Any Younger People Have Experience With DHEA/Pregnenolone?

[TheHound]

Preferably 21 and under. Is it worth taking when you're this young for the purpose of trying to increase testosterone and gain muscke?

 

[mujuro]

I'm taking pregenenolone now, 50mg per day to assist in my studies.

Speaking as someone who has used anabolic steroids, and also trained without them, I can tell you that muscle gain when training naturally is much more contingent on programming than hormones or special diet. As a natural it serves you much better to train with less volume and greater frequency through the week(s), but keeping intensity quite high. Why? Mechanical loading is the most potent stimulator of muscle protein synthesis. L-leucine is also your friend. Proliferation of myonuclei comes to a halt between 24-48 hours after mechanical stimulation, so it is better to train in a way that fits more MPS stimuli into your cycle e.g. 3 sets of 225lb flat bench press performed twice a week > 6 sets of 225lb bench press performed once a week. I train every muscle group twice every 9 days, and of course I am doing many compound movements during that time so things like triceps and forearms are stimulated 3-4 times in that 9 day period.

For example, I train chest and back on the same day, but during my cycle I have 2 separate days where I prioritize a little differently i.e. on day 1 I will focus on heavy chest and moderate back movements, then a few days later when I train chest and back again, I will focus on heavy back movements with moderate chest. One should not train heavy all the time if you are a natural, as you will exhaust your nervous system's capacity to recover. Listen to your body. When you feel perpetually exhausted, tired, lethargic... take a week off with just light, fast work.

EDIT - sorry, I forgot to clarify my age. I am not under 21, but I am under 30.

 

[jaywills]

Majuro that sounds like a great way to train for hormonal advantage and strength development.
May I ask for your full workout split, and set/rep ranges.
This is the type of programme I need to get on as my current programme is too infrequent and high vol

 

[MightyFall]

I am a male in my early 20s. I suffer with moderate adrenal fatigue (induced by chronic exercise and extreme dieting) and my DHEA is borderline-low (saliva cortisol tested), something exceptionally unusual for my age. I took both DHEA and Pregnenolone separately at least a few weeks apart a few months back. I don't tolerate hormonal supplementation very well due to insufficient cortisol levels and some other physiological factors that I'm still trying to investigate.

I reacted very aggressively to 5mg of DHEA, with most of the adverse symptoms subsiding slowly over the next few days. After about a week or so of supplementation I couldn't tolerate my debilitated state and decided to quit. It induced chronic acne all over my body (particularly on my face and abdominal region), made my skin oilier and also induced some insomnia, and poor sleep is incredibly exhausting and dangerous for those with adrenal insufficiency. I experienced the same symptoms with pregnenolone. Both doses did not exceed 10mg, a dose that is in most cases relatively ineffective.

Younger people naturally produce more DHEA, and perhaps supplementing with a bio-identical hormone that you're not deficient in may be risky. Steroid hormones are not to be toyed with lightly, and relying on broscience circulating bodybuilding forums and local gym trainers isn't such a good idea either. Pregnenolone is generally considered safer as it is an upstream of all adrenal hormones, but I'd still be careful. B vitamin supplementation (ideally consumed through diet) would probably benefit you much better. I'm not familiar with strength training nutrition or bodybuilding in general, but if you are going down the steroid hormone route you should probably consult with a qualified holistic practitioner. Good luck.

 

[Vinero]

Did you do DHEA topically or orally? For me DHEA has far more negative side effects when taken orally for some reason. Topical DHEA feels like it increases my testosterone, but feels less overstimulating than orally. Oral DHEA can sometimes make me feel irritated. Doses are both at 5 mg. I am 24 years old.
Pregnenolone makes me feel too energetic when taken orally. Can't sleep at night. Too stimulating.

 

[sladerunner69]

I was a muscle head in my teens i got up to 190 under 10% bf (pretty extraordinary for someone under 6 foot but I am exceptionally thick by genetics)

and then when I was almost 19 I was hit with post-finasteride syndrome after being prescribed the poison propecia,

I lost about 20 lbs and had bad gyno and brain damage but was slowly able for cover through diets and supplements and meditation

At 23 I have been taking 15-20mg topical DHEA and 100mg pregnenelone orally for a few months to good effect

This combination has helped fill in the gaps of my hormonal deficiencies which has helped my body rebuild and stay anabolic

I am back to 205lbs (although at substantially higher bf%) and can assure you that this dosage is definitely anabolic and androgenic and a good option or natural bodybuilders

But be careful because the DHEA is known to cause intense brain fog especially at higher dosages, and even at lower doses, some degree of brain fog seems to be unavoidable,

To me it's a trade off of being able to once again have normal-high androgen levels, so I take a few days off when the brain fog becomes severe until it returns to normal

hope this helps brah!!

 

[TheHound]

I was a muscle head in my teens i got up to 190 under 10% bf (pretty extraordinary for someone under 6 foot but I am exceptionally thick by genetics)

and then when I was almost 19 I was hit with post-finasteride syndrome after being prescribed the poison propecia,

I lost about 20 lbs and had bad gyno and brain damage but was slowly able for cover through diets and supplements and meditation

At 23 I have been taking 15-20mg topical DHEA and 100mg pregnenelone orally for a few months to good effect

This combination has helped fill in the gaps of my hormonal deficiencies which has helped my body rebuild and stay anabolic

I am back to 205lbs (although at substantially higher bf%) and can assure you that this dosage is definitely anabolic and androgenic and a good option or natural bodybuilders

But be careful because the DHEA is known to cause intense brain fog especially at higher dosages, and even at lower doses, some degree of brain fog seems to be unavoidable,

To me it's a trade off of being able to once again have normal-high androgen levels, so I take a few days off when the brain fog becomes severe until it returns to normal

hope this helps brah!!

sounds good slade. I'm bulking and gained a good almost 10 pounds in the last couple months. recently I've stalled and the weight isn't going up anymore. hard eating so much food! any tips on high calories peat foods to help?

 

[sladerunner69]

sounds good slade. I'm bulking and gained a good almost 10 pounds in the last couple months. recently I've stalled and the weight isn't going up anymore. hard eating so much food! any tips on high calories peat foods to help?

Ten pounds??? That's exceptional gains, do you think its mostly lean muscle mass or waterweight/fat tissue?

Foods I would reccomend are plenty of OJ, milk 1 or 2 %, fruits, rice and potatoes (a musclehead on here "slayer" swears by potatoes)

along with pasteurized eggs, a little muscle meat, liver, oysters, basically all the peat foods

I wouldn't be scared of eating pasteurized eggs as they are low on pufa and nutrient dense, as well as some beef or lean chicken/pork etc, up to 8 oz a day should be fine as long as you are getting gelatin

A good easy recipe is a smoothie made from a ripe frozen banana, mixed with milk, brown sugar, vanilla, an egg, and gelatin. I could drink those all day baby!!!

Also some vitamins are great at boosting testosterone, like vit E, selenium, zinc, taurine.... I would be taking all of those to get my T up ;0

 

[TheHound]

Ten pounds??? That's exceptional gains, do you think its mostly lean muscle mass or waterweight/fat tissue?

Foods I would reccomend are plenty of OJ, milk 1 or 2 %, fruits, rice and potatoes (a musclehead on here "slayer" swears by potatoes)

along with pasteurized eggs, a little muscle meat, liver, oysters, basically all the peat foods

I wouldn't be scared of eating pasteurized eggs as they are low on pufa and nutrient dense, as well as some beef or lean chicken/pork etc, up to 8 oz a day should be fine as long as you are getting gelatin

A good easy recipe is a smoothie made from a ripe frozen banana, mixed with milk, brown sugar, vanilla, an egg, and gelatin. I could drink those all day baby!!!

Also some vitamins are great at boosting testosterone, like vit E, selenium, zinc, taurine.... I would be taking all of those to get my T up ;0

seems to be mostly lean mass. I'm only 20 so that may have helped contribute to the fairly quick weight gain. I'm eating about 4000 calories a day and I'm trying to gain another 10 pounds or so in the next 3 months

 

[DaveFoster]

Teenage guy here. It doesn't boost my libido a ton, but it banishes depression and ADD (with pregnenolone of course).

 

[sladerunner69]

seems to be mostly lean mass. I'm only 20 so that may have helped contribute to the fairly quick weight gain. I'm eating about 4000 calories a day and I'm trying to gain another 10 pounds or so in the next 3 months

Age shouldnt be a factor as much as your metabolism and androgen profiles

 

[Velve921]

Hound,

I think Sladerunner69 has great ideas regarding diet. Over 2 years starting at the age of 27 I put on 25lbs of muscle from lifting 1x a week and stretching daily.....my sole focus is getting temperature and heart rate to 98.6-99/85-90. It's easy to undervalue diet....I have athletes putting on 6-8lbs of muscle in season with no hormone supplementation. The most anabolic diet and lifestyle I've seen so far in myself:

Gelatin, milk, beef liver, oysters, eggs, coconut oil, butter, fruit, fruit juice, raw carrot, boiled mushrooms, boiled bamboo shoots, coffee, sugar, salt, epsom salt baths, red light during winter, blueblocker sunglasses before bed time.

At a young age, diet and lifestyle can make tremendous gains. If you are serious about making strength gains that quickly then precision and timing can be largely helpful. For example, I do beef liver 1x a week, 52x a year; 7 oysters 1x a week 360 oysters a year; 1 epsom salt bath a day 365 a year etc...everything little but matters in my life to get temps and heart in the right zones....as a result muscle piles on! I wouldn't undervalue beef liver and oysters; I never consumed Vitamin A, B vitamins, zinc, copper in my life until I started using these foods. I notice an immediate energy boost when consuming beef liver with coffee, milk, salt, sugar, gelatin.

I think sladerunner69 has good thoughts about potatoes; I personally have severe sluggishness from them.



Good thoughts on food Sladerunner69!

 

[celica1984]

Hi, I'm 25. I started taking DHEA about two weeks ago, and am about a week into pregnenolone. So not much for a real long term report, but I figure my results should be helpful for people.

I was feeling pretty terrible, just got medical insurance finally, so I went to the doctor and got her to do labs, everything was "normal" and I had high Vitamin D, high B12, etc, but my testosterone was coming back at about 400 (with fairly low free test, about 80pg/ml.) Of course, my doctor would do nothing about this even though this is not "normal" or good for someone who is 24-25. Anyway, she wouldn't give me TRT but did give me permission to try DHEA and I get another testosterone measurement in a few months.

Anyway, I started out on 50mg DHEA alone, and the most immediate difference was I could finally sleep. I was going to bed at like 3-4AM, and having a "tired but wired" feeling all throughout the day, very tense feeling, very...adrenal kind of state, with high blood pressure, and DHEA calmed me way way down (and lowered my blood pressure dramatically) like nothing could bother me. Instead "roid rage" I got agitated a lot less at everything. However, wasn't all good news. I started getting some acne, not really any worse than when I was a teenager, but I figured if I continued on such a high dose of DHEA (and it did start to lose effect, so I ended up upping it to 75-100 on some days...) things wouldn't be good. I think high dose DHEA was converting too much to estrogens, though, and with the high doses of DHEA my scrotum would tighten up a lot more than usual (though no shrinking testicles) and at the end of running fairly high doses like that, my libido actually did go down. But on the pregnenolone and low dose DHEA everything seems mostly fine, no acne breakouts, no super oily skin, etc. I tried pregnenolone alone, but it didn't supress cortisol/allow me to get to sleep easily like DHEA did. Strangely pregnenolone almost feels like more of a stimulant, and DHEA like a sedative. Pregnenolone really does feel quite nootropic as well, I can think much better on it, socialize easier, etc. I may drop my DHEA dose down to 12.5 (12.5 is considered "replacement dose") as I still have a tiny tiny bit of oily skin, but we'll see.

Anyway, am an athlete and do lift weights, at one point (before I got messed up...) I was training about 12 hours per week. As far as performance enhancement from DHEA, I can't say it was anything super miraculous. I'd liken the effect to something like creatine. I got strangely, a lot better cardio endurance from it than muscular strength. I do notice maybe a bit more upper body muscle "tone" I guess, and my strength levels are back near my max levels I had last summer, but no, it's not like you take the pills and instantly get 20lbs on your bench or something like that. Longer term this might be more dramatic, but so far, not a magic pill for that stuff. Can't compare it to any anabolic steroids as I've not used them, so... Anyway, if you want it for "gains" alone, you might be disappointed, or you might not, the problem with these hormones is the effect is very individual, along with dosage tolerance, etc.

Hope this is helpful for anyone thinking of taking these things.

 

[Caffeine]

Teenage guy here. It doesn't boost my libido a ton, but it banishes depression and ADD (with pregnenolone of course).

Can you expand on this? What dose was the DHEA and pregnenolone that helped with depression and ADD? Do you still get this effect? Do you think pregnenolone alone could have this effect?

 

[DaveFoster]

Can you expand on this? What dose was the DHEA and pregnenolone that helped with depression and ADD? Do you still get this effect? Do you think pregnenolone alone could have this effect?

I think it's mostly pregnenolone. I was doing 3 mg DHEA x3/day, along with pregnenolone 100 mg x3/day. I backed down to 100 mg/day of pregnenolone: all sublingual administration. I have high anxiety, but not really depression, so I think it was the cortisol-lowering effect. Caffeine negatively affects my anxiety.

 

[KyleKingsly]

I think it's mostly pregnenolone. I was doing 3 mg DHEA x3/day, along with pregnenolone 100 mg x3/day. I backed down to 100 mg/day of pregnenolone: all sublingual administration. I have high anxiety, but not really depression, so I think it was the cortisol-lowering effect. Caffeine negatively affects my anxiety.

I know that this thread is a bit old but I'm just wondering why you chose to take preg. and DHEA orally as a powder rather than Haidut's supplements? I'm trying to decide which to get right now.

 

[DaveFoster]

I know that this thread is a bit old but I'm just wondering why you chose to take preg. and DHEA orally as a powder rather than Haidut's supplements? I'm trying to decide which to get right now.

Topical DHEA and pregnenolone seems safer and more effective.