I’ve been tempted to do exactly that. It’s easy to get frustrated and thoroughly confused with all these compounds. Granted, I don’t think I’d want to drop hCG because fertility matters a ton to me, but I’ve wanted to drop everything else and just simplify.
However, I don’t want to go rogue on my provider. He’s been good to me and easy to work with. I think he’d be open to this reductionist approach if I bring it up next time around. I’ll give this protocol a shot and see what happens! I will say, though, that T on its own wasn’t lowering SHBG at all for me.
Always respect and appreciate your perspective, brother.
Curious, why would you keep DHEA? Do you supplement with DHEA based on levels or do you supplement regardless?
I tried it and didn’t notice a difference in how I felt after a bottle. I haven’t felt like it was worth it to continue, but maybe didn’t use long enough or too low of dose?
Low DHEA levels are pretty common with TRT patients.
Here’s how I understand it…
DHEA is a precursor hormone released by the adrenal gland that is primarily used by the body for conversion to testosterone and other sex hormones, but that’s not the ONLY function. It has benefits to memory, skin, energy, immune function, sex drive, and healthy sleep just to name a few.
Since it’s primarily used as a precursor hormone, introducing exogenous testosterone can dull the adrenal glands’ DHEA output (and all other adrenal hormones lol), because testosterone is no longer needed. The problem is that even though you don’t need it for test production anymore, decreased output causes you to miss out on all the other benefits as well. Supplementation, if you don’t experience any other negative side effects, can be the one thing that just makes your protocol “lock in” so to speak. It’s hard to explain in terms of how you feel, except that when you get the dose right (assuming your labs have confirmed low to sub-optimal natural levels after being on TRT for a while), TRT just seems to “work” better. Things seem to become balanced.
I don’t have issues with thyroid so I can’t really make a positive comparison, but I would assume that someone who is on TRT and has an underlying thyroid issue experiences a very similar phenomenon. When they get the thyroid issues fixed, TRT just takes on a whole new meaning.
@bkb333, if you have secondary hypogonadism, and you feel good taking HCG (and you can afford it lol), go for it… I wouldn’t be concerned about taking it to preserve fertility though, at least not until you are ready to start trying to conceive. If you are actively trying then yes. If you just plan on having kids down the road, then do yourself a favor and simplify your protocol, and add HCG back in when you are ready to start trying.
What was the dose you tried? Most common starting dose is around 25mg / day and work up from there.
For me personally, I found 50mg / day to be the magic number. Also, the timing of it made a huge difference for me. I tried taking it at night and had a hard time going to sleep. It felt like my blood pressure would just slightly increase after taking it and then I would lay awake worried about that forever.
I switched over to taking it every morning, and all of that went away. I didn’t notice much at first with the 25mg. I talked to Dr Calkins on my next consult and he advised me to increase to 50mg. After a few weeks of that I stared feeling way better, sleeping better, more focused, and anxiety type feelings started slowly melting away. It made a huge difference for me.
It doesn’t mesh well for some guys as I understand, but it did for me.
25mg in the morning. I tried taking it twice a day a couple times, once in the morning and then again early afternoon. I would imagine that wouldn’t be long enough to make a difference though
You and my provider (two guys who really know their stuff!) have both mentioned the possibility of upping my DHEA supplementation. I’ve been doing 25 mg/day, but my level of 453 is far from my all-time high of 1009 (when I was doing 100 mg 2X/week because I had 100 mg pills on hand).
I am going to start taking two pills (total of 50 mg/day) each morning. My provider wants to see this number increase to roughly 700.
I too take 50mg DHEA and 100mg Pregnenalone per day for memory and mental sharpness. I was in the clouds before I started and both tested on the very low end of normal.
Yes I specifically looked at both after hearing Dr. Rob Kominairek say that if his patient is having focus, sleepiness, or memory issues he gets them on immediately without testing. But I wanted to be a bit more sure so I tested.
PREGNENOLONE, LC/MS/MS - 47 - range 22-237 ng/dL
DHEA SULFATE - 211 - range 70-495 mcg/dL
Oh man, those are low! I wasn’t even happy with my 453 DHEA. What are your levels now? I might need to ask for Pregnenolone on my next test – which was just going to be the basics of T and E – in one month.
I thought the nearest quest was further than labcorp but looked it up and there is a 3 mile difference so I guess I have options either way depending on who’s cheaper for different tests.