Raising Pregnenolone, Progesterone and DHEA with HCG

[Gman86]

Pregnenolone is an important neurosteroid and a deficiency could definitely lead to brain fog. Have you attempted to supplement pregnenolone? Maybe you have high cortisol and that is why you convert most of your pregnenolone to dhea. The body is attempting to deal with the cortisol.

If I was on the amount of test/deca you have used I would be 220 lbs from my natty weight of 180 and if I remember correctly you are still on the lighter side. This speaks to me as catabolism from cortisol.

How is your appetite? What do you eat for calories?

I’m 5’5” and currently 155lbs. Probably 20% body fat I would estimate. Been working out since I was 14, so have a decent amount of muscle, and a very tiny belly. Not fat or anything, just a tiny layer of fat over my abs and around my love handles.

If anything I actually worry about having low cortisol. Everytime I’ve tested it in the serum it’s normal, but on the lowish end. Had a 4 point saliva test done in 2015 when I first started experiencing brain fog and got into HRT. Doc said it looked fine. Looking back I wish I would of asked to see the results. But DHEA and cortisol have an inverse relationship, as far as I know. So if anything, my naturally high DHEA levels are indicative of lowish cortisol levels, not high. Could be wrong on that tho

Appetite is good. I eat a ton of food each day. Way more than I’ve seen anyone else eat in a day, regardless of their size. 6 whole eggs, 80g white rice, 24g of honey for breakfast. Then quite a bit of fruit for desert. Lunch is 7oz of steak, 125g white rice, and tomato paste and I drink 8oz of coconut water. Again a decent amount of fruit for desert. Dinner is 7oz of steak, 125g white rice, 40g honey, and then some fruit for desert. And inbetween meals everyday I’ll eat 1oz of cheese, some more fruit, 2 servings of collagen powder, 3.5oz of beef liver (twice per week), 1 serving of hemp hearts. And then 3x/ week after my workouts I’ll make protein icecream. Which is 1.5 servings of whey protein, 160g of frozen bananas, 25g of chopped up dried apricots, 20g of dried coconut and 21g of honey. Not sure how many calories I eat in a day, but I eat basically the same exact things every week, so I know it’s plenty to build muscle, but not too much to where I gain much fat. My body fat stays around the same, but I can tell I’m slowly building muscle, just from looking in the mirror

And I have experimented quite a bit with pregnenolone. Haven’t noticed much from it. Sometimes I think I do, but then I think it might be making me feel a little worse. It’s been a confusing journey with preg lol.

What I’ve always wondered tho, since DHEA is a downstream hormone of preg, and my DHEA levels are naturally high, doesn’t that guarantee that I have plenty of pregnenolone in my system? Or can that assumption not be made just based off of having high DHEA levels?

 

[JA Battle]

“So if anything, my naturally high DHEA levels are indicative of lowish cortisol levels, not high.”

maybe the rapid production of dhea is a response to what otherwise would be high cortisol and your body has just made this adaptation. Maybe this has left less substrate (pregnenolone) to be utilized as a neurosteroid.
This is of course speculation. Sounds like your diet is very well rounded and plentiful.

What pregnenolone protocols have you attempted? I.e Frequency, dose. Also what progesterone protocols did you do?

 

[Shawn]

Idk about lucky lol, I still have quite a bit of brain fog, and my guess is my high DHEA-S levels have something to do with it. It just doesn’t seem normal for DHEA-S levels to be this high naturally, especially on TRT. Makes me think something with my adrenals are out of whack. Maybe there’s a chance I just have naturally high levels and it’s a positive thing and theirs no negatives to it, but my gut tells me otherwise

I have rock bottom preg levels tho. So definitely not “lucky” in that department lol

It’s hard for me to say how I felt at different dosages. Just because the rest of my protocol would usually change a bit as well. Now HCG dose nothing for me. It’s like injecting water. And that’s reflected in the fact that it doesn’t raise my DHEA-S levels anymore. Idk if it has to do with only certain brands of HCG working for me, or if I just don’t respond to it anymore. Years back when HCG would increase my DHEA-S levels, I would definitely notice my testicles get back to pre-TRT size, there would be noticeably more ejaculate when I finish, orgasms were better, sensitivity was better, penis would hang better while flaccid. Don’t really remember any mental benefits. And cant think of any negatives, at least when I was running it between 500-1000iu’s/ week total along with my TRT. I did HCG mono for a few years at the beginning of my journey, and I remember libido being through the roof, but nipples would itch like crazy!!! They itched so bad that I would scratch them until they would bleed. Had to put tape over them before I would put a shirt on. Ended up starting to get gyno in one of my nipples. Luckily I took a bunch of ai and it went away, and then stopped the HCG mono shortly after

Again, no HCG has zero effect on my testicle size. Back when HCG did something for me, I think my testicles would come back after a week or two. No more than 2 weeks for sure

i know this is an old post but more reason why this stuff is just absolutely variable. you would think to generate that much DHEA naturally, your preg would have to be high but nope. just goes to show maybe that steroid pathway chart isn't as correct as everyone thinks or maybe each person has their own unique "chart". my preg is 87 (22 - 237) but my DHEA is 110 (93 - 415). do you just not produce enough T? and you would think with that much DHEA, you should be producing all the T you need naturally, right? But another misnomer i guess.

 

[Gman86]

i know this is an old post but more reason why this stuff is just absolutely variable. you would think to generate that much DHEA naturally, your preg would have to be high but nope. just goes to show maybe that steroid pathway chart isn't as correct as everyone thinks or maybe each person has their own unique "chart". my preg is 87 (22 - 237) but my DHEA is 110 (93 - 415). do you just not produce enough T? and you would think with that much DHEA, you should be producing all the T you need naturally, right? But another misnomer i guess.

I like the way ur at least brainstorming about it. Ur theory about T being high might not be totally wrong. When I started TRT my test levels were actually pretty damn good. Usually 600-700. At age 27. It was my free T that was also very low in the reference range, or slightly below the bottom of the reference range, due to mY SHBG being around 55, at that time. I tried for a year to get it down and get my free T up, and resolve my symptoms, but nothing worked. So I ended up going on hcg mono for a couple years, and then TRT after that.

So I wonder if a downstream hormone, like DHEA, is high, if it’s requiring a lot of say preg, to be that high, and uses up a lot of preg, thus leaving it to be on the low side when getting it checked. Kind of like how when guys go on exogenous test, they can see their ferritin decrease, I assume due to increasing RBC production, which requires more iron, or something along those lines. So maybe my dhea being so high is causing my preg to show up very very low on blood tests?

And then my prog is high, so my preg demands must be through the roof lol. But then does it mean that I have more preg than any other person known to man since both my prog and dhea levels are always above the top of the reference range? Lol. So like, so I have low or high preg levels? It’s so confusing lol

 

[Shawn]

i'm not sure but i wouldn't have went on T if i were you. you actually don't seem to need it. i believe your free T could have been resolved by using avena sativa and just training. there are other ways to reduce SHBG. but then again i don't know. this stuff really is too confusing. if your preg is low, then it wouldnt make sense that other hormones would be high. i know what you are getting at: it is producing all those hormones in high amounts and then is left low but the reality is, it has to keep producing hormones so it isn't possible for it to stay low because low preg can't make high anything.

even in my case, maybe my 87 preg is just enough to make my cortisol but my aldosterone is still low. and so is my DHEA.

 

[of574]

i'm not sure but i wouldn't have went on T if i were you. you actually don't seem to need it. i believe your free T could have been resolved by using avena sativa and just training. there are other ways to reduce SHBG. but then again i don't know. this stuff really is too confusing. if your preg is low, then it wouldnt make sense that other hormones would be high. i know what you are getting at: it is producing all those hormones in high amounts and then is left low but the reality is, it has to keep producing hormones so it isn't possible for it to stay low because low preg can't make high anything.

even in my case, maybe my 87 preg is just enough to make my cortisol but my aldosterone is still low. and so is my DHEA.

Pregnenolone will have it's own effect in the periphery, however, it is mainly an intermediate product to much more potent hormones. These are produced in the adrenals or testes in men.

What we can measure in blood is the pregnenolone in circulation. That is a different pool to the pregnenolone that is produced within those organs and without getting into circulation further converted into downstream hormones. This portion doesn't show up in your preg blood levels.

So you can still have low preg blood levels but high DHEA levels. Maybe because the preg never gets into circulation. But there's another reason that might happen. That is when your enzymes converting preg into DHEA are working at a higher rate than the one converting cholesterol into preg. And all the preg in the blood never gets a chance to reach higher levels because it is relatively quickly further converted into DHEA.

 

[Shawn]

Pregnenolone will have it's own effect in the periphery, however, it is mainly an intermediate product to much more potent hormones. These are produced in the adrenals or testes in men.

What we can measure in blood is the pregnenolone in circulation. That is a different pool to the pregnenolone that is produced within those organs and without getting into circulation further converted into downstream hormones. This portion doesn't show up in your preg blood levels.

So you can still have low preg blood levels but high DHEA levels. Maybe because the preg never gets into circulation. But there's another reason that might happen. That is when your enzymes converting preg into DHEA are working at a higher rate than the one converting cholesterol into preg. And all the preg in the blood never gets a chance to reach higher levels because it is relatively quickly further converted into DHEA.

interesting. would it be a bad idea to start with preg if i already produce 87 to get my DHEA up? I'm guessing it would increase my progesterone and then cortisol which could even deplete my DHEA but i guess that is only if I was stressed out and needed the cortisol i suppose. Or just go with straight DHEA? My DHEA was 110 and thats low. my preg didn't come back low. i feel more androgen deficient to be honest.

 

[of574]

interesting. would it be a bad idea to start with preg if i already produce 87 to get my DHEA up? I'm guessing it would increase my progesterone and then cortisol which could even deplete my DHEA but i guess that is only if I was stressed out and needed the cortisol i suppose. Or just go with straight DHEA? My DHEA was 110 and thats low. my preg didn't come back low. i feel more androgen deficient to be honest.

I can only talk about my own experiences.

My preg isn't low either and when supplementing dhea gets over range sometimes. I tried it on its own before and it made me loose all wood and interfered with my sleep.
But we are all different.

 

[Shawn]

I can only talk about my own experiences.

My preg isn't low either and when supplementing dhea gets over range sometimes. I tried it on its own before and it made me loose all wood and interfered with my sleep.
But we are all different.

you're saying that taking dhea makes your mid-level preg go OVER the range? wow i'm even more confused now than ever before. i may need to have a consult with my HRT doc about what to do. the more i read the more i'm confused. i did read about it potentially making you lose wood. this goes along with my statement earlier. the progesterone or cortisol lowered the dhea perhaps and then DHT drops. who knows.

 

[of574]

you're saying that taking dhea makes your low level preg go OVER the range? wow i'm even more confused now than ever before. i may need to have a consult with my HRT doc about what to do. the more i read the more i'm confused

Without supplementing anything my preg is about midrange and my DHEAs low in range. I should have added that my experience is based on only two readings with high preg. Both were while on dhea (among other things, so I can't be sure it was the DHEA that was causing it)

 

[Shawn]

Without supplementing anything my preg is about midrange and my DHEAs low in range. I should have added that my experience is based on only two readings with high preg. Both were while on dhea (among other things, so I can't be sure it was the DHEA that was causing it)

ok that sounds like what i got then. did you ever use any AAS or rec drugs? also what is your age? do you only take dhea or are you also on test and/or hcg? sorry for all the q's i'm trying to figure out what to do

 

[of574]

ok that sounds like what i got then. did you ever use any AAS or rec drugs? also what is your age? do you only take dhea or are you also on test and/or hcg? sorry for all the q's i'm trying to figure out what to do

Can you send me a PM?