Tetracyclines and Estrogen

[Fortunate]

More and more, I believe I fall into the camp of those that feels better with E2 in the normal (non trt) range. Supposedly tetracyclines can raise estrogen levels. I know nothing about the mechanism. But, on two occasions, I have developed symptoms I believe to be E2 related while on Sarecycline (Seysara).

Both times while on Seysara, after several weeks, I get prolonged headaches that don’t respond to NSAID’s and feel different than typical headaches. I suspect they result from elevated E2.

The E2 theory is hard to prove, but I went ahead and got labs today while experiencing this. Hope to know more within a week. The Seysara theory as a factor that pushes me over the edge is even harder to prove, so I thought I’d poll the audience: has anyone ever suspected tetracyclines as a potentially being estrogenic?

 

[Fortunate]

Unfortunately, no takers on this thread, but I do have some follow data and follow up questions.

I tend to blame E2 when I feel as crappy as I did when I pulled the most recent set of labs (headache that won't go away, etc, odd feeling in my chest). I am still waiting on E2, but my DHT came back way higher than I've ever seen before. If E2 also comes back sky high, it'll be my villain, but as of now, the only thing out of whack while feeling this bad was DHT.

For the three weeks leading up to the labs, my average daily androgen dose was about 13.6mg per day (this would be about 95mg/week) . Nothing outrageous. This was via mostly small, daily dosing with a few larger injections. On some of the microdosing days I used tiny amounts of nandrolone (3.33 mg nandrolone with 6.66mg enanthate).

Labs done at Quest. Unfortunately, I don't think testosterone was LC/MS/MS, which bums me out. But, DHT was LC/MS/MS.

- Total Test 622
- Free Test 105.9
- DHT 132 (range 12-65)

I don't always check DHT, but this time, it was 4-5 times higher than I have seen on prior labs. To muddy the waters a bit more, I took two doses of Tlando in the 24 yours prior to the labs. I believe the orals are known to readily convert to DHT. But, I was feeling shitty before the Tlando and I doubt that a mere two doses would convert that much that quickly.

Unfortunately, the high DHT was not associated with anything good, like libido.

Questions:

• Would DHN (from tiny amounts of nandrolone) register as DHT on my labs? (I don't think so, but am not sure)
• Has anyone here correlated high DHT with feeling shitty?
• I have asked this in other contexts, but if somehow I concluded that high DHT = Feel bad, then what is a reasonable approach to manage it (I resigned myself to the fact that any protocol I do has to involve small, frequent dosing)?

I'll post again when I get my E2 back.

 

[ajax31]

I didn't respond to your original post, but I think it's plausible that tetracyclines increase estrogen. Also, I seem remember reading somewhere that estradiol increases DHT... though maybe that's nonsense from the recesses of my mind.