Vitamin D & E2 level

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#1

Hey fellas. Long time reader, first time poster. I truly sympathize with everyone suffering persistent PFS symptoms. Been there myself as I used finesteride (both propecia 1mg & proscar 1.2mg) for quite a long time. I quit cold Turkey in 2010 and here I am in 2018.

I can say that I have experienced periods where I was totally recovered/cured. High sex drive, mental clarity, normal BMs, motivated, and pleasant feeling in general. However, those happy times are always short lived and would eventually come to an end.

I’ve literally tried everything under the sun, you name it; HGH, AIs, T boosters, Multis, Resistance training, Intermittent fasting, Probiotics, Digestive Enzymes, Aminos, Peptides, Sex, Cialis and whatnot.

As I said I always had a brief periods (1-2 months) where symptoms were completely gone but somehow this would not last too long. I’m open to discuss anything that helped me feel normal again.

Though I’d like to bring your attention to Vitamin D supplementation. I always thought it helped somehow but I wasn’t certain about the exact mechanism. Probably via increasing testosterone. So all was good. Also, anti estrogens (Particularly E2) were helpful, I tend to think it’s mostly about T:E balance rather than DHT and its metabolites. I must warn you though that achieving the sweet spot for E2 is very, very challenging. Very delicate and symptoms are so confusing! (Too high vs. Too low).

Back to Vitamin D, I took 4000-5000IU per day for a long time along with Aromasin and I always felt great, at least for a while. Yet, about a year into this routine I started to get extreme bouts of inexplicable depression and anxiety attacks. It was so severe that I had suicidal thoughts for the first time ever in my whole life! Symptoms include midnight awakenings, extremely low libido, headaches, brain fog, loss of motivation and drive, paranoia…etc.

I saw countless endocrinolists and non were helpful. So I had a bloodwork for full hormonal profile alongside mineral and vitamins testing.

It turned out that my TT is high normal, thyroid was OKish with TSH hovering around 1.5 - 2.00, ft3 borderline low and t4 high normal. So it could be that t4 —> t3 conversion is not optimal. More on that later.

What really flabbergasted me though is my extremely low E2 and very high vitamin D along with low calcium. I needed to find a link between all of these factors. Well guess what? Turns out Vitamin D also acts as an anti-aromatase and therefore lowers E2 levels. This was helpful at first but as my E2 level crashed/tanked, I started to feel like s#^t. So my advice to those who are taking high doses of vitamin D, beware! Too high E2 is bad but too little is as bad or probably worse.

#2

I never heard of a case where 5000 IU Vitamin D would crash E2. I also take 5000 IU every day since more than 2 years and my E2 was high most of the time.

#3

Exactly! I was so baffled either! I even thought that it could be a false E2 result. So I had my bloodwork repeated, but it always came too low as follows:

30th July, 2017 at 1:30pm: E2 52 pmol/L (TOO LOW)

11th August, 2018 at 8:00am: E2 64 pmol/L (TOO LOW).

26th August, 2018 at 11:00am: E2 45.44 pmol/L (TOO LOW).

Results are in SI units. The optimal E2 level for men aged 30-39 is 94.17 pmol/L. My body fat is about 20% so not too lean either (i.e. more aromatase). Besides, I’ve always been a high converter and tend to have E2 being too high and had to use AI to control it.

However, my Vit 25(OH) D3 is 136 nmol/L, which is higher than I thought. I’d rather much like it around 100 nmol/L max.

I had read about recent studies suggesting that large doses of vitamin D do infact lower blood levels of estrogen and is being considered for women at risk for breast cancer.

Did you have your vitamin D tested? I’ve stopped vitamin D and will wait for couple months and get re-tested. Meanwhile, I’m thinking ways to increase E2. One way is to raise testosterone significantly or through low dose DHEA (e.g. 5mg) since portion of it converts to estrogen.

I just wish others to be careful with long term-high dose vit D.

#4

My Vit. D is above the max. value and also my E2…so i wouldnt assume that decreasing it you will increase E2…i neither think to increase E2 is going to be good for you.

#5

How is you T???

#6

You say that you used aromasin which is a type 1 aromatase inhibitor, so that’s probably what caused your E2 to crash, not vitamin D. Were you still on aromasin when you had your E2 tested?

#7

This is so confusing! My TT level was measured on two different occasions as follow:

August 11th, 2018 at 8:30am:

TT: 28.17 nmol/l range 4.14 - 32.01
LH: 2.51 mIU/mL range 0.57 - 12.07
Prolactin: 226.27 mIU/L range 73.35 - 411.28
E2: 64 pmol/L range 40.59 - 162.36
SHBG: 41.4 nmol/L range 14.5 - 48.4
Cortisol(AM): 336 nmol/L range 101.20 - 535.70

TSH: 1.24
FT4: 11.74 pmol/l range 9 - 19
FT3: 3.58 pmol/l range 2.2 - 7.8

August 26th, 2018 at 11:30am:
TT:20 nmol/L range 8.64 - 29.0
E2: 45.44 pmol/L range 30 - 156
DHEA-S: 4.39 Micromol/L range 2.41 - 11.6
Vit 25(OH) D3: 136 nmol/L

As you can see on both occasions my T is normal but E2 is way too low and I can’t see why :frowning: also I suspect I’ve subclinical hypothyroidism.

It is known that low E also causes depression, low sex drive, ED among other issues. I’ve completely stopped my vitamin D intake and I just took 6.25mg DHEA. I’ll carefully monitor any sides.

What is your level of vitamin D3 and E2 please?

Any advice or suggestions? I’m at the end of my rope :frowning:

#8

@ vanquish

Man, the last time I’ve taken aromasin (3-4 mg) was like 3 weeks ago and my last E2 test was yesterday.

Could it be that aromasin still affecting my E2?

#9

Aromasin comes in 25 mg pills, how did you manage to take 3-4 mg anyway?

Aromasin works by killing some of the aromatase enzymes in your body, your body creates new ones when you quit using it, which takes some time, so yes, it could still be effecting your E2 even though you quit 3 weeks ago.

I suggest you give it 2-3 months and see how you feel and get tested again.

#10

@vanquish

Appreciate your feedback pal. You’re absolutely correct, I got aromasin in 25mg and I used a pill cutter to get the 3-4mg dose.

That’s gonna be such a long to wait :frowning:

In the meantime, is there anything I could possibly do for the non-existant sex drive? Thanks for your support.

#11

Dopamine agonists such as pramipexole or low dose cabergoline could be used to boost libido (I used 0.25 mg cabergoline once a week before and it gave me crazy libido). I don’t recommend you use anything for the time being though, at least till your E2 gets balanced.

#12

Here you can see my values of Vit. D, E2 & T:

image
image818×98 6.65 KB

All 3, pretty high.

Regards,

#13

hi tomas,how did you get theses high levels of testosterone?
do you still suffer PFS ?

#14

@Tomas

Thanks for sharing. Yes, your vitamin D level is healthy and still within normal range (i.e. <100 ng/ml). What medical practicers usually look for is the Vit. D 25-OH (i.e. D3), which in your case varied between 32.5 & 54.8 and as I said you’re still within normal (notice Ref. Max is 100 ng/ml).

Interestingly, observe how your E2 level is behaving with respect to your Vit. D3 level. Well, unless you were on some sort of TRT or AI, it’s obvious your E2 was lowest when your D3 was highest (i.e. inverse relationship). Does this make any sense?

The other vitamin D1 shown in your lab report is a mixture of compounds rather than a pure vitamin D product, so D1 is not an accurate measurement.

In my case the Vit. D 25-OH (D3) is 136 nmol/L,
which is equivalent to 54.4 ng/ml. So yep we are in similar range.

This is a quote from the study I was mentioning earlier:

“After one year, the researchers observed that those women whose vitamin D levels had increased the most – ranging from values that were too low to higher values within the normal range – had a corresponding drop in estrogen and other sex hormones. They also observed that the drop in sex hormones was not related to weight loss. This observation is highly relevant – especially for those women who find it difficult to lose weight.”

I also forget to add that I’ve taken small dose of aromasin (3-4mg) about 3 weeks ago and this could be the culprit behind my too low E2. What surprises me though is that my LH was low normal and I always observed that when ever I take AI, my LH is elevated. This is because E2 is part of the HPTA axis feedback loop.

Anyway, I started taking 6.25mg DHEA to see if it could have any effect. My DHEA-S has always been low normal and I just can’t figure why. High cortisol, maybe?

It’s a waiting game now. God, all I wish for is a normal libido and sexual functioning!!

#15

I do nothing special, more than a healthy life…but I do not take any pill or suplement.

I do suffer PFS but 80-90% recovered. I still feel some degree of tiredness, loss of libido, decreased ejaculation volume, and some degree of agitation for almost no reason, together with a loss of confidence.

Regards.

#16

If I am not wrong the 1,25-OH is the active metabolite for Vit. D, so this is the right measurement. you can have high 25-Oh but low 1,25OH.

regards.

#17

Thanks for the reply.

Strangely enough, I’m having extremely high sex drive today with spontaneosus erections and with sense of well being whereas yesterday I experienced total ahedonia/apathy with my penis feeling totally disconnected from my body and brain. Literally, the only way I could get hard was through manual stimulation and erection would not last long. This was going on for about 2 weeks until today.

Now I don’t wanna jump into conclusions, but I’d say one of the following may have helped:

  • Working out my legs last night with moderate weights, sets, & reps for no more than 45 mins. For example, I did squats & lunges with heavy-moderate weights and only did 3sets/12reps each.

  • Adequate & uninterrupted sleep (7-8 hrs).

  • Adequate saturated fats along with extra virgin olive oil.

  • Stopped Aromasin & vit. D for a while probably helped raise my very low E2. My vit. D was super high to begin with and doctor mentioned that I don’t need supplementing until January 2019.

  • Improving my gut function through stopping all artificial sweeteners in addition to taking probiotics, glutamine, and enough fiber intake.

  • Taking testosterone boosters including nettle root, tongkat ali & DAA.

As I said, I’m not exactly sure what might have triggered my non-existant libido but these were some of the things. I’m glad to help others in the same boat.

But then again, I experienced many of these short lived feeling-good periods where I feel like a mighty Greek God yet they would always come to an end and go back to square one and end up over analyzing what might have gone wrong.

I’m crossing my fingers that it lasts this time around.

1 Like
#18

Your vit.d level (around 40) is too low.
100 max is no reliable range. Best results above 100.
So, vit. d cannot be your e2 problem.
High dose vit. d (100000-500000) is only a problem, when…
you have kidney issues
dont add k2 and magnesium

Instead go into the sun for 2 hours every day and absorb vit.d. It is a hormone, not a vit. You might increase testo and e2 (due to aroma) this way. Check if out.

#19

Nettle root is a 5ar inhibitor, similar to finasteride.

#20

@noprop

Man have you read my posts? My Vit. D 25-OH (D3) is 136 nmol/L, which is equivalent to 54.4 ng/ml and max ref. range is 100.

54 ng/ml isn’t low by all means. If anything, it’s mid range or higher. I’ve been taking vit. D for over two years (around 6,000IU l+ daily of which 5,000IU+ via supplementing) without fail.

Besides, there is no definit study in which optimal vit. D level is determined, controversy exists until this very moment. It just happens to be one of the most studied and controversial vitamins in recent years. Moreover, my minerals profile shows that my calcium level is borderline low even though I’m supplementing over 1000mg/day of calcium citrate (not including my diet), this means the body might be deliberately lowering calcium level as a reaction to elevated vit. D. This is my best guess but the body is certainly always trying to achieve hemostasis one way or the other. Luckily I didn’t get kidney stones!

I happen to be a very high E2 converter, meaning I always had problems with high E2 since puberty and with finesteride my symptoms were exacerbated. That’s why I quit it in first place and had to resort to taking AI.

Again, it could be that low dose aromasin (3-4mg) might have something to do with my low E2 but I also stopped vit. D.

And yes I do supplement with vit. K & K2 alongside magnesium citrate.