My experience with Tribulus - effects and side effects

Therapeutic Efforts Supplements & Lifestyle
#1

Hi guys,

After 2.5 years of waiting to get better and not getting better, I finally decided to start testing various supplements. I recently took Maca for a month but I only took the standard recommended dose and it did nothing. A week ago I started using Tribulus. It is definitely doing something – not too much, but much better than nothing. I am still experimenting with dosages but I am experiencing some side effects. I am trying to find out what the side effects are due to.

The Tribulus is from an established brand and it says it is standardized to 90% saponins. It says nothing about protodioscins. Each capsule is 750mg. I started taking one capsule a day and then gradually increased to 4 over a couple of days. I wasn’t getting side effects so I kept raising the dose. I think I took 6 capsules two days ago (which was the highest I was going to go) and got really sick upon taking the final two capsules. I took nothing yesterday and recovered.

Today I took 2 capsules in the morning and was fine until I took a third capsule in the evening and immediately started getting sick again. Interestingly I didn’t get sick with 3 capsules earlier in the week when I was ramping up the dose so the effect must have been accumulating. Obviously these are very high doses. The recommended dose is 1 capsule.

Here is what happens when I say I get sick. I get extremely dizzy to the extent that I have to lie down. I also feel pressure inside my head and get headache. I have never had high blood pressure so I don’t know what that feels like but it feels as if I am getting that. Additionally, I get shortness of breath, what feels like more rapid and stronger heart beat, and perhaps tingling on my skin.

The side effects last for a while and then subside. The headache persists the longest. It took 36 hours for it to go away when I first got sick two days ago.

Now, I am not one to get psychosomatic side effects or placebo effects from things. I am extremely aware of my body and always can tell exactly what effect I am getting from what. So these are definitely real physical effects. The question is are they due to higher testosterone, higher estrogen, some toxic effect of tribulus itself, or changing blood viscosity (thinning of blood can happen from various supplements and that can lead to headache). Has anyone gotten any of these side effects from Tribulus or other protocols they have tried?

I am going to talk more about the therapeutic effects in the future. I am still observing and evaluating. There is a small but definite improvement in libido and erections. The effect is not huge but might still be meaningful, as my baseline is around 1-2%.

There are also some psychological improvements - I feel more optimistic about the future and enthusiastic about things, which naturally follows from improved libido and higher interest in sex and romance. I am also a bit more aggressive and assertive. The psychological effects take longer to manifest themselves so I will need more time to evaluate those.

Some background about my PFS symptoms: My biggest problem is lack of libido and also sexual dysfunction. I also have psychological effects secondary to the lack of libido such as anhedonia, depression and lack of motivation. Finally, I have joint pain, skin dryness, urinary problems and shrinkage.

I am happy to hear any comments or insights about any of this.

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#2

Your symptoms are PFS related, tribulus doesnt do this. I took 9g tribulus every day for months with no side effects. Your dose is low.

#3

Tribulus stopped working for me. I had read other people saying that it (and other things they had tried) had stopped working for them at some point but I never knew what to make of these reports. Now I know they are true. Why that happens is an open question for me. Clearly there is some sort of adaptation that happens or a feedback loop get activated.

#4

Are you still taking it?How are you?

#5

Maybe the dose youre taking is too high. The idea behind gradually ramping up the dosage is to get the body used to (gradually) increasing levels of androgens, not to overwhelm the body with massive, relatively sudden increases of androgens.

My own personal experience with tribulus is that I CAN tolerate 3+ pills of tribulus (I think we use the same kind btw, tribX-90, even if we dont the strengths and mgs are the same) however I respond better to a single pill of tribulus. Taking 3+ pills of tribulus doesnt really affect me in any way at all

That being said, in the past before I used soy I would get negative side effects by just taking a single pill of tribulus, I could only tolerate like 1/4 a pill of tribulus at the time. After doing a few cycles of soy I could comfortably take 3+ pills of tribulus with no negative side effects. My theory about this is that there are actually two things to consider here. First of all we have to consider “negative tolerance”, that is to say, we have to consider how much of a substance our body can take before we begin to experience negative side effects; the second thing to consider is how sensitive our body is to a given substance in terms of experiencing positive effects. Previously I was under the impression that “negative tolerance” and “positive sensitivity” were one and the same, but my experiments so far suggest otherwise.

For me currently, my negative tolerance has been decreased drastically by doing a few soy cycles (IE I can take 3+ pills of tribulus without experiencing any negative side effects) however my positive sensitivity to tribulus has not significantly increased. As I said before, I get optimal effects by just taking a single pill of tribulus and I get steadily decreasing benefits the higher I increase the dosage of tribulus. Therefore I have come to the conclusion that I have to separately focus on increasing androgen receptor sensitivity and that simply using soy alone is not sufficient to induce androgen receptor sensitivity.

As for increasing androgen receptor sensitivity I think the key to doing this is using “threshold dosing”. That is to say, we need to use the bare minimum of a substance to trigger an effect in the receptor and gradually increase the dosage from there. In order to do this, currently im using a pill cutter to cut the tribulus pills in half and trying out a dosing schedule that looks like this:

day 1: half a pill
day 2: half a pill
day 3: one pill
day 4: one pill
day 5: half a pill
day 6: none
day 7: half a pill

Its too early to say whether or not this will be effective, but I think its something worth experimenting with. Ideally I would like to cut the tribulus pills I have into fourths but this is impractical since the pill itself contains powder which obviously makes splitting the pill properly difficult. Previously I was trying this dosing schedule:

day 1: one pill
day 2: one pill
day 3: two pills
day 4: three pills
day 5: two pills
day 6: one pill
day 7: one pill

However the effects of this dosing schedule were just soso and ironically I noticed that the positive effects from the tribulus decreased as I increased the dosages. Like I previously suggested though, I think when it comes to increasing “positive sensitivity”, the key concept to keep in mind is that “less is more”, we are trying to gradually trigger the receptors, not overwhelm them

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I believe tribulus has cured me!
Update: still completely recovered, raging libido for the last four years
About crashing on supplement and meds
#6

Would you be up for trying something I did? This is just a suggestion ofc, and I wouldn’t want to be responsible for you hurting yourself.

I tried to ape @NYscientist 's sulforaphane remedy and took a LOT of it a while back, in varying doses. I think my most ‘successful’ was 20 tablets/ day (10/am 10/pm) of Jarrow’s BroccoMax for three/four days iirc. Funnily enough around those times I think I was drinking soy milk too (don’t ask me why) and it definitely did a world of good.

Pretty much only want to field that to you as it’s in line with what you’re trying, and did give me some benefit. Of course much warnings about anti-androgens having harmed people here before.

I may run it again myself at some point and see.

#7

I might try it later on down the line but right now im not messing with any anti-androgens, currently androgen receptor density or over-expression doesnt seem to be my problem; my only problem seems to be androgen receptor sensitivity itself. This is what im trying to solve by using threshold dosing of tribulus

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#8

I wrote elsewhere about this. I took a couple of cycles over 5 months. It was working at the beginning but with each new cycle it lost effectiveness (including side effects). Right now I feel nothing when I take it. I am taking a long break from Tribulus and going to try other things.

#9

Then why don’t you cycle each testosterone booster per a day like cdnut protocol?
Depending on only herb is less effective,in my opinion.

#10

I think everything needs to be cycled. You cant take any one thing for a long period. This goes for sleep meds, tribulus, etc… This is theoretically why CDnuts works for some people. He cycles like 13 herbs. But some argue he was a fake. But I cant imagine taking the time and effort he did take make a tiny amount of money off a small group of people. But I do think if he did have PFS… it was marginal and probably more of a low T scenario.

#11

Do you think we should cycle even amino acids?(arginine,taurine etc)
I don’t think cdnut is a fraud,neither.If so,He has been lying for more than ten years.
Also each testosterone booster has possibility and hazard.We should start very low dose and observe ourselves.

#12

Boosting T doesnt really seem to solve anyones issues on here. If it did, everyone could go on hormone replacement and be fixed. Its how your body converts T to DHT and how the androgen receptors function. I personally have taken the path of work out, strength train, cardio, eat diverse foods… Let the body figure out its new homeostasis. My opinion is that if you keep throwing supplements at your body, it never can figure out what homeostasis is. But that is just my personal opinion and its what I think is the best path for me based on my situation. As for amino acids… I dont know if cycling is the right approach. I would say anything T boosting should be cycled. None of it works for very long if you keep using it. Maybe get blood work done and see what your hormones are. You might have high levels and not even know it.

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#13

Guys! I don’t understand what is going on anymore. Im doing my last low dose cycles of Tribulus and when i took 1 pill my flaccid penis becomes more thick and healthy.

But thats all. In contrary my libido is very low these days. I don’t want to say my libido decreased when i start to taking tribulus, im not sure but its not working for me i think.
So, in theory our Androgen Receptors fucked up and Tribulus increases their density, this is proven in rat study. But why its not working on me? I don’t know what to try now. If this is mot working what should we do?

#14

I’ve been in homeostatis for 4 years. I waited that long, nothing have fixed. Although im very mild case and my only semptom seemed low semen volume back then. Now i have more symptoms and libido loss etc. I tried Androgenic supplements this winter and got worse after short libido increase. What should i do now. If 4 years wasnt enough than what to do now? Thanks.

#16

I dont know man. We are all flying in the dark here. I dont know what you have tried… Water fast? (i know everyone hates to argue if thats any good) Keto? Do you lift weights? Do cardio? I would almost say… try CBD. I’m experimenting with it now to see if it improves some sleep / vision issues. Have you done bloods before and after trialing Tribulus? have you also tried pine pollen?