Sex Drive Tanks: Was It Pregnenolone?

[ander454]

Once you get better glycogen stores, you could attempt to add back preg and B3, but in small doses (monitor your sleep to gauge effect).

Cool, more milk/sugar and lower caffeine seems to be keeping the cold feet away and I feel just more relaxed. Sleep is better. How long does it take to get glycogen stores back?

 

[Orion]

Cool, more milk/sugar and lower caffeine seems to be keeping the cold feet away and I feel just more relaxed. Sleep is better. How long does it take to get glycogen stores back?

Sleep is your guide, being able to sleep deep for example 8-12hrs, means stores would be good. Or being able to go 8-12hrs without food and not crashing or feeling cold (low temps / low pulse below 80bpm).

I would go with if you are young with low PUFA stores, should be a quick turn around. Older with lots of PUFA stored, weeks, months, years...

 

[natedawggh]

Hi,

First time posting on the forum. I've been reading for several months and appreciate all the good info and positive community. You guys are great!

Short History:
2012 -2013 - over worked burn-out corporate job long hours sitting at computer, stupid Paleo diet, over-exercised olympic lifts... = severe muscle problems (myfascial pain syndrome) up/down the spine and into the base of my skull that persist to this day. SEVERE irritability brain fog for quite some time. Very low testosterone per lab test.
2013-2014 - re-feeding based on guidance from Matt Stone (lots of calories and fair amount of junk food). Some thyroid help T3/T4 from Endocrinologist (minor effect). Some mineral supplements from Naturopath advice but had to stop because kept getting heart palpitation (main culprit was Potassium). Weird oxygen/Co2 issues where holding my breath to the 10sec mark would likely result in feinting.
2015-2016 - things are getting better. Still have stiffness in back/upper neck that bothers me in terms of mobility and popping/clicking noises but no more pain or tweaks. breathing issues resolved in 2016. palpitations gone in 2016. irritability almost gone (Tai Chi helps). Still experimenting with things, including ideas from Peat. Hell of a lot better now than several years ago!

Short Physiology/Lifestyle Background:
I'm a 36 year old ectomorph. I was 140lbs in 2012 Paleo days.... I'm now 160lbs and still pretty skinny looking! My background as a kid was distance running and soccer. I certainly overtrained back then, but I don't run more than 20 miles a week anymore, typically much less. I run because I love getting outside, not because I'm addicted to stress hormones.... I enjoy Tai Chi too. I sit at a computer a lot... My pulse (waking 45, sitting at work 60-70) and body temp (98.1) are always the same no matter what I do and do not seem to track with my overall feeling of good/bad. Warm hands/feet are a good indicator however. I sleep average 8 hours per night. Digestion is fine, no gut issues. 1 cup of coffee in morning is good, 2 can be trouble, 3 will definitely make the feet cold way before lunch (no matter how much sugar). I don't like coffee in the afternoon. I've had toenail fungus since a teenager and sometimes get horrible atheletes foot breakouts. I have about 1/4 to 1/2 can of smokeless tobacco on the weekends. I built myself a sauna and love it.

My Experiment:
I'd like to boost testosterone to see if it helps my muscular issues heal faster and boost sex drive a bit (although sex drive isn't horrible). I know testosterone was low from lab tests in 2013 (and I could just feel it). Ever since I hit my 30s it seems sex drive is, at best, 2x lower. So, on to the experiment.... couple months back I started trying a daily 30mg of Pregnenolone to see what kind of effect it might have (maybe convert to DHEA and then to testosterone?). The first week I felt good - I felt very relaxed and happy. But at the same time sex drive started falling rapidly. At 2 weeks I might have well been castrated! And I developed a weird twitch in my left eye that I've never had before. Cold/clammy feet was almost unbearable at times. Still generally happy and feeling good, but WTF? After 2-3 weeks of stopping, my sex drive was back up to what it was and my eye twitch went away. Unfortunately I also tried some Niacinimide 1 week after I started the Preg. I started at around 150mg and got up to about 500mg in the second week (and also stopped taking). So, now I am not completely sure which one really gave me issues, but I'm pretty sure the the Preg started the symptoms. Any thoughts? I was also on lots of protein whey the whole time which had yucky sucrolose, which was completely foreign to my body thus far in life and I've switched off of now as well. Thoughts? Anything else I should try?

A lot of the advice is solid, yes pregnenolone can lower T if your metabolism is slow, but especially on low doses you're taking enough to cause a change but not enough to heal. I take 50-200 mg sometimes at night when I have trouble sleeping, and sometimes take DHEA with it to help convert more to androgens. This still sometimes lowers my sex drive but pregnenolone always increases my muscle mass and always helps me sleep well, so instead of taking continuous small doses try taking larger doses spread further apart, and use aspirin and foods to keep your metabolism up.

 

[ander454]

so instead of taking continuous small doses try taking larger doses spread further apart, and use aspirin and foods to keep your metabolism up.

Thanks, should I spread out doses of the Niacinamide too?

 

[natedawggh]

Thanks, should I spread out doses of the Niacinamide too?

Nah, niacinamide is more of a metabolism driver and is beneficial in consistent doses (I take brands without silica tho, as that can be an irritant) but food should always be taken after niacinamide, because like coffee it does increase metabolism, and if there is no fuel present the body will then excrete stress hormones to generate fuel from your tissues.

 

[natedawggh]

Nah, niacinamide is more of a metabolism driver and is beneficial in consistent doses (I take brands without silica tho, as that can be an irritant) but food should always be taken after niacinamide, because like coffee it does increase metabolism, and if there is no fuel present the body will then excrete stress hormones to generate fuel from your tissues.

Oh btw, that thyroid/palpitations thing was from high levels of co2 resulting from thyroid supplementation. The cure to that is to take deep breaths and replenish the oxygen. It's not actually very serious, though it feels that way. I and my sister both experienced it on our way to getting better.

For neck stiffness, buy some
Magnesium chloride flakes, dissolve some in a little bit of water and rub on your neck. For some reason topically applied magnesium can directly aid the tissues underneath even better than supplementing it orally.

 

[ander454]

Y

For neck stiffness, buy some
Magnesium chloride flakes, dissolve some in a little bit of water and rub on your neck. For some reason topically applied magnesium can directly aid the tissues underneath even better than supplementing it orally.

Yes, good points. I don't have much luck with bath water + flakes. I've had the most luck with magnesium bicarbonate and Mag-o-hal. But the Mag-o-hal can make me feel weird too sometimes, it could be the glycerin or something as I make it with Vodkha, or maybe it absorbs so well that I get too much magnesium at once. I hate magneisum oil which makes me so itchy...
And also taking Magnesium pills (oxdide or citrate) have no effect, except the Orotate form which seems to give me palpitations after month or so. Haven't tested it rigorously, so I'm not sure, but the correlation seems to be there. And if I take too much potassium chloride I definitely get the palpitations, sometimes takes a whole week to calm down.

Yeah, I tried breathing deep a lot when I was having palpitations. But the palpitations were minor compared to the feeling of passing out if I held my breath only 10 sec. It just felt like my breathing was not able to do what its supposed to do. Like I was always toxic with something that normally should be expelled by simple breathing. I'm so glad that symptom is gone as well as my palpitations... I think the main factors in resolving those were increasing sun exposure, getting more protein, and working on relaxation techniques (including breathing exercises).

 

[natedawggh]

Y


Yes, good points. I don't have much luck with bath water + flakes. I've had the most luck with magnesium bicarbonate and Mag-o-hal. But the Mag-o-hal can make me feel weird too sometimes, it could be the glycerin or something as I make it with Vodkha, or maybe it absorbs so well that I get too much magnesium at once. I hate magneisum oil which makes me so itchy...
And also taking Magnesium pills (oxdide or citrate) have no effect, except the Orotate form which seems to give me palpitations after month or so. Haven't tested it rigorously, so I'm not sure, but the correlation seems to be there. And if I take too much potassium chloride I definitely get the palpitations, sometimes takes a whole week to calm down.

Yeah, I tried breathing deep a lot when I was having palpitations. But the palpitations were minor compared to the feeling of passing out if I held my breath only 10 sec. It just felt like my breathing was not able to do what its supposed to do. Like I was always toxic with something that normally should be expelled by simple breathing. I'm so glad that symptom is gone as well as my palpitations... I think the main factors in resolving those were increasing sun exposure, getting more protein, and working on relaxation techniques (including breathing exercises).

Orotate, oxide, and citrate are all poor or bad forms of magnesium. Mag oil is magnesium chloride but it's super concentrated and his causes discomfort. Diluting it strongly with water to where it isn't irritating is the best option. In baths magnesium salt of any kind is usually too diluted to do much good. Also, alcohol is very anti-health and I always advise people not to expect too much progress if they are drinking. It's toxic to the body and flushed out many vital nutrients including magnesium, zinc, and all the b vitamins.

 

[ander454]

Orotate, oxide, and citrate are all poor or bad forms of magnesium. Mag oil is magnesium chloride but it's super concentrated and his causes discomfort. Diluting it strongly with water to where it isn't irritating is the best option. In baths magnesium salt of any kind is usually too diluted to do much good. Also, alcohol is very anti-health and I always advise people not to expect too much progress if they are drinking. It's toxic to the body and flushed out many vital nutrients including magnesium, zinc, and all the b vitamins.

Yeah, I'm not drinking alcohol, Mag-a-hol is transdermal. Mag-a-hol is magnesium chloride but instead of mixing with oil, its mixed with glycerin/alcohol. I don't know which is better/worse for you, but I know for a fact that the mag-a-hol does not itch one bit and has given me good muscle relief from time to time. http://www.weedemandreap.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Mag-a-hol.pdf

And its super cheap to make.

 

[EKI07]

Although I don't agree with everything he says, there is a doc (John Crisler) dealing with male hormonal issues that says a lot of his guys have issues with oral preg, but not transdermal. It's feasible that different methods of administration result in different metabolites. That seems to be at least my experience as well. Ideals labs preg as well as preg + dhea has done wonders for my libido (and boosted my blood preg to top of the range). Oral supplement didn't seem to do much, although there may have been other psychological factors at play at the time as well.

 

[Steve o]

I would be very careful with Dr Crisler's information. Verify!

 

[ander454]

Although I don't agree with everything he says, there is a doc (John Crisler) dealing with male hormonal issues that says a lot of his guys have issues with oral preg, but not transdermal. It's feasible that different methods of administration result in different metabolites. That seems to be at least my experience as well. Ideals labs preg as well as preg + dhea has done wonders for my libido (and boosted my blood preg to top of the range). Oral supplement didn't seem to do much, although there may have been other psychological factors at play at the time as well.

Interesting. I might try the transdermal approach then. I also tried DHEA oral way back and didn't notice any effect (and it was like 50mg). I tried googling "ideals labs" but didn't come up with anything. Can you share a link? What kind of dose did you use? Thanks,

 

[EKI07]

Interesting. I might try the transdermal approach then. I also tried DHEA oral way back and didn't notice any effect (and it was like 50mg). I tried googling "ideals labs" but didn't come up with anything. Can you share a link? What kind of dose did you use? Thanks,

IdeaLabs Online Store - Worldwide Ordering And Delivery : It's a company run by a forum member here who is quite knowledgeable. I started with the standard listed dose of Stressnon (20 mg preg) and Panstereone (5 DHEA + 5 preg) and that took my low-mid range preg to over the high range on the lab's scale in a month or two if I recall correctly, so I've toned it down.