P
PointOutside
Guest
Hello everyone, I’m new here but I’ve been browsing the forum for a while now and have learned a great deal about serotonin, estrogen, the gut, and other peaty endeavors. The following is a lengthy explanation of what’s going on with me.
There was a point in my life where my health was pretty normal. My diet was average but not full blown western diet (occasional fast food) but overall I felt, normal I guess.
Two and a half years ago I made the stupid decision to use anabolic steroids, specifically 500 mg of Testosterone Enanthate a week for 4 months, then a cruise at TRT doses for 2 months and then a blast again at 500 mg for 3 months. Total time of HPTA shutdown was around 9 months. I used an AI during this obviously and tracked Estradiol through blood work. Towards the end, I used HCG to resensitize the old Leydig cells and followed with a “half PCT” consisting of 20mg of a SERM called Nolvadex for 14 days and dropped it because the estrogenic side effects got to me and I couldn’t study for my exams.
Not long after, my Testosterone levels recovered exactly where they were prior to steroids: mid 500s on average and over two years of blood work it always landed in that range. Other parameters like SHBG, prolactin, free/total T, progesterone were all seriously perfect on paper. Sounds normal right? Obviously not optimal but definitely enough to avoid low T symptoms. Except… I never regained my libido and spent two years of my life with a half working p*nis. In fact, I also became incredibly robotic and could barely enjoy anything. Previously being extroverted, I became very anti-social but still forced myself into social situations, you know being in college and all. But I could never feel comfortable around people anymore. During steroids I never lost any hair, the year following I shed a bunch of hair in a diffuse manner. Constant constipation that relieves every 2-3 days but never any normal stool, cold hands and feet, etc. Eating carbs made be very very lethargic.
Anyways, some things stuck out to me in my blood work during these last two and a half years: my E2 was consistently in the single digits on a sensitive test. On the other hand, I had a mix of both low E2 and high E2 symptoms. I agree with the peat view on E2 being a bad thing but here’s the thing: from my experience with steroids I know what low, medium, and high E2 feels like. One key high E2 symptom for me was very high hanging (or not hanging) testicles. During these two years, while having extremely low E2 my testicles hung very high and were still smaller than usual. My gyno was puffy during this entire time where when I was on steroids they would go days almost being nonexistent and only puffed up when my E2 ran high. Somehow it got worse after steroids (my DHT never tanked by the way, maybe for a week or two during PCT.) My TSH is 0.77 as of last week, in fact all of my thyroid parameters are basically perfect. Yet I still have cold hands and feet. I’ve tried iodine and selenium and they provided temporary relief (hands and feet heated up and improvement in all symptoms) in the beginning but that died off. I have spent two and a half years trying to regain my cognitive function, emotions, mental clarity, clear speech, energy (big one,) and libido. I have lost any sort of mental drive.
I’ve tried hundreds of supplements and protocols and nothing worked (maybe, see the next paragraph). I discovered RP and decided to see things his way. So I decided to try to ramp up my metabolism in hopes of repairing whatever broke in my body.
I have good thyroid function on paper, but my metabolism and morning temps (usually 96ish) are not reflective of that. For the first time I felt improvement from something: 500 mg of Thiamine HCL, Riboflavin and Niacin. Within a week I felt a familiar pain (like when I started HCG) in my testicles followed by growth and they hang lower now. Libido went from almost nonexistent to almost normal and has since been maintained during these two weeks, longer than anything I’ve ever taken. I can eat carbs and feel myself almost heating up after eating them. Mentally I improved across the board but never fully got there, you know? Still, it has been a very profound change and hopefully that continues.
THEN, I started taking 500 mg of Calcium carbonate per Peats suggestion over email and this brought back a very very familiar feeling in my mental state. Quieter mental chatter, increased emotion, lessened ADD symptoms, and brought me even closer to my old self. I took 300-350 mg Mag Glycinate with this then hit a point where I got horrible RLS in bed, anxiety, and insomnia and felt extremely fidgety in what I was describe as a massive spike in serotonin. I dropped the magnesium two days ago and today I’m starting to feel normal again, as in I regained the benefits of this protocol again. No idea why magnesium did that to me considering it’s important role in all of this especially with regards to B1. I figured I’d really need magnesium with all this ATP production but it just makes me very fidgety, makes me very ADD, and I have to constantly shake my leg. I can very confidently say it was the magnesium as counter intuitive as it sounds. Also, I should mention I get plenty of sun, I hit my potassium and sodium RDAs too.
With all of this, I still don’t feel 100% unless I’m taking the thiamine, b2, b3, and calcium AND my body is warm. Like there are some days where I take everything I talked about here and my hands and feet are warm and I actually feel 90-95%. But there was days where I’m on the same stack but my extremities are freezing cold (like it shocks people) and I’m 50% of the way there. Still better than baseline.
Some extra stuff:
- my face would bloat especially after carbs (and very especially after eating carbs while on steroids), thiamine may have just fixed that. Calcium took it further it seems like and my face is slim for once
- thiamine and calcium made my face look years younger
- Calcium is normal on paper (yes I’m aware of how that’s almost useless)
- I’ve gotten Vit D as high as 60 with no improvement in anything at all
- I haven’t had a normal stool yet but the thiamine let’s me go every single day now amazingly
- one of my blood works from a few months ago shows DHEA-S above the ref range, haven’t tested it since and doc said it’s not clinically significant
- sometimes my stool is very pale (bile?) but usually it goes back to normal
- my last doctor told me estrogen doesn’t really have a function in men (lol)
- I am 21 years old (18 is young for steroids haha)
- A specific strain of bacteria called L. Reuteri 6475 have me very good improvements a while back and then stopped working. Increased libido, mood, etc. but the effects were transient. I even cultured it myself by the way. I’m starting to think my issues may be primarily gut related and serotonin.
- I secretly exhibit some autistic symptoms like an urge to do repetitive hand movements while walking around and daydreaming which nobody knows about and this is the first time I’ve ever mentioned it. I’ve done this since I was a kid but sometimes the urge gets worse I’m assuming when my serotonin gets high. Always hid it from people.
- drinking pink Himalayan salt sometimes heats me up and makes me feel better (emphasis on sometimes)
- I do very high intensity weight lifting primarily for strength
- while I still can’t fully enjoy music like I used to, calcium improved that for me
- also I lost the ability to dream after the steroids, calcium brought it back and with great detail. I actually love it.
- maybe relevant but any time I take over 1 gram of ascorbic acid I feel a potent increase in focus
I ate like sh*t when I was on steroids, built up a crazy amount of mass during this. Besides HPTA suppression I guess this whole thing wrecked my nutrient and electrolyte stores considering building 30-40 lbs of mass in months probably requires an insane amount of energy and nutrients. Probably an extreme amount of oxidative stress. But then again, it’s been 2.5 years. Who knows…
I’m sorry for a massive post but I’m now just seeking some guidance. Why would these things benefit me? Why calcium works and why is magnesium hurting me? Any clue on what the hell is going on in my body? Any suggestions? I seriously appreciate you if you read this entire post. The past two years of my life I’ve been clueless and struggling to heal myself. RP asked me about my calcium and that was incredibly beneficial. Thank you.
There was a point in my life where my health was pretty normal. My diet was average but not full blown western diet (occasional fast food) but overall I felt, normal I guess.
Two and a half years ago I made the stupid decision to use anabolic steroids, specifically 500 mg of Testosterone Enanthate a week for 4 months, then a cruise at TRT doses for 2 months and then a blast again at 500 mg for 3 months. Total time of HPTA shutdown was around 9 months. I used an AI during this obviously and tracked Estradiol through blood work. Towards the end, I used HCG to resensitize the old Leydig cells and followed with a “half PCT” consisting of 20mg of a SERM called Nolvadex for 14 days and dropped it because the estrogenic side effects got to me and I couldn’t study for my exams.
Not long after, my Testosterone levels recovered exactly where they were prior to steroids: mid 500s on average and over two years of blood work it always landed in that range. Other parameters like SHBG, prolactin, free/total T, progesterone were all seriously perfect on paper. Sounds normal right? Obviously not optimal but definitely enough to avoid low T symptoms. Except… I never regained my libido and spent two years of my life with a half working p*nis. In fact, I also became incredibly robotic and could barely enjoy anything. Previously being extroverted, I became very anti-social but still forced myself into social situations, you know being in college and all. But I could never feel comfortable around people anymore. During steroids I never lost any hair, the year following I shed a bunch of hair in a diffuse manner. Constant constipation that relieves every 2-3 days but never any normal stool, cold hands and feet, etc. Eating carbs made be very very lethargic.
Anyways, some things stuck out to me in my blood work during these last two and a half years: my E2 was consistently in the single digits on a sensitive test. On the other hand, I had a mix of both low E2 and high E2 symptoms. I agree with the peat view on E2 being a bad thing but here’s the thing: from my experience with steroids I know what low, medium, and high E2 feels like. One key high E2 symptom for me was very high hanging (or not hanging) testicles. During these two years, while having extremely low E2 my testicles hung very high and were still smaller than usual. My gyno was puffy during this entire time where when I was on steroids they would go days almost being nonexistent and only puffed up when my E2 ran high. Somehow it got worse after steroids (my DHT never tanked by the way, maybe for a week or two during PCT.) My TSH is 0.77 as of last week, in fact all of my thyroid parameters are basically perfect. Yet I still have cold hands and feet. I’ve tried iodine and selenium and they provided temporary relief (hands and feet heated up and improvement in all symptoms) in the beginning but that died off. I have spent two and a half years trying to regain my cognitive function, emotions, mental clarity, clear speech, energy (big one,) and libido. I have lost any sort of mental drive.
I’ve tried hundreds of supplements and protocols and nothing worked (maybe, see the next paragraph). I discovered RP and decided to see things his way. So I decided to try to ramp up my metabolism in hopes of repairing whatever broke in my body.
I have good thyroid function on paper, but my metabolism and morning temps (usually 96ish) are not reflective of that. For the first time I felt improvement from something: 500 mg of Thiamine HCL, Riboflavin and Niacin. Within a week I felt a familiar pain (like when I started HCG) in my testicles followed by growth and they hang lower now. Libido went from almost nonexistent to almost normal and has since been maintained during these two weeks, longer than anything I’ve ever taken. I can eat carbs and feel myself almost heating up after eating them. Mentally I improved across the board but never fully got there, you know? Still, it has been a very profound change and hopefully that continues.
THEN, I started taking 500 mg of Calcium carbonate per Peats suggestion over email and this brought back a very very familiar feeling in my mental state. Quieter mental chatter, increased emotion, lessened ADD symptoms, and brought me even closer to my old self. I took 300-350 mg Mag Glycinate with this then hit a point where I got horrible RLS in bed, anxiety, and insomnia and felt extremely fidgety in what I was describe as a massive spike in serotonin. I dropped the magnesium two days ago and today I’m starting to feel normal again, as in I regained the benefits of this protocol again. No idea why magnesium did that to me considering it’s important role in all of this especially with regards to B1. I figured I’d really need magnesium with all this ATP production but it just makes me very fidgety, makes me very ADD, and I have to constantly shake my leg. I can very confidently say it was the magnesium as counter intuitive as it sounds. Also, I should mention I get plenty of sun, I hit my potassium and sodium RDAs too.
With all of this, I still don’t feel 100% unless I’m taking the thiamine, b2, b3, and calcium AND my body is warm. Like there are some days where I take everything I talked about here and my hands and feet are warm and I actually feel 90-95%. But there was days where I’m on the same stack but my extremities are freezing cold (like it shocks people) and I’m 50% of the way there. Still better than baseline.
Some extra stuff:
- my face would bloat especially after carbs (and very especially after eating carbs while on steroids), thiamine may have just fixed that. Calcium took it further it seems like and my face is slim for once
- thiamine and calcium made my face look years younger
- Calcium is normal on paper (yes I’m aware of how that’s almost useless)
- I’ve gotten Vit D as high as 60 with no improvement in anything at all
- I haven’t had a normal stool yet but the thiamine let’s me go every single day now amazingly
- one of my blood works from a few months ago shows DHEA-S above the ref range, haven’t tested it since and doc said it’s not clinically significant
- sometimes my stool is very pale (bile?) but usually it goes back to normal
- my last doctor told me estrogen doesn’t really have a function in men (lol)
- I am 21 years old (18 is young for steroids haha)
- A specific strain of bacteria called L. Reuteri 6475 have me very good improvements a while back and then stopped working. Increased libido, mood, etc. but the effects were transient. I even cultured it myself by the way. I’m starting to think my issues may be primarily gut related and serotonin.
- I secretly exhibit some autistic symptoms like an urge to do repetitive hand movements while walking around and daydreaming which nobody knows about and this is the first time I’ve ever mentioned it. I’ve done this since I was a kid but sometimes the urge gets worse I’m assuming when my serotonin gets high. Always hid it from people.
- drinking pink Himalayan salt sometimes heats me up and makes me feel better (emphasis on sometimes)
- I do very high intensity weight lifting primarily for strength
- while I still can’t fully enjoy music like I used to, calcium improved that for me
- also I lost the ability to dream after the steroids, calcium brought it back and with great detail. I actually love it.
- maybe relevant but any time I take over 1 gram of ascorbic acid I feel a potent increase in focus
I ate like sh*t when I was on steroids, built up a crazy amount of mass during this. Besides HPTA suppression I guess this whole thing wrecked my nutrient and electrolyte stores considering building 30-40 lbs of mass in months probably requires an insane amount of energy and nutrients. Probably an extreme amount of oxidative stress. But then again, it’s been 2.5 years. Who knows…
I’m sorry for a massive post but I’m now just seeking some guidance. Why would these things benefit me? Why calcium works and why is magnesium hurting me? Any clue on what the hell is going on in my body? Any suggestions? I seriously appreciate you if you read this entire post. The past two years of my life I’ve been clueless and struggling to heal myself. RP asked me about my calcium and that was incredibly beneficial. Thank you.
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