Need Urgent Hormone Advice

[Orius]

A little background... I'm 33/male. I suffer from inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis. I was just on low dose prednisone for over a year - the longest yet - and only recently was able to stop. Bowels are no longer bleeding but they are still healing. I need iron IVs and things like that regularly because my gut absorption isn't the greatest. Right now I am severely anemia (ferritin score of 7, hemoglobin 105 [10.5])

Coming off prednisone was hell. While on prednisone, I took 25mg DHEA daily to try and support my body in the absence of adrenal function. When I eventually stopped prednisone, I also started taking pregnenolone while dropping the DHEA (since presumably my DHEA would pickup) on the advice of a naturopath.

Around mid-August I started having unremitting diarrhea no matter what I ate. I thought it was a diet thing, until I added back 25mg of DHEA. The diarrhea vanished immediately.

I'm currently taking 50mg pregnenolone in the AM, and 25mg DHEA in the PM. Sometimes I do 25mg DHEA twice a day (morning and afternoon).

So I have multiple concerns:
1) Am I just suppressing my adrenals again by taking these hormones long-term?
2) Any recommendations on how I can balance hormone intake with the need for adrenal support and the need to support my IBD?
3) Is there any subjective way to gauge if I'm taking too much of either of these?

My doctor knows nothing and ironically my endocrinologist knows very little, so I'm kind of on my own here. I also tried this in cream form, and while the DHEA cream worked the pregnenolone cream did next to nothing. I'm only aware of pregnenolone working when I do it orally.

The hormone supplementation definitely helps. If it were between this and taking prednisone in the future, I'd definitely just do hormones. But at what point should I consider tapering or stopping them?

A lot of sources say 25mg for someone my age is too much, but I also have to factor in adrenal harm from long-term steroid use. So that's the grey area I'm dealing with.

Thank you!!

 

[solomon]

Hi @Orius,

I am having the same issue. I have ulcerative colitis. I was put on the prednisolone for over 2 years. Every time I got off it after tapering off My symptoms (in my case chronic diarrea) comes back. I tried using pregnenolone, but it did not work. But I haven't tried using DHEA with pregnenolone. I am also wondering what is the role of DHEA in this case? hopping @haidut would give us his thought on this. In the meant I am definitely trying the DHEA.

 

[solomon]

I would like to report back that all the issue I had was just Mg deficiency. I loaded up 1g Mg two days ago and all the symptoms I had subsidized significantly. Now I am on the third day, and I feel much better. I will credit the total health improvement I gained to following the ray peat recommendation that I have started following since Jan 2019.

Although the question I have is why is the deficiency not shown in the blood work?

 

[Blossom]

I would like to report back that all the issue I had was just Mg deficiency. I loaded up 1g Mg two days ago and all the symptoms I had subsidized significantly. Now I am on the third day, and I feel much better. I will credit the total health improvement I gained to following the ray peat recommendation that I have started following since Jan 2019.

Although the question I have is why is the deficiency not shown in the blood work?

From web MD,
“Some experts don’t think a blood test is the best way to find out your magnesium level. That’s because much of the magnesium in your body is stored in your bones and other places, not in the blood.

Stress can send magnesium out of your cells and into your blood. This can make it seem like you have more magnesium in your body than you really have if you simply have a blood test.”