Blood levels of pregnenolone after a year on 400mg a day

[Dicky]

He ended up coming off everything after playing around with MAO inhibitors like I am and attributed all his issues to stress and a bad cutting cycle when he was a kid. He also tried to take down everything he wrote in most places as I recall, presumably to avoid leading people down the rabbit hole he fell down and for legal reasons. Everyone should always exercise a lot of caution when reading the accounts of others doing a bunch of things as we’re all different and learning when it comes to this.

Having played around with everything and more than most people can get access to, at least in my case I got a lot of the same benefits as being on T4 + cortisone as I did when simply doing a low carb diet, and being potentially ketogenic some of the time. In my case I couldn’t keep doing that, however, because it lowered my T3 too much and made some debilitating gut issues a lot worse and ruined my already poor sleep at the time. Sleep now is great, though depending on my thyroid and diet I might be a little too tired in the morning. Originally my experience with T4 and cortisone made me think the cortisone caused some massive issues but I found out much later that it was something else.

Right now I’m actually trying to go down on T3 again and get by with just T4 and go lower carb again. Lower carb and higher fat seems to up dopamine levels, and since that’s my general trend that I’m going for, I want to see if I can make it work now that some of my gut issues are healed. I also want to do it because T3 ruins my already ruined glycogen retention as I’m really sensitive to it, and carbs in general require a lot of hydration that my body sucks at after finasteride. Carbs using up water to process is probably why they bring so much water into the body, but I suck at that right now. If I eat more without T3, I get dehydration marks on my face and my skin gets really dry and bad.

Cortisone and T4 together raised my fasting insulin without lowering my cortisol, which for me is good, and I’m trying to see if I can do that with T4 and adrenal glandulars as just the cortex didn’t really work well for me. Even on T4 and T3 with the whole glandular my glycogen retention starts shooting up and my A1C is more normal, before having been too low. Last time it was 5.1, which for me is probably the highest it’s ever been. Pregnenolone didn’t help my A1C at all and I still had a low 3’s A1C on it back in February. My experience being on levothyroxine and even just a little bit of the lowest dose of Pure brand Adrenal Glandular was similar to being on a low dose of cortisone with levothyroxine in a way that built up day over day. It’s not from the aldosterone in it as fludrocortisone actually makes things for me a lot worse, especially if I eat potassium as it just shoots it out of my body. There is likely dopamine in the glandular but for me and the other issues it helps with, it might be that it has cortisone in there, or that I’m able to deactive the cortisol in it in a way that my body can’t do with hydrocortisone. Or something completely different I’ll learn years later if ever, but that’s where I’m at.

It also helps me tolerate DHEA, which competes with cortisol. I dropped it because it helped with some things but mine is really low despite all the preg and HCG, and I do like the mental benefits I got from 50mg a day in the morning, so I’m also back on that.

The adrenal glandular also gives me a normal person’s body odor, which cortisone was one of the only other things that allowed that. Without that even if I can get myself to sweat there’s no odor. Sounds weird as a positive outcome but I’m always happy with anything that brings me closer to being human again.

I can't help but be impressed with all of the different meds that you've cycled through to get to the root of your issues.

I'm also jealous of your A1C. Even when I was doing very low carb, the lowest I got down to was 5.5. And I am a very lean person, clocking in at 8.8% body fat on one of those "In Body" machines. I did low carb for over 2 years. I have since gone more moderate carb, and my A1C is up to 5.7. I'd like to see it down to 5.3 or 5.4 at most. But I have done about all I know to do and nothing got me down that low. If I could tolerate Metformin I would take that. Sadly Met does not agree with my gut at all.

 

[Anonymon]

I can't help but be impressed with all of the different meds that you've cycled through to get to the root of your issues.

I'm also jealous of your A1C. Even when I was doing very low carb, the lowest I got down to was 5.5. And I am a very lean person, clocking in at 8.8% body fat on one of those "In Body" machines. I did low carb for over 2 years. I have since gone more moderate carb, and my A1C is up to 5.7. I'd like to see it down to 5.3 or 5.4 at most. But I have done about all I know to do and nothing got me down that low. If I could tolerate Metformin I would take that. Sadly Met does not agree with my gut at all.

Haha, I wish I never had to try anything! I didn’t have much of a choice though. After finasteride and some complications it caused in me, my life wasn’t something most people would describe as livable, and although I did okay through plenty of periods, I didn’t want to have to settle for feeling diminished in various ways. Some of my issues were also a little more dire than others I’ve heard about and seemingly got worse over time, and the trajectory was looking pretty grim. Unfortunately because I’m not fat and am fairly muscular and I have blood markers like a low A1C and low blood pressure, I’d show up to doctors and mostly be told congratulations instead of being helped, so I didn’t have any other options but alternative means. I used to think people with things like fibromyalgia were crazy whiners, but after everything I’ve gone through and seen and experienced, I mostly feel really bad for anyone with a health issue off the beaten path.

Have you tried Berberine? My fasting blood sugar was never high, but went down by about 10-15 points from around 1500-1600mgs a day spread out with meals. I take it for other reasons but it’s typically considered a nice alternative to metformin for people that can’t tolerate metformin. Fasting blood sugar and A1C are different metrics, but it might be something worth looking into as many people with issues like that use it with great success.

Before all this I used to love lower carb and intermittent fasting and all that, but I don’t do well with that anymore. I can’t really do low carb while on my thyroid meds anyway as I felt like death with that and T3.

 

[Dicky]

Haha, I wish I never had to try anything! I didn’t have much of a choice though. After finasteride and some complications it caused in me, my life wasn’t something most people would describe as livable, and although I did okay through plenty of periods, I didn’t want to have to settle for feeling diminished in various ways. Some of my issues were also a little more dire than others I’ve heard about and seemingly got worse over time, and the trajectory was looking pretty grim. Unfortunately because I’m not fat and am fairly muscular and I have blood markers like a low A1C and low blood pressure, I’d show up to doctors and mostly be told congratulations instead of being helped, so I didn’t have any other options but alternative means. I used to think people with things like fibromyalgia were crazy whiners, but after everything I’ve gone through and seen and experienced, I mostly feel really bad for anyone with a health issue off the beaten path.

Have you tried Berberine? My fasting blood sugar was never high, but went down by about 10-15 points from around 1500-1600mgs a day spread out with meals. I take it for other reasons but it’s typically considered a nice alternative to metformin for people that can’t tolerate metformin. Fasting blood sugar and A1C are different metrics, but it might be something worth looking into as many people with issues like that use it with great success.

Unfortunately berberine gives me the same loose guts as does metformin.

About your experience with doctors... It's interesting with people like you who are in good shape. I feel like many doctors when confronted with unusual symptoms like yours can easily whip out some tried and true bromides to give them something to point to. They'll say, "oh you need to lose weight". You need to exercise more, you need to eat better or lower your blood sugar or cholesterol. But when someone like you comes in that has all of those things under control, they don't know what to do.

 

[Anonymon]

Unfortunately berberine gives me the same loose guts as does metformin.

About your experience with doctors... It's interesting with people like you who are in good shape. I feel like many doctors when confronted with unusual symptoms like yours can easily whip out some tried and true bromides to give them something to point to. They'll say, "oh you need to lose weight". You need to exercise more, you need to eat better or lower your blood sugar or cholesterol. But when someone like you comes in that has all of those things under control, they don't know what to do.

The first doctor I went to actually ignored me and sent in a nurse that didn’t speak English well enough to understand me, then sent me for a blood test I actually wasn’t able to take at the time they sent me, nor did that lab actually do those tests. I just walked out and never came back, got better health insurance since I never even really went to the doctor before, and went to a much nicer place. That lady told me that based on my CBC and lipid panel being good, it was probably all in my head and I should go see a psychiatrist for bipolar based on—and I shit you not—the fact that I said I used to be pretty energetic but now feel tired all the time. I am the calmest person anyone has usually met. I had also told her I needed to eat really large amounts of salt or I felt a lot worse and would get marks on my skin, and she said that couldn’t possibly help anything or be true, so I should stop that immediately. I’d paid a lot of money to go there so I begrudgingly took her advice despite it going poorly in the past, then went to the ER twice shortly after because the reason I needed all that salt was apparently my potassium was too high and cortisol too low. When I stopped that, I started having migraines everywhere and couldn’t stop passing out. Actually split my neck open on the second time and had to go in for stitches while spewing blood all over the place. I was calm then too as everyone freaked out all around me.

I brought that up with this same doc—who I’m going to call Giant Kunt—and she denied it could have been from lowering my sodium intake despite me having more again immediately ceasing my passing out and migraines. I even told her what the ER guy said—who I ended up knowing from my gym—and she just discounted it. I did that song and dance with different folks for almost a year. I’d ask for a testosterone test on day one since this all started after I came off finasteride and when I finally did get one, what do you know, I came back low, just like I thought I would on day one of talking to her.

I had looked her up to leave a bad review, and found some kind of crowdfunding thing for her because she claimed someone she subleased her place to was trying to steal it from her and she needed legal fees to avoid being kicked out. Ended up finding an opposing crowdfunding page for the person on the other end of that also asking for legal fee help. I made it rain on the other lady. Giant Kunt ended up getting kicked out and left the place I had been going to.

Love my docs now but holy crap did I have some bad experiences. If you find a doc you like, lock them down and send them birthday cards and Christmas gifts.

 

[Anonymon]

Can you help me ?

With what?

 

[Anonymon]

Testosterone does in a well documented way lower your cortisol, but for most people that seems to be a good thing. With me, having tried so many things and tracking it all, I personally think that people like me have issues more related to cortisol mismanagement than it necessarily being too low because straight up hydrocortisone actually sucks for me whereas cortisone acetate was mostly nice.