Gonadal Suppression

[allblues]

Have any of you (guys primarily) dealt with HPTA-axis/gonadal suppression?

I did a stupid thing last fall and applied excessive amounts of DHT topically, mixed with olive oil.
At most i'd do 40 mg/day spread out to 20 mg each time, but usually i'd do 10-20 mg/day.
In hindsight, I don't know what I was thinking. This went on for about 2 weeks before I quit.
Testicles shrank, libido tanked, all that business.

Anyway, things seemed to get somewhat better during wintertime, with a few lingering oddities.
Size went back to normal. I've been using pregnenolone + DHEA without making things worse, through the winter.

This past week I started using some androsterone.
After about a week of 1-2 mg/day I went up to 4, 5 and then 6 mg/day, and bam, suppression came back.
'Nads shrinking, along with a sort of dull pain that comes and goes.

The only real source i find regarding this type of thing beside the broforums and some pubmed abstracts is;
Recovery of spermatogenesis following testosterone replacement therapy or anabolic-androgenic steroid use McBride J A, Coward RM - Asian J Androl

Recovery is talked about at that site in terms of many months,

Alternatively, the same data demonstrate a median time to recovery of 20 × 10 6 ml -1 sperm ranging from 3 to 6 months, with probability estimates suggesting recovery in 67%, 90%, 96%, and 100% of men at 6, 12, 16, and 24 months, respectively, after discontinuation of testosterone exposure.

So, things will probably shape up in the long run, provided I don't fiddle too much.
Waiting for this sort of thing is a pain though, is there any specific things that could be done to help the process along? What actually happens when you take too much endogenous steroids?
Ray mentioned high LH, which i guess is a rebound effect, yet the testes fail to respond to the LH?

If anyone has more info regarding this phenomenon, experiences or sources, please chime in.

 

[RKIII]

What happens when you take too many endogenous steroids is that the feedback loop breaks.

High LH with 'Nads shrinking, along with a sort of dull pain that comes and goes' is the definition of testicular failure.

I would get bloodwork done immediately to take to a urologist or just go to a urologist. You only get one set of those things...

 

[ilikecats]

@haidut any comments about this? This is quite concerning. @allblues are you sure the androsterone caused suppression?

 

[allblues]

@ilikecats Yes, i'm quite sure it was, this isn't the first time this has happened. I went up in dose, got a libido boost (libido is usually very low) and then the symptoms came.
My HPTA-axis might still be out of whack from the DHT overdose last fall, and i've always been pretty hypo-androgenic, so my body seems to react quite handily even to these small doses.

I'm gonna see a doc next week and try to get some tests done. Right now things are sort of back and forth,
testicular pain is almost gone at least.

I don't mean to scare anyone taking steroid supplements, as long as you keep doses reasonable and symptoms like low libido, testicular pain/shrinkage etc don't appear then there's probably nothing to worry about.

 

[A.R]

Was the androsterone in dmso or tocopherol? DMSO really does seem to build up in the system

 

[allblues]

I use the tocopherol verison.

 

[TubZy]

You are probably not recovered from DHT still so any exogenous hormones that are added you will be extremely sensitive too in terms of suppression. This happens with like all the PFS guys. I would stick with higher doses of pregnenolone as it was shown to prevent from AAS shutdown and it well help upregulate the missing steroid pathways that have been shutdown. DHEA can be a little more tricky though, if under stress and don't calculate dosage correctly, it can go to estrogen further worsening suppression.

I think preg, K2 MK-4, D3, taurine should be all helpful in restoring teste function as the studies show. Even aspirin can help boost T due to the strong cortisol lowering effect. Another area you can take a look into would be herbs. Pine pollen, tongkat ali extract, shilajit etc.

 

[Tim Lundeen]

Re herbs, Tribulus should also help.

Might also want to take high mixed Vit E for a while.

 

[RKIII]

I would look at KSM 66 Ashwaganda. It has been shown to cause significant increases in testosterone production in hypogonadal men.

 

[haidut]

@haidut any comments about this? This is quite concerning. @allblues are you sure the androsterone caused suppression?

See the post from TubZy above. For a person who was severely suppressed due to DHT use, I would not use DHT precursors like androsterone. Also, it would be nice to seem some bloodwork on suppression. It could be something else. Gonads/scrotum also tend to shrink/tense up when metabolism slows down. I have never gotten a report of suppression from using the 10mg - 15mg physiological dose Peat mentioned.
But the advice on seeing a urologist is also well-placed. If you react this way to even physiological doses of androsterone it suggests some dysregulation that should probably be investigated further.

 

[RatRancher]

Could this be caused by too high a temperature ?

My rat seems to get more heat generated in the groin after topical application of some supplements. Since sperm production is optimal in slightly lower Temps, I would assume Gonadal production of other beneficial stuff also requires a lower temp.

Or am I completely off base here?

 

[Constatine]

I would look at KSM 66 Ashwaganda. It has been shown to cause significant increases in testosterone production in hypogonadal men.

Great supplement but it has an emotional cost (it seems to nullify emotions).

@ilikecats Yes, i'm quite sure it was, this isn't the first time this has happened. I went up in dose, got a libido boost (libido is usually very low) and then the symptoms came.
My HPTA-axis might still be out of whack from the DHT overdose last fall, and i've always been pretty hypo-androgenic, so my body seems to react quite handily even to these small doses.

I'm gonna see a doc next week and try to get some tests done. Right now things are sort of back and forth,
testicular pain is almost gone at least.

I don't mean to scare anyone taking steroid supplements, as long as you keep doses reasonable and symptoms like low libido, testicular pain/shrinkage etc don't appear then there's probably nothing to worry about.

I'm suspicious that the body does not handle androgens well in a hypothyroid state. Have you tried taking thyroid? Thyroid should also hasten the recovery process.

 

[ilikecats]

@haidut thanks for the response. My rats been using 15mg daily with no ill effects.

 

[RKIII]

Great supplement but it has an emotional cost (it seems to nullify emotions).


I'm suspicious that the body does not handle androgens well in a hypothyroid state. Have you tried taking thyroid? Thyroid should also hasten the recovery process.

At this point it would be prudent to have lab work confirming hypo levels before supplementing thyroid.

If he is already suspecting suppression -throwing thyroid hormone into the mix could make things worse.

 

[sladerunner69]

10-20mg dht does not seem like all that much. For those of us using dht in dmso keep in mind the 10x potentiating factor- wouldn't just a few drops be equivalent to 10-20mg?

 

[theLaw]

@allblues

In my experience using the Idealabs sups with impaired metabolism or liver function can cause some strange unwanted reactions.

Without improving your liver, digestion, and lowering stored PUFA, which all directly effect metabolic function, you'll never be able to get a solid read on what is causing your issues.

Personally, I see this as the #1 mistake that people make on this forum.............by disregarding the root cause in favor of a short-term solution........almost always through excessive supplementation.

Just my $.02

 

[allblues]

Yes @theLaw I think you're right. I'm finally starting to tone down the supplements, to basically just using some fat soluble vitamins.

It's a tough place to be in though, if you're really sick, and life without supplements isn't a good one. It's tempting to try whatever it might be that sounds good and like it should help with moving in the right direction. But yeah, one supplement turns into eight, things get confused, you lose track of what supplement might be causing what side effect, or what "combo" actually seemed to work that one time...

In hindsight, I agree with you. Basics first... Besides moving away from the SAD, things like meal timing, macronutrient partitioning,
sleep and such would probably be better things to start with. I'm not too sure about hormones anymore, but I guess there's good and bad ways of using them.

Labs were delayed but i'll be getting them done soon.

 

[allblues]

@Constatine Sorry for not answering earlier. My only thyroid experience is single drops of Tyromix/day. At first it made me feel slightly better in general, but then I didn't feel much from it, so I quit after about 2 wks. I was taking too many supplements at once at that point.
I've heard some do better with oral administration, when it comes to thyroid.

I've taken ashwagandha off and on. It might be helping steroid profile (got a yuge T reading one time when I ate low carb and used ashwagandha among other things) but it never made me feel much of anything.

@haidut Yes, i'd probably agree there's at least some kind of "something else" going on. As I wrote previously I've always been pretty hypo-androgenic, late to develop vs others etc. Then serotonergics went and multiplied that by a magnitude or so. Getting some more testing done is probably way overdue. I'll post results when I get them.

 

[theLaw]

Yes @theLaw I think you're right. I'm finally starting to tone down the supplements, to basically just using some fat soluble vitamins.

It's a tough place to be in though, if you're really sick, and life without supplements isn't a good one. It's tempting to try whatever it might be that sounds good and like it should help with moving in the right direction. But yeah, one supplement turns into eight, things get confused, you lose track of what supplement might be causing what side effect, or what "combo" actually seemed to work that one time...

In hindsight, I agree with you. Basics first... Besides moving away from the SAD, things like meal timing, macronutrient partitioning,
sleep and such would probably be better things to start with. I'm not too sure about hormones anymore, but I guess there's good and bad ways of using them.

Labs were delayed but i'll be getting them done soon.

I've been there........purchased and used no less than 10 Idealabs sups with DMSO before dropping them all, and starting on a focused liver protocol of Caffeine + K2 + Thiamine + Niacinamide + Aspirin (it even took a while to get the balance right with these). I currently only use the non-DMSO vitamins from Haidut just to be safe.

"To hell with the cheese.......I wanted out of the trap!!!"

 

[redlight]

HCG really helps my testcile remain full and my loads are massive.