Hormonal Blood Tests I Got For Depression

HealingBoy

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Hey everybody :)

I recently did tests, partly prescribed by my psychiatrist (TSH, Cortisol, Free Testosterone). I added some others. I regret estrogen or prolactin were not included but I keep prolactin in check by not masturbating too much. They were done 2 weeks after I stopped all supplements (pregnenolone, taurine, niacinamide, zinc, theanine, peppermint essential oil)

I'm 28 and have a history of undiagnosed cyclothymic depression and anxiety. I'm lean ( 1m85 for 70kg, ~ 6ft 1in for 154 lbs) and my muscles are easily apparent. I exercise at least 3 times a week (bouldering, running, yoga) and walk a lot. I try to avoid PUFAs, eat more meat proteins, add more fruits, honey and sugar in my food, and also lot of olive oil, butter. I avoid pasta/bread carbs. I also try to avoid caffeine because it gets me anxious or spaced out.

Here are results and the lab ranges (sometimes, they seem exaggerate)

Progesterone : 0.26 ug/l (supposed to be lower than 0.05-0.15 for men. Maybe the cause of my varicose veins in the left leg?)
SDHA : 9.98 umol/l (4.35-12.2)
Pregnenolone :
- 0.4 ng/mL (0.2-0.6)
- 1.26 nmol/L (0.63-1.89)
TSH : 2.18 (it was 2.63 before so I guess I made a progression on this one)
Cortisol : 392 nmol/L ( in the morning, normal range 165 - 510 nmol/L )
SHBG : 36.8 nmol/L (18-54)
Free Testosterone :
- 17.4 pg/mL (8-40)
- 60.3 pmol/L (29-139)

So these are the lab range, but what do the peatians think of these values ? Doesn't the high progesterone mean I may be getting too much estrogens (even though I now take aromatase inhibitor like zinc, niacinamide, grape/pomegranate juice, olive oil) ? Can it be a result of weeks of oral and / or scrotum application of pregnenolone, even two weeks after ?

Thanks for any clarification ! :)
 
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danielbb

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Some ideas about depression....

I've suffered from it my whole life but no longer. The cure kind of came to me by accident but I am grateful nonetheless. I am 58 and 1/2 years old now. My mother passed away when I was 56. I was not depressed from that event because my mother did not suffer (her wish) and I was thankful for that. For exactly one year after that event, I used food and alcohol to self-medicate. Pizza, subs, burgers, fries, chicken-wings, beer, you name it ordered over the phone became my routine for about 1 year. When I did those things (e.g., "comfort food" and alcohol), it took my mind off things but always felt worse the next day. My depression (apathy-depression and cyclic) grew until one day about a year later, a thought occurred to me. The thought was "I am sick of being sick." I had let myself go till this point where my weight had ballooned to 260 lbs and I had a host of serious health problems including depression. I slowly started to walk. Began learning how to eat healthy and now weigh 165 lbs in perfect health.

Came across a video by Ray Peat where he linked a runny-nose to what was going on in our bowels during the digestive process. I started trouble-shooting my diet to see if I could find the cause of runny-nose and found it was linked to some of the items you mentioned like bread and pasta. I assumed it was the starch and/or gluten in those items. After about 6 weeks, with no starch-like substances, my runny nose left me for good. About the same time, I woke up one day and my depression was gone. It had left me and has never returned. I still wanted to eat things like I always had and found I could make flour from zucchini. That is expensive, time-consuming, and frankly not as satisfying as flour. Then I posted one of my zucchini recipe's here and another member pointed out to me that what was probably bothering me about bread and pasta was that it was enriched with industrial additives (toxins) like iron and low-grade b-vitamins. He recommended Italian flour which is wheat only and I began to experiment. My runny nose did not return. That flour is excellent but expensive and I've found King Arthur brand is wheat-only as well. Both work for me. Wheat only pasta can be purchased at Whole foods. I've had no problem with them. Some of my problems were no doubt also linked to high PUFA consumption but I have no doubt enriched flour is a problem that most are unaware. Think about everything that you consume. You can remove one item at a time for a couple of weeks if you are suspicious of a given substance. Make no assumptions and trouble-shoot by only isolating "one" substance at a time.

Your list of things you do is excellent for depression. Cooking, cleaning, and walking (especially outside) are three of the healthiest things I know that cure depression. These activities take you out of the dark thoughts in your mind and transport you outside yourself and thus, take your mind off the dark thoughts without using drugs, alcohol, or food. I prepare 99% of all my food and when I eat out it would be from a whole food source like steak and vegetables. One final suggestion, olive oil and butter are fine energy sources. If you can try and avoid mixing your sugar and fat at the same meal, I think you can improve things even further. Vegetables and low-carb berries or watermelon can be mixed with anything. Higher carb sources like fruit, sugar, honey, oatmeal, wheat, potatoes, rice, and so forth are best as source of energy if not mixed at the same time with fat. I should note, after my depression left me, I decided to give up alcohol and that was one of the best things I ever did. It's been almost a year and a half for me and my life is wonderful without it.

There are other types of depression that cannot be healed simply by diet and exercise alone. For instance, if someone loses a loved one in a tragic circumstance that is unexpected, there is going to be a certain amount of traumatic depression associated with that. This can only be healed in time. Walking and other activities plus time can heal. In the moment of pain, no amount of words, drugs, food, or alcohol can change what has happened. A certain amount of grieving needs to occur. Self-medication (or prescribed medication) only makes things worse in my opinion.
 

Frankdee20

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I take 100 MG of plain old B6 and it works fabulous for depression. Fabulous.
 
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HealingBoy

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Thank you for your answers. I know my depression is also "existential" ( understand "not driven by biological process but thoughts" ), that's why I'm on therapy with a nice therapist. I also decided to avoid alcohol as much as I can, even ban it. That's complicated socially.

Frankdee20, I'm going to research on this, but if I remember well, you have problems with alcohol and that's maybe why it helps you so much (I'm not judging you, of course).

I'm still wondering about these results, do anyone have an opinion on these elevated progesterone results for example ?
 

inthedark

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Curious as to why you're positing that high progesterone may be caused by too much estrogens. As I understand it estrogen drives progesterone down. Thus the need for progesterone therapy in those with excess estrogen. At least in the context of Peat's ideas. Wondering if I'm missing something on this?
 
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Frankdee20

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I am more of the flat, mollasses like depresso, so it helps
 
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HealingBoy

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@Rick_F : What I meant is that progesterone can convert into too much estrogen, but I guess it's kept at bay now with niacinamide and zinc.

I'm wondering if the high progesterone is maybe the result of weeks of pregnenolone supplementing, the only thing is that I stopped taking it 2 weeks before the blood tests. I'm not sure progesterone half-life is that long to stay so long in blood.

Meta : I may be wrong but it seems hard to get peatians opinion on these results, maybe I'm not explicit about it or maybe there are too much people asking these kind of things and it's maybe tiring.
 

Arnold Grape

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While I cannot comment on your labs (sorry), I can tell you that B2 in larger doses than recommended here (50 mg two times daily) has helped immensely. If you research this, you may land on the rationale that Riboflavin helps to eliminate iron from your liver and tissues. (Your blood test did not include ferritin.) Read further below:

B2 I love you!
 

inthedark

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@Rick_F : What I meant is that progesterone can convert into too much estrogen, but I guess it's kept at bay now with niacinamide and zinc.

I'm wondering if the high progesterone is maybe the result of weeks of pregnenolone supplementing, the only thing is that I stopped taking it 2 weeks before the blood tests. I'm not sure progesterone half-life is that long to stay so long in blood.

Meta : I may be wrong but it seems hard to get peatians opinion on these results, maybe I'm not explicit about it or maybe there are too much people asking these kind of things and it's maybe tiring.
orry I

Sorry if that question was derailing, but that's what most stuck out to me when reading your post. And I am genuinely curious about what you're saying about high progesterone converting into estrogen, as that's not a commonly held position on this forum. Relatively massive doses of progesterone are often successfully used to treat PMS caused by too much estrogen. If excess progesterone was converted into estrogen I would think that this wouldn't be the case. To address your comment about half life, common progesterone treatments advise taking it every 12 hours to keep blood levels up.

The reason I ask about this is that progesterone is a particular interest of mine and I am genuinely curious as to why you're saying it converts to estrogen.
 

KennethKaniff

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You are obviously hypothyroid with a TSH like that. I'm shocked that no one else has pointed it out yet
 
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HealingBoy

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@KennethKaniff Really ? < 2.5 is hypothyroid for you ? Yeah, it's not an optimal value according to Peat standards, but can we really say hypothyroid ? Could it be hypothyroid according to my current condition ?

@Rick_F I was wrong then. I really thought progesterone could convert to either estrogens or testosterone, but it can actually convert to testosterone (THEN estrogen if the conditions are favorable to this conversion). Progesterone half-life in blood is 30-40 for topical application and less for other types of use (oral is 6 hours for example ~~).

@Arnold Grape thanks for the suggestion. I may check that since I may have some symptoms he's describing (dry eye syndrome, but I work on front of computer all the day, so that's probably why)

I'm searching and searching but I'm seeing nothing really valuable about high progesterone in men, except that it may be a symptom of congenital adrenal hyperplasia, but symptoms don't match. It's supposed to be protective against stress but it doesn't prevent me from having social anxiety :)
 

KennethKaniff

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A TSH above 2.0 is definitely hypothyroid. There are many publications showing that a TSH below 1.5 or 1.0 is the best for health outcomes (longevity, heart attack risk, etc.)
 

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