Explanation For DHEA Effect?

[Orius]

I have inflammatory bowel disease and during a recent flare (April - June) I was on high dose prednisone. I had deleterious effects like bone loss and skin thinning. I'm 33 years old. Normally muscular and robust, but the prednisone messed me up a lot.

As I finally got off the prednisone in August, I started taking DHEA and pregnenolone to try and help my ailing adrenals. Getting off prednisone was REALLY hard. I had to split 5mg pills in half and take 2.5mg otherwise I felt wrecked. I've been taking 50mg pregnenolone and 25mg DHEA daily, which I'm now reading here is a lot of DHEA.

My question is...

During my self-treatment, I went on vacation to visit family and I forgot my DHEA at home, and was taking pregnenolone on its own. My bowel symptoms came back with a vengeance. I thought maybe it was something in my diet so I started tweaking that. I thought the pregnenolone would be OK because "well, it converts to DHEA anyway". A week later I bought more DHEA and when I took it the bowel symptoms went away the very next day. It was like night and day.

I'm not asking for a diagnosis, I'm just curious if anyone knows what could have been going on? Adrenals not back online and making DHEA maybe? Although Ray says that DHEA is not only made in the adrenals. Pregnenolone not high enough to convert to DHEA? Prednisone takes the adrenals offline completely so that they produce nothing. Maybe taking pregnenolone alone didn't work because the adrenals lacked the capacity to turn preg into DHEA. I'm just theorizing.

So I'm very confused. Part of the reason why I'm asking is because I'm still taking 25mg DHEA and I'm starting to have hair loss. I'm also iron deficient so that could be why, but I've never lost this much hair before. I'm going to switch to 10mg DHEA pills. I'm afraid to stop the DHEA because I don't want my bowel symptoms to come back. I am a lot physically healthier now. Back to normal body weight and natural muscle tone has returned, but no way to know if this is from supplementing hormones or if my natural ability to make them has returned.

 

[Dave Clark]

One thing I noticed is that the opinions of dosage are so very different from this forum to other sources. And, maybe since it is so individualized. Some people feel much better on high doses, and then other people report all kinds of problems on high doses. It may have to do with how your body metabolizes the DHEA, and whether any of it goes to estrogen, which will vary from one person to the other. Trial both and see how you feel, plus you could also try progesterone and see if that works for you (some people feel great on it, others get tweaked by adding it)

 

[Orius]

Progesterone made me ridiculously tired and it killed my libido. My intuition is that it antagonized the sex hormones too much. I tried it at different dosing levels and it all did the same thing.

Based on how my symptoms responded to DHEA, either Pregnenolone steal was happening to make cortisol and not enough was going to DHEA, or DHEA production was just offline because my adrenals were offline.

I might just stop everything and then re-introduce one at a time, at different doses. It's a bit risky for me to go that route but I don't know how else to differentiate things.

Too bad I can't afford a doctor to get regular testing done. I hope my hair grows back!

 

[tallglass13]

According to some, taking cortisol (prednisone), grows hair, but when you stop taking cortisol, hair loss occurs because your own production of cortisol is low and so is your cortisol sensitivity. you might consider using Licorice and pregnelone for a while see if that helps. DHEA converts a lot to Estrogen, and Ray Peat has changed his view on DHEA, stating it should Only be used is very small quantities.

 

[Frankdee20]

According to some, taking cortisol (prednisone), grows hair, but when you stop taking cortisol, hair loss occurs because your own production of cortisol is low and so is your cortisol sensitivity. you might consider using Licorice and pregnelone for a while see if that helps. DHEA converts a lot to Estrogen, and Ray Peat has changed his view on DHEA, stating it should Only be used is very small quantities.

Doesn’t licorice get a bad rap for killing testosterone

 

[tallglass13]

Huh? I haven't experienced that. I know that licorice should be paired up with thyroid or preg. Licorice stops cortisol conversion into cortisone, thus boosting cortisol. But taking bio identical cortisol shuts down your own production, so when you stop, you have no cortisol, and cortisol insensitivity.