Low Cortisol Caused by TRT

Pharma / TRT Testosterone Replacement
1

Doing some searches and reading through old posts on here I saw mentions of low cortisol and that being problematic. I also saw someone post about a correlation in where low cortisol dudes tend to do better on lower doses of T. When you search symptoms of low cortisol, they have a strong correlation.

Something I noticed from my blood work my cortisol was 14.6. After 10 months of TRT it steadily dropped to 5.6, which was done on November of 2020 and never again. The labs in between those two showed that my level was 8.6, so I would assume a linear drop. I just never made much of it and noticed no other blood work there after ordered for it.

Made me wonder though if anyone had problems with this? Solved it? Like I said a lot of the bad symptoms we complain about seem to correlate, and for some reason it happens to some of us at higher doses that arent even all that insane to be honest. Another side note just for the hell of it, I tend to love and crave stimulants, even basic caffeine at times can cause euphoria.

I really have to remind myself to get my cortisol tested next time I am due for blood work, not sure if my recently lowered dose though would cause it to change and maybe go back up.

2

@kazuya_mishima1 What symptoms are you experiencing, if any?

What time of day did you take each of your cortisol tests?

Can you give test ranges and did you test DHEA-S too?

3

Tested in the mornings. DHEA in the low 200s. Symptoms are if there are any are described in the OP.

4

@kazuya_mishima1 so your only symptom is craving stimulants?

I need the reference ranges for those labs mate. The numbers mean nothing otherwise. I have some experience with healing adrenals so hopefully can help.

5

3.09 - 25.

No that’s not my only symptom, I thought I had described them. Weakness, fatigue, brain fog, etc.

6

@kazuya_mishima1 ok not sure what the DHEA range was.

Adrenal issues will absolutely cause those symptoms and your cortisol is very low. I definitely recommend looking into this further. Ideally it would be good to work with an expert as there is a lot of terrible advice on the internet regarding adrenals. I’d recommend Dr Daniel Kalish. He does telemedicine and will probably get you on something like liquorice root, pregnenolone, DHEA.