What has changed !!!! Feeling worse

[Yvette65]

Hi All..

Don't know where to turn !!!!! Feeling really ill don't know what has changed !!

Last week my consultant told me to increase my DHEA from 25 mg to 50 mg which I have been doing for the last week, due to high cortisol and low DHEA. Yesterday I took 50 mg DHEA and also 2 x 500 mg Holy Basil throughout the day. (this is in addition to the vitamins)

Last night felt really ill, space out, restless didn't know what to do with myself..

Woke up the same this morning (didn't get much sleep), have a nervous stomach, sweaty palms and feet, having numerous bad turns throughout the day, bouts of emotions, nausea etc ....

Don't know what's going on !!! cannot cope with this !!!

Anyone being treated for Adrenal Fatigue / Hypo ? have any setbacks ? as this seems to keep switching between AF and Hypothyroid...

Thinking of going to A+E but think that's pointless as they won't have a clue

Y

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

Yvette65 I don't know enough about this to advise but to double your dose of DHEA from 25mg to 50mg seems excessive, I would have thought a gradual increase might have been better. Your symptoms seem to have started since this hefty increase - coincidence or cause?

My hormone tests showed top of range (but not over) cortisol, very low/under range DHEA and very low oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone levels. I consulted a private holistic hormone specialist who advised adaptogenic herbs and progesterone cream to raise DHEA and support adrenal (and thyroid) function (plus other vitamins and minerals). Despite one extremely low and one under range DHEA result, I was not advised to take a DHEA supplement.

Have you seen Dr Myhill's articles about adrenal insufficiency? Some recently updated.

drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Common_...

drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Adrenal...

Not sure if this one still works but it does on Google drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Adrenal...

[Redditch]

If it's the extra DHEA it will go in a couple of days. When are you taking it? Do Not take one in the afternoon or evening. That will keep you up

Why the Holy Basil? I would leave that out for a day or two,

Best thing I did was download an app called my symptoms food diary,

I make recipes if my meds and supplements, so this week I'm on WK2A

Which is 2g Erfa, selenium, vitamin B C D K, 50 DHEA, L-tyrosine L-Tryptophan, L-Theanine, Codriver and Evening Primrose oil

I do a week then change one thing for a week and record symptoms. Energy, Mood etc, can usually find a combination that's good for a few weeks then strip right back to Erfa and Vitamin C and start again additing them in one by one week by week,

Supplements I have kicked out are Ashwaganda, Green Tea extract and Grape seed Extract after repeated evidence that they upset me.

It's a mission, but the app is great, makes me feel more in control of this horrid disease

[Eddie83]

DHEA 50mg is a high dose. I am not familiar with the female DHEA range, but I did come across one anti-aging doc who advises his male patients to supplement their DHEA to achieve DHEA-S in the range 300-400 mcg/dl. (The young male range is about 280-640.) I am in the 300-400 range on DHEA 25mg. Generally, females will require a smaller dose than that. I did coach a woman who settled on a 15mg dose.

Did your consultant tell you to increase DHEA from 25mg to 50mg, without evaluating DHEA-S via blood test?

[Yvette65 in reply to Eddie83]

Hi, the consultant raised the DHEA from 25mg to 50 mg after evaluating DHEA-S via blood test, which the result was below the low range for my age.... blood test was done before I went on 25 mg DHEA

[Eddie83 in reply to Yvette65]

So you are saying that the consultant did a DHEA-S test before you started on 25mg, and then did a DHEA-S test again before increasing from 25mg to 50mg? What were the dates and results of those two tests, and what table of age-adjusted female ranges is the consultant using? I am wondering if the consultant had you on the 25mg dose long enough to reach a stable level, before he/she tested and then decided to bump to 50mg?

I am not a believer in age-adjusted ranges for DHEA. My last DHEA-S reading of 397 mcg/dl is above the top of my male age-adjusted range, and I'm doing well at that level. I need a dose of just 25mg per day to reach that level. Docs who consider their treatment "anti-aging" (i.e. charge big bucks!) usually aim for a level typical of a very healthy 30-35 year-old.

As far as the DHEA age ranges: they do appear to be very broad. For instance the table on medscape.com shows a factor of 5 difference between low and high, for most male age ranges. I question whether such broad ranges were derived by doing measurements on a healthy population, or if the ranges are broad because they used a general population which included individuals with poor health. These broad ranges remind me of the malarkey which allopathic medicine promulgated with the 0.5-5.0 range for thyroid TSH.

The bottom line on any treatment is always, how do you feel? Docs like to project an aura of authority but, in fact, medicine is a highly experimental science. If you felt better on 25mg than you do now on 50mg, then maybe you should drop back to 25mg and see if that is an improvement.

[Thalia56]

I'm sorry I can't offer anything re the DHEA, but I know when I took just one 400mg of Holy Basil for my high cortisol one evening, it knocked me out for almost 24 hours. Yes, I slept more deeply that night, but I felt completely spaced out and almost as if I were sleepwalking, as well as just generally non-specifically unwell, for most of the next day. I'm not sure how much help this comment is, except to say that I guess for some of us the HB at least is pretty potent stuff.