Low dose DHT experiment log
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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. -
@pannacottas would you recommend oral DHT, even if its not esterified? I read in a comment that most people lower their SHBG too quickly with proviron and the increased free T quickly aromatises, I myself tried provironum oral and felt great but after the third dose I quickly felt symtpoms of shut down / low SHBG even though i was taking only around 20 mg.
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@thyroidchor27 Yes i would recommend and in fact i have tried dry scooping 200mg and swishing with vodka or some other spirit. Works very well.
You wouldnt take an ester orally unless it's the undecanoate one, which may be the same as DHT base. There is a study that showed oral base T was as effective as oral T undecanoeate and in fact if TU wasnt taken with a fatty meal, the absorption was way worse and base T was better. But this doesnt really matter since DHT esters are like unicorns; mythical beings that are only rumored to exist... -
@thyroidchor27 Tocovit has mixed tocopherols, no tocotrienols.
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@Peatslop-enjoyer ive heard the latter is better for most purposes..
