Do you guys think low growth hormone would have any effect on TRT. I was just doing some googling and came across one guy on a bodybuilding forum who said he was on a pretty high dose of testosterone for TRT through his doc and wasn’t getting any effect in regards to libido, energy, well-being etc. He asked his doc to check his growth hormone and sure enough he was low. Soon as he added in HGH to his regime everything came together and he felt like a million bucks in every aspect. He said he figured because of his low gh his androgen receptors were down-regulated and by added gh into his regime they became up-regulated again.
FeedMeMore likes to play the my estrogen too low card. I looked up some of his tests which showed total estrogens normal high with low free t. Maybe he has one test showing one low estrogen metabolite? FeedMeMore what is your free estrogen number? FeedMeMore is also a SP user not fin user FYI.
SPStricken also SP user stating low blood total estradiol. But I think keepmg had higher estradiol and arimidex helped he also took SP. If you do a search here you will see lots of people with low free t and normal/high free e
My total T , free T,DHT , and E all are low.It makes sense if your total T is low then how would you get high E? E is derived from T.
blood E means almost nothing - You need to know what free E is this will correlate to symtoms.
It must be added that low neurosteroids are not the cause of the problem, neither is high estrogen, they are just adding to the symtoms. The problem is why have the 5a reduced metabolites stayed low, what is stopping the 5ar2 pathway from functioning properly.
I would say why DHT (even by passing 5AR) is not working or giving opposite effects.(to some DHT gave more shirinkage)
You both are way off. DHT works fine - Try high dose TRT as I DID - You will grow body hair and you will need to shave more and you will loose hair on your head. You talk about some limited study about neurosteroids as the be all and end all when it reality it sheds very little light on anything. You can not dismiss ideas like estrogen dominance anyone doing some quick research on the internet knows what happens if you take too much oral estradiol you are very likely to get PFS. This will happen if your a man or a woman. I have posted links of normal people with PFS induced symptoms from regular hormonal treatments till I am blue in the face. Do I know how their nuerosteroids changed as a result of these hormonal treatments - no but if they have the same symtoms of us / me perhaps their neurosteroids are at the same levels as us during those treatments. Suppress your testosterone to way below range please and you will see that it serverly MESSES with your head - Changes in neurosteroids are secondary to the changes in hormones. I think everyone here should go and do this send your testosterone to 1.1 on a scale of (3 to 8) you will learn a lot about PFS - just don;t jump of a cliff.
“Posted previously on 4-3-11 about “panic attacks”. I’m 7 wks post-op and was on Vivelle dot .075 for 6 weeks and had first panic attack last Monday but my dr thought it might be a reaction to flagyl that I’d been taking for an infection. I removed the patch that same day and didn’t reapply a patch until Wed. Saw my dr on Thurs and he upped the patch to .1 but said to leave the .075 on until Sat. (my patch days are Sat & Wed) and change to the .1 then. Out of the blue on Sat morning I had another panic attack (shortness of breath, can’t get a full breath, tingling around my lips, warm sensation on skin, overwhelming emotional feeling of doom). I changed to the new .1 patch thinking I might not be getting enough. The “weird” feeling stayed with me through Sunday and I took off work on Monday and called the dr. He said that since I didn’t feel better within one day of changing to the .1 patch, it could be that I was getting too much, and prescribed .05. I took off the .1 patch around noon on Monday and within 2-3 hrs the symptoms started to ease - especially the emotional depression. I have not put another patch on as of today (Tuesday). I’m nervous/anxious about having that experience again. Did you find a solution?”
Probably all a problem with this ladies neurosteroids right nothing to do with the estrogen patch at all right?
"At first I was doing ok on the Vivelle Dot. I started at .037 mg and headaches disappeared and hot flashes went down, but after several weeks I began having increasing brain fog, hot flashes again, night sweats, insomnia, body aches, joint pains. My doc increased it to .075 mg (factoring in that I am very small, young, and need more estrogen anyway). I was on this for one month, but continued to have the same symptoms and felt worse as time went on. At this point we tested my thyroid levels and TSH was slightly high at 3.9 but free T3 and free T4 were in normal range, so she had me increase my Vivelle Dot to .1 mg. I have been on this now for over three weeks and I am rapidly going downhill. Here are my current list of symptoms:
Body aches all over; joint pain in feet, hands, wrists, ankles, knees, shoulders; muscle fatigue/soreness and spasms in upper arms, shoulders, back and front of thighs, shins, calves, upper back, neck, low back
Total exhaustion and barely able to work.
Insomnia (able to fall asleep but waking up every few hours and takes forever to get back to sleep)
Hair falling out at alarming rate
Constant feeling of freezing and chills from the inside, yet always warm on the outside and occasional hot flashes
uncontrollable crying
hard to catch breath and chest tightness, pressure in sternum
breast pain and soreness
bloating in abdomen (pants hardly fit there)
terrible brain fog and unable to concentrate or remember things"
Yep neurosteroids for sure!
Are you stupid or ignorant? Yes we get it high estrogen is probably contributing to our condition but like the low level of neurosteroids it is not the root of the problem. The problem is enzyme based. Refer to the statin study i posted where the same thing has happened.
This isn’t my most recent blood testing, I can’t see them at the moment because I no longer have Kaiser health care due to age and cannot access their website. But I have a Nov. 2012 test from Labcorp
Total T: 374 ng/dL range 348-1197
Free T: 10.8 pg/mL range 9.3 - 26.5
E2: 14.0 pg/mL range 7.6- 42.6
Total Estrogens: 69 pg/mL range 40-115
Estriol Serum: <0.3 ng/nL no ref range.
SHBG Serum: 21.8 nmol/L range 16.5 - 55.9
And you keep bringing up Free Estrogen, I have never heard of it so I honestly have no clue what you’re trying to say about that. I’m not as knowledgeable as many people here so maybe I’m late to understand it, but I have never seen it on any tests. So by looking at the tests it looks to me as if I have low everything.
Relative to your FREE T your estrogens are FAR from low. Like people measure FREE T - Free E is just as important. You can do a siliva test from e1,e2,e3. Do this as well as T and report back. There is probably a way to calculate free E;s by taking into acount SHBG binding affinity but I do not think this area is well understood yet. Again you took SP and SpStricken as similar bloods to you.
Tim please enlighten me on which enzyme is not working - Thanks.
I do believe that HRT is definitely a way to combat the sides of a lot of things and why we feel like this, and is most likely going to be the way most of us cope with this, but the reason is WHY we feel like this.
What about men who have undergone sex changes into women, why don’t they feel the way we do? Also, why do some of us see facial fat loss? wouldn’t high E cause us to gain more?
I have posted many examples of these men getting the same issues as us - gyno - fatigue - fainting - loss of morning wood - loss of spontainous wood - loss of libido - etc etc The same happens to women as I have posted above when there T:E levels are messed up. Same happens to both sexes.
Standard TRT we can say does not create a stable solution for 99 percent of us. I have logs on TRT on here. First week felt FANTASTIC you can see my logs after that E went too high as verified on siliva test and I went from feeling fantastic to shit. Similar thing happnes on anti estrogens for me. The only possible treatment with sides is something like what the OP is doing here.
Arimidex aromosin eerase all do not produce stable results. But please do bloods on these drugs so we can verify what is happening I have only seen scared to deaths bloods on arimidex alone and his E went up a little and free E went up a lot. At first he said his libido was better than ever in his life I believe.
What about taking Testosterone and Progesterone together? That is my Endo’s plan for me when I am ready to start HRT. She said the Progesterone acts as an Estrogen inhibitor, so therefore getting only the benefits of T, and also increasing our Neuro steroids. But like you said many people here get severe sides on Aromatase Inhibitors as I’ve seen…so I’ve been hesitant to get on HRT
doubt it will be of much benefit. You will probably see benefits from TRT itself in first week if you do not use HCG and inject T. Then you should keep track of your free estrogen before - while feeling good and after TRT stops working. Then report back with your findings. Trying stuff is better than sitting on your ass.
So what treatment are you currently on?
And I’d rather not experiment with my body at this point, maybe if things get worse yes, but for now I can’t and probably wouldn’t be able to afford it.
Total T: 374 ng/dL range 348-1197
Free T: 10.8 pg/mL range 9.3 - 26.5
E2: 14.0 pg/mL range 7.6- 42.6
Total Estrogens: 69 pg/mL range 40-115
Estriol Serum: <0.3 ng/nL no ref range.
SHBG Serum: 21.8 nmol/L range 16.5 - 55.9
That vincentv guy keeps talking about free E and free cortisol, but I don;t know how accurate that theory is. I know you know a lot about this because I remember you in the hairloss forums a few years ago.
So I wanted to ask you something.After I took Saw Palmetto I noticed a change, but not a crash. From July-Dec 2012 I was taking RU for the hairloss, and when I stopped that is when it seemed I got my “crash” so I don’t know if the RU usage is partly responsible for the worsening of my problems…
Do you think that had anything to do with where my hormones are now, or making my sides worse? I honestly don’t know what type of treatment I should pursue, alot of this hormonal and PFS stuff is over my head. I am scared to try HRT because as of now I can achieve and maintain an erection at about 90%, although there has been some girth loss. I do have an erection when I wake up almost everyday, which seems like a good sign for me since a lot here cannot even get that. I have gyno, fat/water gain, some muscle loss, loose skin, facial fat loss, pretty bad brain fog and fatigue. I just don’t want to make things worse with HRT especially with the ED because that’s like the one thing for me that hasn’t gone out the window.