Blood work, can someone take a look at it please

[dova]

Bloodwork will be done in 2 months. Doc want to wait for the moment.
In a previous post you told me to try 2 x100mg of pregnenolone and maybe add dhea at 50mg. I tried 150mg pregnenolone a day for about 2 weeks and i couldn't tolerate it. I was like someone with adhd. The feeling was not good. So now i'm back on 2x50mg pregnenolone per day and dhea 25mg in the evening. for the moment, the feeling is good. So, i like to stay on this for the next 2 months and the see what the bloodwork say.
I will keep posting my feelings.
I also dropped the resolor (prucalopride) and for the moment the stomach is doing well.

[dova]

Ok, here i'm again with an update.
It seems that Jelisej is right, again!
But only if you try for yourself, you can actually feel what it is.
The first days of DHEA where good, but after that i felt more anxious and nervous again.
The same happened when i upped the dose of pregnenolone to 150mg. Still it was not the same feeling.
With dhea there was more anxiousness and nervousness. With higher doses of pregnenolone there was also a feeling of more happiness and some adhd feelings.
Now i'm back on 2x50mg pregnenolone a day and i'm feeling good. Not super, it can better than this, but it's way better than it was before any treatment.
It seems that higher doses of pregnenolone and dhea raise my levels of dhea more than i can handle.

[Jelisej]

Well, the best thing is that so far your adrenals are still coping, there was not crash as we feared. At the moment main thing is to find right dosage of testosterone, to avoid excessive aromatisation but to keep free test. at good levels. pregn. and DHEA dosage is to be gauged at future, and after that we can try to work bit more on neurotransmitters and "psych" side- but it will be while till that point. Its important to do one step at the time.
Also, hopefully your doc will do bit more extensive bloodworks, if not than it would be good idea to do some extra test by yourself, same day, actually best clinic for bloodworks in Europe is in Belgium- Hertoghe uses that one.

Back to preg. and DHEA- one of likely reasons what happens when you go with higher doses is that probably your thyroid hormones (fT3 I think) are not sufficient enough, so they dont metabolise properly, or better said they dont cascade into other hormones properly. That would be my guess, we'll se in future what happens.

[dova]

Thanks,

Lets say that the "psych"-side is the best in 8 years. I can always better, but for the moment i feel good.
Can you explain what you mean with the crash from the adrenals. Or what symptoms i would have if i crashed.

Bloodwork is important to know where you are, but i find feelings also very important.
Hope the doc will do further extensive bloodwork. I'll ask for it.

You mentioned the thyroid. What i learned the last months is that all the things that are working with my pituitary are on the low side of normal before treatment. test, adrenals and thyroid. Maybe the rathe-cleft cyste has something to do with it. I'm sorry, i hope you understand what i want to say, but i can't exactly explain in English and google translate is not the best option for such translations ;-)

[Jelisej]

"Bloodwork is important to know where you are, but i find feelings also very important. "- I agree on that but to get to the point where you can do things by "how you feel" you need to have lot of experience otherwise things can go very wrong , very often is hard to "understand" where some symptoms are coming from, and some issues dont present strong symptoms till very end, and on top of that people have different symptoms- and sometimes two extremes can have same symptoms- for example in my case (and some other folks) both low and high E2 usually have same symptoms.

" What i learned the last months is that all the things that are working with my pituitary are on the low side of normal before treatment"- yes, now we can conclude that you are secondary, and your pituary function seems impaired- for example thyroid levels did increase somewhat tough response should have been better, and it remains to be seen in future what will happen and what scenario will be best for you.

"Can you explain what you mean with the crash from the adrenals. Or what symptoms i would have if i crashed." - basically you would feel really bad, really weak, fatigued in worst case you would maybe even collapsed or end up in emergency- If I remeber you said that something like that happened to you in past.
I think that reducing testosterone and adding pregnenolone helped here a bit, tough danger is still present.

Bottom line of what I'm trying to say is that there are still too many dangers and pitfalls which can undo all benefits or make things even worse- so please be carefull, dont get to carried away, dont experiment too much, dont make quick decisions..... Be patient.

As for English- I do understand you perfectly well, also English is not my first language either.

"Lets say that the "psych"-side is the best in 8 years. I can always better, but for the moment i feel good."- this is what I like to hear, and that also what motivates me- I think and hope that things will be event better.

[dova]

I agree on that but to get to the point where you can do things by "how you feel" you need to have lot of experience otherwise things can go very wrong , very often is hard to "understand" where some symptoms are coming from, and some issues dont present strong symptoms till very end, and on top of that people have different symptoms- and sometimes two extremes can have same symptoms- for example in my case (and some other folks) both low and high E2 usually have same symptoms. What i want to say about the 'E2-feeling'. I never had extreme levels of E2. I started with adex and i feel i go down, down, and even more down. First i start to notice that my erections are getting stronger, then i go lower and my libido is gone, dry skin, dry hair, stiff joints. I stop the ai and after a couple of days, sometimes a week or more, my libido is returning, my joints are more flexible. after some time my skin is more oily, hair is more oily. And at the time my hands are swelling, the erections get weaker but libido remains. That for me is the point where my E2 gets too high. I don't know any blood values, i can't predict them, but that is my feeling about E2. Of course we need the know where we are.

basically you would feel really bad, really weak, fatigued in worst case you would maybe even collapsed or end up in emergency- If I remeber you said that something like that happened to you in past.
I think that reducing testosterone and adding pregnenolone helped here a bit, tough danger is still present. Have not felt these symptoms yet. Luckily. I was in emergency, but not with these issues. It was after i stopped the cymbalta (duloxetine) without tapering down.

Bottom line of what I'm trying to say is that there are still too many dangers and pitfalls which can undo all benefits or make things even worse- so please be carefull, dont get to carried away, dont experiment too much, dont make quick decisions..... Be patient. Yes, i will. For the moment i stay on the same protocol. The difficult part for me, i think, is the E2-control. And in 6 weeks i have another bloodwork.

Little story how my doctor thinks. I was with him last thuesday for my prescriptions and every time he must tell me that he normally don't prescribe that stuff, but that he keeps prescribing them because i feel good with them. We are the same age (39) and he understands that i otherwise don't have a life. Just able too work and for the rest of the day washed out in the sofa. Full of antidepressants, no libido, suicide feelings....
So, i asked him what do you do if i was very obese. I tell hem high blood pressure, you give me medication. High cholesterol, you give me medication. Too much sugar in my blood, you give me medication. Yes, he told me, because you need them. I need these medications, i tell him, because i have fucked up my body with a bunch of crap food. Yes, so you give me medication, so that i can keep going with that life-style. He agreed.
I asked him why are you so afraid to prescribe hrt. The answer was, your bloodwork never showed a shortage. Agree, i'm always on the lower side with my hormones. They call it low normal. So, i tell him that i have values of a good 70 year old man. Because you think i'm in range i must feel like a 70 year old men? I still wait for his answer, but i have my prescriptions.

[dova]

It's me again.

This week some problems with my boss at work. He does not want to give me the promotion i deserve.

In the morning, i'm anxious, nervous and pissed off because of that problem. It's always in my head. (i take 50mg of pregnenolone in the morning).
At noon, i take my second dose of pregnenolone and 1 hour later i'm more relaxed, less nervous, more the feeling of 'kiss my ass'.
Probably something to do with the second dose of pregnenolone?

Someone can explain this to me why this happens (cortisol - dhea levels?)and can give me advise of the dose pregnenolone or something else.
But remember that i tried 100mg in the morning and 50 mg at noon and it was too much for me.

Thanks

[Jelisej]

I think without extensive blood tests both in morning and in afternoon its hard to tell, as there are so many variables involved- hormones (especially adrenal) then neurotransmitters etc...
Possible explanations is that your cortisol is too low in morning and it peaks up a bit in afternoon which calms you down, other possibility is that pregnenolone dose in morning top up pregnenolone and then gets bit converted to progesterone in afternoon- and progesterone does have calming effect on brain, even calming and sometimes it can have similar effect to bromo-diazepams and for that reason can even reduce libido (which bromo-diazepans very often do).

Again, this is a guesswork- best thing at the moment is to play with pregnenolone- to see what works best for you, you may try multiple doses a day etc....


P.S.: For God's sake, why are you wearing red miniskirt?

[dova]

Thanks,

I play with the dose pregnenolone and see what works best for the moment.
Begin november i have new bloodwork.

P.S.: For God's sake, why are you wearing red miniskirt? Don't you like my new outfit?

[dova]

Finally, a hard week is past. And i survived it. I started with 100mg pregnenolone in the morning and it really works like a benzo. But with no side-effects for me. In the afternoon the effect faded away and i still felt ok. For now, i'm back on 50mg in the morning and 50mg at noon and everything is allright.
With trt i can keep my head together, and i don't crash like before. Big improvement, i must say.
Thanks for the support everybody!!