Question for you guys. I was told by Dr Calkins when I switched to Defy 3.5 months ago to start taking DHEA @ 25mg/day. I think he told me that it would help with deeper , better sleep. I started taking it at night before bed, and I noticed that it seemed to spike my blood pressure about 30 minutes after taking it.
I couldn’t be sure if it was the DHEA, or just adjusting to the new Test dosage at the same time, but my blood pressure was increasing at night and it was freaking me out (the anxiety I definitely attributed to the change in TRT dosage).
As a test, I started taking the DHEA in the morning after waking and, coincidence or not, the night BP spikes started to subside. I took it that way ever since. Fast forward to now…
My last consult was a few weeks ago and Dr Calkins asked me to up my DHEA dosage to 50mg/day. Not wanting to take it at once, I kept to my 25mg am dose, and added another 25mg right before bedtime. After a couple of weeks of this, I’m noticing my BP starting to creep back up.
Now to tonight and the reason for this post…
I’ve been unable to stay asleep for more than 6 hours straight for at least the last 2-3 years. The DHEA was supposed to help with this, so I, not being entirely convinced just yet that the DHEA was the root of the BP spikes, decided to take skip the 25mg dose this morning and save it to take the full 50mg tonight before bed…Just to see if I had any adverse effects and maybe by some small chance the very good effect of a good long nights sleep. Weeeellll…
An hour later and BP shot through the roof at 160/90!
I’m beginning to be fairly sure that it’s the DHEA, so my question is have any of you guys experience this type of side effect with supplementing this as well?
This is interesting and I’ll do some more reading on this.
I think I may cut it out altogether for a few weeks and just see what changes I notice. If I put it back into the stack, it’ll be back in the morning. I don’t seem to notice small BP spikes I much then because I’m active and moving around anyway. At night it’s so much more pronounced because I’m trying to be perfectly at rest to fall asleep. Very little nuance seems to be amplified at that time.
On a positive note, about an hour after I made that post, my BP came back down to 125/80. This morning upon waking it was 110/80. It’s definitely supplement related because I can’t imagine that BP would naturally have that much fluctuation without outside influence. I could be wrong though.
Glad you mentioned this. Last night I actually slept all night without getting up for my 1x overnight piss. Difference I took 8-9 mg melatonin instead of my usually 4-5 mg. Is this too much?
Yeah the more I read the more I see the DHEA is converted by the body to test and estrogen. Test I have covered…estrogen I think is readily covered as well without outside help! Lol
It’s starting to make more sense. When I switched to 25mg in the morning, that worked very well. I’m thinking this is because that is the same time I also take the estro regulator containing DIM. That probably offset any immediate spikes in estrogen. When I took it last night, there was nothing left of the DIM to help keep that spike from happening from the 50mg dose.
What do you guys think about this theory. Hold water?
I was suggested to start 1 pill and every night take 1 more until it creates the sleep effect. Some take 1 pill and feel nothing at all. I’ve heard some need 3 or 4 or More.
I tried two pills and it didn’t make a difference from the one pill dose.
Not any sleepier or more drowsy.