DHEA raised estrogen

So i've been on TRT for about 2 years now. 50mg 2x a week along with 250iu hcg 3x week and 5mg of cialis here and there. TT has always been around 800 and E2 has always been in the low 20's. I get my blood work done every 6 months. Six months ago my doctor suggested adding DHEA to my protocol. I began supplementing with 25mg micronized DHEA every day starting about 2 months ago and noticed that my erections and libido slowly began to disappear. Normally 5mg of cialis was enough for a good erection. Right before my last blood test, which was a couple weeks ago I was up to 20mg to get the same results. My latest labs showed my TT and FT right where they normally are but my E2 was 46. My DHEA levels were also in the mid range. I began to add .5mg of adex on my testosterone injection day which has helped out a lot.

My question. Is it worth continuing with DHEA even thought I will most likely have to continue adex? I really don't feel any better since I started using DHEA, even before high E2 reared its head. I've noticed what a lot of guys have reported with high estrogen. Its very difficult to find the "sweet spot".

I believe that I too am in the same boat. I was using a TD cream and my E2 was high, 50-60, and I wasn't otherwise absorbing it as my DHEA was not rising. Switched over to oral micronized @ 50mg/day and my DHEA values shot to the 700s, but E was still very high. I switched down to 25mg/Day and DHEA fell to the top of lab values but E is still very high, 72 this time.

Last week I'm trying a 25mg/Day sublingual and I dropped Pregnenolone that I was taking in combination. Will retest in a few days and see where my E is. If it's still up there I'll drop the DHEA to maybe 5 or 10mg. I made a thread recently with my inexplicably high Estrogen, pondering several things, like DHEA, but also HCG, as I'm not taking enough of Cyp or HCG to garner Estrogen values like these. My high DHT values does seem to be countering the Estrogenic symptoms as quite honestly I'm rather self aware and experienced with HRT and I'd never guess I would pull 50/60/70 on a Sensitive Estrogen test.

50mg Cyp EOD
200iu HCG E3.5d
25mg TCream/d (for DHT applied to scrotum)

ta406 - I too noticed that right away with DHEA. I only lasted maybe a week with 25mg, then went to 12 mg and I've been at 6 mg daily for over a month. Like you, my libido and erections went to crap on DHEA, eventhough my numbers were low end of normal. At 6 mg, erections and libido are better than at 12 or 25, but still not as good as they were prior to taking DHEA. I've been thinking about it for a while and will likely drop DHEA all together.

After I pull bloods this coming Fri I'm going to stop DHEA entirely until I get the results and reevaluate using it at all. It'll be a week for the resutls so I may be able to get some sense of things stopping DHEA.

Whats the benifit of taking DHEA while on trt?

Many if not most (but not all) guys over 40 show as low DHEA upon testing so getting it back to a more youthful level is desirable in the big picture. That said, it can take some fine-tuning to get the dosage right.

Within a week of starting DHEA at 25mg micronized and pregnenolone at 50 mg, my erections were gone. I got off both and started to get my bounce back, but I didn't get it fully. Now I am doing cialis daily and my erections are fine. I have gone back to DHEA and pregnenolone every 2 to 3 days instead of every day and I haven't seen any negative effect on my erections, but I am still taking cialis.

Steve Williams said:

Within a week of starting DHEA at 25mg micronized and pregnenolone at 50 mg, my erections were gone. I got off both and started to get my bounce back, but I didn't get it fully. Now I am doing cialis daily and my erections are fine. I have gone back to DHEA and pregnenolone every 2 to 3 days instead of every day and I haven't seen any negative effect on my erections, but I am still taking cialis.

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Thanks for sharing that!

Vince Carter said:

I believe that I too am in the same boat. I was using a TD cream and my E2 was high, 50-60, and I wasn't otherwise absorbing it as my DHEA was not rising. Switched over to oral micronized @ 50mg/day and my DHEA values shot to the 700s, but E was still very high. I switched down to 25mg/Day and DHEA fell to the top of lab values but E is still very high, 72 this time.

Last week I'm trying a 25mg/Day sublingual and I dropped Pregnenolone that I was taking in combination. Will retest in a few days and see where my E is. If it's still up there I'll drop the DHEA to maybe 5 or 10mg. I made a thread recently with my inexplicably high Estrogen, pondering several things, like DHEA, but also HCG, as I'm not taking enough of Cyp or HCG to garner Estrogen values like these. My high DHT values does seem to be countering the Estrogenic symptoms as quite honestly I'm rather self aware and experienced with HRT and I'd never guess I would pull 50/60/70 on a Sensitive Estrogen test.

50mg Cyp EOD
200iu HCG E3.5d
25mg TCream/d (for DHT applied to scrotum)

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Whats a normal number for DHT? My last blood test showed 75 but no reference range. Does cream/androgel to the scrotum increase it significantly?

Look here as to not derail this thread:

https://www.excelmale.com/forum/showthread.php?5575-Re-(low)-DHT-anyone-using-cream-injections

Thank you guys for sharing your findings.

I was taking pregnenolone for a short time too. No matter what dosage I tried, I felt horrible. I think I'm going to drop DHEA for a while. I have read about the benefits of maintaining healthy levels but when do the pros outweigh the cons?

ta406 - that seems to be the way a few of us are going. I'm down to only about six milligrams and probably felt slightly better with no DHEA at all. But I feel better on 6 than I ever did on 12.5 or 25. I've never been on Pregnenolone or HCG. Always wanted to give HCG a go, but I seem to feel my best on simply testosterone with a very low dose of anastrozole. Maybe for us, keeping it simple is best.

On Lee Myer's site, it talks about a guy named Dr Shames, who is one of the pioneering thyroid and adrenal fatigue physicians, who said that DHEA is a "potent medication" that should be limited to 5-10 mg daily. He says by the age of 50, about 4 mg of DHEA per day will usually restore the level of DHEA in the blood to a youthful level. Yet LEF recommends 25mg per day (and up to 50mg). Another part of TRT where there is a difference of opinion. In this case, a huge difference in opinion. There's a big difference between 4mg and 50mg of daily DHEA.

I don't really get my commitment to DHEA, why I'm apparently insistent on it. With no testing to back it up, I was using it prior to any HRT and it made me angry, aggressive, and it a-hole, basically. I would notice that if I didn't take it for 48hrs I'd mellow off again, but take it one morning and I'd feel PMSish within an hour. Now I was taking 50-100mg daily, so there's that. I don't know if I'm coming full circle to the fact that I don't react well with it.

Vince Carter said:

I don't really get my commitment to DHEA, why I'm apparently insistent on it. With no testing to back it up, I was using it prior to any HRT and it made me angry, aggressive, and it a-hole, basically. I would notice that if I didn't take it for 48hrs I'd mellow off again, but take it one morning and I'd feel PMSish within an hour. Now I was taking 50-100mg daily, so there's that. I don't know if I'm coming full circle to the fact that I don't react well with it.

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Thats kind of where I was at too. Even though I started to feel worse as time went on, I decided to stay the course until my blood test. In hind sight, I'm glad that I did. Now I know for sure what the results were. And now I know how I feel when my E2 gets to high.

James said:

On Lee Myer's site, it talks about a guy named Dr Shames, who is one of the pioneering thyroid and adrenal fatigue physicians, who said that DHEA is a "potent medication" that should be limited to 5-10 mg daily. He says by the age of 50, about 4 mg of DHEA per day will usually restore the level of DHEA in the blood to a youthful level. Yet LEF recommends 25mg per day (and up to 50mg). Another part of TRT where there is a difference of opinion. In this case, a huge difference in opinion. There's a big difference between 4mg and 50mg of daily DHEA.

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James, do you know the URL for that site? I'm very interested in this as I have the thyroid/adrenal thing and my doctor had me taking 50mg of DHEA. Thanks!

I know when I raise my DHEA, I also raise my estrogen. I always wonder if I need to supplement with DHEA. I think when I'm out of my current supply. I'm going to stop and see how I feel.

Im three days off DHEA entirely now, waiting on my labs, took it that morning to see if my E is still high, and if my DHEA was up using the powder sublingual, that was Friday, last day I took it.

Vince said:

I always wonder if I need to supplement with DHEA.

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You know, the whole back filling of the pathways make sense, and I'm sure there's guys far smarter than me who can argue a convincing medical/scientific view that it's necessary, but as I've said in other posts, I try to go by the 'feel' test even more then the 'blood' test and I just never felt right on DHEA.

Taper down the DHEA... I have just had exactly the same problem, I was on 25mg a day after showing I was low in my labs...took me around 4 weeks to resolve it...DHEA was converting and knocking me out in the bedroom dept...now I am running 6mg a day and feeling good....along with 2 doses of .25mg of arimidex a week... maybe 3 subject to how I am feeling..........back in action again

davet