinations and amounts at different times - my results were:
60mg Oral Pregnenolone = possible mental fog and apparant prostate issues (awareness of prostate)
100mg Lipid Matrix Pregnenolone = initial sense of well being, but then zero libido and total loss of physical sensations down below (too much conversion to Progesterone canceling out DHT??)
25mg Lipid Matrix Pregnenolone = immediate awareness of prostate (too much conversion to DHEA to Androstetione to bad 2:16 Estriol ratio??)

I will be getting a blood test this week so I will be able to see what my levels are now off of Pregnenolone and DHEA vs the time I was on 50mg DHEA and 60mg oral Pregnenolone + a whole host of conversion ratios -

My wife (who has multiple thyroid, estrogen, progesterone issues. her last pregnenolone test showed she was at 7 (yes, only 7 - with a range of 20-150). I am trying to convince her to give Pregnenolone a try, but she is resistant. She will be getting a new workup in a week or two, so if those come in drastically low again, then I am going to push the issue some more.

4

Note re DHEA oral doses: It is hard to make a hard statement about how much to take or not take when there is a vast difference in how people absorb things like this. I have to take a small spoonful of DHEA powder to get my levels up. My bother gets good levels with 25mg.

5

[quote]KSman wrote:
Note re DHEA oral doses: It is hard to make a hard statement about how much to take or not take when there is a vast difference in how people absorb things like this. I have to take a small spoonful of DHEA powder to get my levels up. My bother gets good levels with 25mg. [/quote]
I have great results with TD DHEA verified by 24 hour urine testing that it is getting absorbed. Would low cholesterol require a person to need pregenolone?

6

Cholesterol is converted to pregnenolone in the mitochondria. Not aware of other mechanisms, could be others.

I don’t think that there is any regulation. That implies that the levels are open-loop; so no control point. That implies that the production is somewhat rate limited by cholesterol levels and my mitochondrial metabolism. That in turn affected by cell wall permeability [EFA’s], CoQ10, acetyl-l-carnitine, lipoic acid, anti-oxidants and cumulative aging/damage. As we age, mitochondrial function is impaired, so less cholesterol will be consumed that way. Perhaps that contributed to higher cholesterol levels.

LEF.org had some good articles years ago, cases were cholesterol levels were very low with many other coincident hormone imbalances. In these cases, individuals had [extreme] diets corrected, with health fats and steroid hormone levels sell corrected.