Low dose DHT experiment log
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Interlude: my thoughts and evaluation after 1 week, plus considerations for continuing, changing, or suspending the experiment.
First, I will say the most potent and noticeable effects for me of the DHT are that it increases appetite and has a considerable slimming/de-fattening or at least de-bloating effect. I believe people on the old forum were referring to a dht dominant physique as being reminiscent of classical Greek depictions of the ideal male body.
The mental and emotional effects are very interesting and I can't really class them as solidly negative or positive. In isolation DHT seems to promote a kind of disembodied calmness and "rational preparation for violence." During one of my walks I found myself ruminating on how I could manage certain knife or gun defense scenarios which is out of the ordinary for me. I think I have to say subjectively I do not enjoy this state of mind as it feels blunted. However when paired with equal ratios of other hormones the emotional effect of DHT is quite different. Today was the first day I tried the combo of dht with progesterone and the mood boost was considerable and enjoyable. DHT and progest combo seems to promote optimism. For my future doses I will be trying progest again to see if that's a reliably reproducible effect of the combo.
Also regarding pairings, I find at least a 1:1 ratio of dht to pansterone (making it 1:1:1 dht:dhea:preg) gives significantly better energy and mood results than just dht. I may try ratios that significantly favor pansterone and evaluate how those feel.
Ultimately, so far my experience with DHT has been very interesting and enlightening and it has been surprising that the positive effects have not been any of the effects that I was expecting. I am not experiencing the sexual benefits I was hoping for and even though my "mental libido" has been high (ie high desire to look at women, think about women, etc) the physical libido does not match and erection frequency and quality actually seems to be a little lower than normal. I would prefer the situation reversed as I find "mental libido" distracting and fruitless. That being said, my girlfriend and I are long distance so I am not having any real sex. It could be interesting to see if/how the sexual effects of DHT would be different when she and I are together and consistently sexually active.
On the one hand, DHT is seeming quite pro metabolic because of the appetite boost, as well as making me feel quite warm and limber. However the way it seems to lower my physical libido and the way that upon application my breathing tends to become slightly more strained makes me suspicious of what might be going on. One possibility is that I have a sensitivity to DMSO which I have heard of a few people having or developing. Another possibility is that the powerful anti fat effect is releasing too many free fatty acids into my bloodstream and some of the slightly negative symptoms like slight lethargy on some days (but not others?) are downstream of that. Certainly DHT makes you burn through sugar and need more.
I may continue a low dose for a little while just since I have this big bottle, and if I do so I will be doing it in ratios that fairly strongly favor the more traditional peaty hormones. After dipping my toes in like this I am curious to try normal testosterone as well and see how it compares. I am also strongly curious to acquire some vitamin E and see how it interacts and if it potentiates these androgens alongside all it's other positive effects. I would actually really like to get some test and/or dht powder and dissolve it in some E myself as the premade dmso mix is pretty pricey and I would like to try alternate solvents in case the dmso is what's bothering me and causing some of the undesirable symptoms.
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@babou
Day 9 may 311140 am 1 drop tyromix 3 drops pansterone 2 drops preg. 1 drop DHT; experiment with tiny doses spread out instead of concentrated?
Poor sleep and not an easy wake up, slept in late because went to bed late. Congested and runny nose today, seasonal allergies likely.
4 pm, 3 drop pansterone, 2 preg, 2 prog, 1 mg dht.
Breathing reaction persists even at this tiny dose? Hard to tell.
9 pm 3 drops pan 2 drops preg 2 drops prog 1 drop tyromix 1 1/2-2 drops dht.
No noticeable changes until bed a few hours later
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Day 10 June 1
No dht during day today. 3-6 mg of pansterone spread over day, 2 or 3 drops tyromix spread. Mood, libido high, energy fairly high, erection quality still down compared to pre dht, body comp diminished from highs during supplementation.
Midnight before bed: 24 drops pansterone, 8 drops preg, 14 drops progest, 15-20 mg DHT. Trying to see if I can recreate effect from first night where I got a full restful night of sleep in only 6 hours. Smell of both hormone and dmso carrier strong and less subjectively pleasant than previously.
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@babou Day 11 June 2
Did not at all result in shorter sleep: woke up at 1130 after solid 10 hours of dreamless sleep.
Ejaculated around 12. Partially retained. Sperm quality normal/high. Sensation of orgasm slightly lower than usual. No mood or energy crash afterwards.3 pm: energy steady but not high. Body comp improved compared to yesterday.
I believe I am going to suspend the experiment now and take a few days or possibly weeks off all hormones except thyroid and possibly some pregnenolone "to taste." I believe I have a decent idea now of what dht does and doesn't do for me. On the whole I'd say I'm not in love with it and the negatives slightly outweigh the positives. I'm curious to see if there will be lingering positive or negative effects after stopping and if those would be strong enough to change my opinion to sharply positive or negative, but I don't see much evidence currently why that would be the case. I also note that the positive effects felt at first diminished over the course of these 10 days while the negative effects remained about the same or became slightly worse. I suspect that this small cycle even if not enough to make the raw amount in circulation unphysiological was still enough to create an unphysiological ratio.
The return of dandruff is also a powerful negative sign to me and I do believe if dosage was higher and the cycle longer, I would start to shed hair
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@babou ive been having very similar effects as well after being on a 60% (so they claim) DHT topical oil, only been using it for a few days now but have experienced everything youve described. Increase in assertiveness/confidence especially when talking with people, increase in mental sex drive but decrease in penis sensitivity and balls feel more tight less hangy, i figured i mightve gotten a bunk product but reading your experience makes me think thats just how DHT works. Have been doing 4 drops per day seperated into two 2 drop doses.
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@milo7 So that would be about 24 mg a day for you? Do you plan to continue? If you keep going a while, you should update us as I'm curious how effects would look with long term dosage yet I'm not personally willing to try a long term cycle due to the reasons outlined in this thread.
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@babou said in Low dose DHT experiment log:
Mg conversion of 10% gel: 0.10 mL liquid = 100 mg liquid, 10% DHT = 1mg active dht per 0.01 mL (Abt 1 drop)
my understanding is that there are 20 drops in a mL. This means there are 5 mg of DHT per drop. Could be more depending on the viscosity of the gel
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@babou that dosage sounds about right, i like the sense of calm and clarity/reduced anxiety it seems to be giving me so yeah im going to keep using it till im all out (about 60ml) and ill post updates in this thread
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@babou said in Low dose DHT experiment log:
I acquired a solution of 10% DHT in DMSO, following many positive testimonies and favorable studies.
From where?
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No offence but there are so many things wrong with this thread...
First of all you dont really seem to understand what is the role of and what effects DHT should have.
The health goals you describe are too generic and can be achieved with an appropriate diet, lifestyle and substances much safer that DHT. They are not exclusive to DHT and some of them are not even part of its effects.Secondly noone and i repeat noone, should be taking DHEA in their 20s. Endogenous DHEA production peaks at this age and any exogenous administration will convert almost exclusively to estrogen. Which brings me to the next point: why are you taking DHEA while being 20-30% bodyfat? Adipose (fat) tissue already has increased aromatase expression so at this bodyfat there's no doubt the DHEA you're taking is converting to estrogen.
This is also confirmed by you jacking off so many times, since estrogen is excitatory, and causes insatiable, degenerate libido.Which brings me back to my first point. DHT is a potent anti-estrogen and such should powerfully decrease the estrogenic libido, to the point where you hardly get any urges to jack off. But you dont seem to neither understand that nor be able to distinguish this effect because of the DHEA.
The other substances you're taking are a lot safer but are still blurring the true effects of DHT. If you're taking NDT, progesterone, pregnenolone etc, it is not really a DHT log, is it?
I would only keep thyroid or pregnenolone from these.Furthermore 10mg transdermal DHT is very low, and despite being in DMSO you're absorbing at most 5-6mg depending on the area you apply. It's highly unlikely that this amount is going to have any significant effect in body composition, androgenic features and the such. Especially with that much body fat, 25-50mg/day is probably better. Do not worry about suppression, it happens at 200mg+ and at these lower doses it actually stimulates its own synthesis.
Finally as Ray has said it's important to have all the other things in place, like thyroid, calcium, magnesium, protein, vitamin D, vitamin E etc before messing with hormones. Like if it hasnt been at least 1.5 year since you ate oatmeal and pufa, you shouldnt take any hormones. "Master" the basics of peating first and then dabble in the bulgarian so to say stuff.
This is my 2c, again not trying to bring you down or insult you, these are just my thoughts as ive been in similar situation before. Good luck
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@pannacottas Man it would be one thing if being that neurotic about food constantly would bring stellar results but… if u enjoy oatmeal and it digests fine, have it on occasion.
And for god sakes share a meal with your family. It’s not going to ruin a year and half’s worth of metabolism work, imo
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@pannacottas I'm fully aware that there are lots of lifestyle factors remaining to optimize. My current biggest focuses are optimizing light intake, movement/mobility, and amino profile of protein intake. In fact protein intake and balance and possibly vitamin E are probably the only things on that checklist from Peat that are not where I'd like it to be. I get plenty of D, Mag, and Calcium.
I knew that DHT wasn't gonna be the silver bullet for the health goals I outlined, in fact I mostly outlined them in order to explain that this experiment is very much a tangent driven by curiosity and illustrate what my "exit condition" would be if DHT had an actively detrimental effect on those goals. I understood from reading others experiences and the literature that the primary benefits of DHT are a neurological calming effect and an antagonistic effect to estrogen and aromatization.
My DHEA doses are also usually low, about 1mg a day and never above 5, and I increased them over the duration of this experiment because subjectively it felt better to take a ratio of dhea:dht that favored dhea. The 20s may be when DHEA peaks, but an individual's peak of production doesn't necessarily mean that's the maximum amount that would benefit them or the maximal amount they can use for androgenic pathways. When taking those small amounts of dhea I did not have any of the mental hypersexuality or any other negative symptoms that emerged with the DHT experiment.
You say DHEA supplemented in one's 20s would go almost exclusively to estrogen - wouldn't this be less the case when it's accompanied with a significant amount of progesterone both from direct supplementation and from conversion from pregnenolone? IIRC the logic for pairing DHEA with Preg is that preg and its metabolites should inhibit conversion into estrogen.
You say a higher DHT dose would be better - perhaps I will resume the experiment with a higher dose and no other hormones to see, but currently it seems to me that I was getting good results on the prior youth hormone-only stack and that some unfavorable side effects emerged only with the addition of DHT, so is part of your thesis that the DHT is interacting with the youth hormones in a way that increases estrogenic effects? Nothing I have read gave indication that this is a possibility. Or are you saying that my DHT dose was low enough that matching it in a 1:1 ratio with DHEA allowed the DHEA to aromatize without sufficient opposition from the DHT? Again that would be strange considering the reported and touted very strong anti-estrogenic effect of DHT.
I understand the viewpoint that all the no-risk things should be ticked off first and then escalate from there. But my personal opportunity cost and risk profile calculations at this point favor experimentation, even if pretty fringe. I know that solid sustainable results take time, and even just setting up the habits/environments that produce those changes takes a lot of time and energy. My general trajectory is solidly positive for a significant amount of time now. I'm just a very curious person and I wanted to dip my toe into, frankly, recreational steroid usage and see if I could do so without compromising my progress from other sources. At this point I'm over a week out from my last post and last dose and I feel totally normal and good, so I consider the experiment a success on that front
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@Kilgore Is it permitted to say on the forum? It was the Australian lab thats been recommended a few times on reddit and the old forum
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@basebolt I just measured 30 drops per 1 ml when squeezing the nipple enough to make the drop fully descend. You may be right that my napkin math underestimated the mg per drop, however I wasn't really taking a full ML and then measuring drops from it, instead I was filling the dropper to 0.1 ml and then dropping out either half or all of that depending on the day. 0.1 ml should still be 10 mg if the conversion calculator I used was right so eyeballing half that amount on days when I took <10mg doses should yield about the doses I recorded.
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@babou Alphagels then. Yes it is permitted.
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@babou said in Low dose DHT experiment log:
You say DHEA supplemented in one's 20s would go almost exclusively to estrogen - wouldn't this be less the case when it's accompanied with a significant amount of progesterone both from direct supplementation and from conversion from pregnenolone?
That's true but in no way guaranteed. Maybe if you take big doses of prog, then yes <15mg DHEA will probably not aromatize. However, lower doses of preg especially often dont do shit in that regard. It's also highly individual, for example for me pansterone was very estrogenic, and it has pregnenolone too.
You say a higher DHT dose would be better - perhaps I will resume the experiment with a higher dose and no other hormones to see, but currently it seems to me that I was getting good results on the prior youth hormone-only stack and that some unfavorable side effects emerged only with the addition of DHT, so is part of your thesis that the DHT is interacting with the youth hormones in a way that increases estrogenic effects? Nothing I have read gave indication that this is a possibility. Or are you saying that my DHT dose was low enough that matching it in a 1:1 ratio with DHEA allowed the DHEA to aromatize without sufficient opposition from the DHT?
Yes to both. Because DHT has the highest affinity for SHBG (100% affinity), exogenous DHT will free up T that would otherwise be bound to SHBG so you end up with more free T than normally. This free T can easily aromatize. Now when you also add in an aromatizable steroid like T or DHEA to the mix, the estrogen becomes just too much for the DHT to antagonize.
This is something that bodybuilders have known and experienced for a long time, when taking for example T and Primo/Mast/Proviron (which are DHT derivatives and also have very high affinity for SHBG), and the ratio is off, they get gyno and other estrogenic symptoms which can usually be resolved by lowering T, upping DHT or both.My general trajectory is solidly positive for a significant amount of time now. I'm just a very curious person and I wanted to dip my toe into, frankly, recreational steroid usage and see if I could do so without compromising my progress from other sources. At this point I'm over a week out from my last post and last dose and I feel totally normal and good, so I consider the experiment a success on that front
Well if what you're doing is working for you, that's all that matters. Most of the time there's no need to change something that works. Im just pointing out some things that it's good to keep in mind since after all it's hormones that we're talking about and some caution is advised.
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@pannacottas Interesting, the interaction with T is one of the things I was very curious about since some of the studies I looked at showed a dramatic decrease in T when using DHT. It seems that the nuances of SHBG are a little bit of a blind spot that I should remedy. As far as I can tell currently, there's disagreement over whether a high or low level is preferable. The traditional bodybuilding crowd believes you want shbg low because you want androgens to be in the free form, while there seems to be a strain of thought in the bioenergetic sphere that low SHBG may indicate a poorly functioning liver, and more radically, the binding of SHBG to a hormone doesn't deactivate but regulates/potentiates it. I'm not sure which is closer to the truth.
I strongly believe the scalp issues that appeared/worsened with DHT were results of liver stress since that is what has usually caused me scalp problems in the past. If DHT hogged all my SHBG, would that mean a greater amount of test, estrogen, and other hormones would be passing through liver for deactivation or excretion? The studies I read showed a dramatic decline in T after a while on DHT, so the T first becoming free T and then being basically dumped out would make sense.
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@pannacottas why do u recommend against prog? and also for the vitamiin E are tocoterienols the best ?
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@pannacottas whats wrong with oatmeal?
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@thyroidchor27 I didnt recommend against prog, i simply suggested babou cut it from his stack as it has some similar effects to DHT and it can be hard to gauge DHT's effects if you take both. I would actually recommend progest-e even if you are a man, in small doses. When i take some every now and then, i notice my sleep becomes very restful.
Vitamin E is a group of molecules, comprised of tocopherols and tocotrienols. I think a good product like Tocovit (or health natura, havent tried it) has both.
