[mochaccino]

you can just eat oats every morning? I think no matter what, you may be aromatizing some of your T anyway. DHEA also help makes estrogen so there is no guarantee it will become test. from personal experience, I have experienced High free T in my blood as well as high estrogen due to high dhea levels. The rise in dhea was from herbs and literally taking dhea. So go ahead, you'll see, you just have loads of hormones floating in your blood freely.

I became a mild hirsuite after this!

But were you low on T, or were you taking it for other reasons? How long were you taking it?

Does anyone else also think that DHEA is a terrible idea? I guess I'm just wondering if it's worthwhile to take it for a short amount of time just as a kind of "bandaid", and test my hormones to avoid excess, which is the same way people use PC of they know what they're doing.

I thought about lowering SHBG with oats instead, like I think you're suggesting, but it turns out that it may not be a good idea. Someone on another board had this to say about it: "...when you reduce SHBG, free test levels will not be affected for longer than a few minutes tops, as this increases test excretion. So total testosterone is lowered and free testosterone remains the same."

I feel pretty lost. I appreciate your opinions on this stuff, since you've had the opportunity to see how various supplements effect your REAL hormone levels, rather than just relying on theories. I hope someone else will chime in to.

[TibetanPrincess]

you can just eat oats every morning? I think no matter what, you may be aromatizing some of your T anyway. DHEA also help makes estrogen so there is no guarantee it will become test. from personal experience, I have experienced High free T in my blood as well as high estrogen due to high dhea levels. The rise in dhea was from herbs and literally taking dhea. So go ahead, you'll see, you just have loads of hormones floating in your blood freely.

I became a mild hirsute after this!

But were you low on T, or were you taking it for other reasons? How long were you taking it?

Does anyone else also think that DHEA is a terrible idea? I guess I'm just wondering if it's worthwhile to take it for a short amount of time just as a kind of "bandaid", and test my hormones to avoid excess, which is the same way people use PC of they know what they're doing.

I thought about lowering SHBG with oats instead, like I think you're suggesting, but it turns out that it may not be a good idea. Someone on another board had this to say about it: "...when you reduce SHBG, free test levels will not be affected for longer than a few minutes tops, as this increases test excretion. So total testosterone is lowered and free testosterone remains the same."

I feel pretty lost. I appreciate your opinions on this stuff, since you've had the opportunity to see how various supplements effect your REAL hormone levels, rather than just relying on theories. I hope someone else will chime in to.

I don't know, this was my first attempt for nbe and I was 25. I blindly approached it. So stupid, now I will never truly know. I am not saying its a bad idea, I am just insinuating, there may be no feedback loop effect to have your body adjust if creating too much free flowing T and E.

[mochaccino]

Is it possible, just possible, that I should use a small amount of an aromatase inhibitor? What do you ladies think? Would it be dangerous even if I kept tabs on my hormone levels?

[Augentrost]

such a difference a day can make.

your program went from being "non-intrusive" to playing hormone bingo all of a sudden, what happened?

you mentioned wanting to mirror ginie or the japanese girls programs, are you taking collagen?

i was looking up some of the dosages the japanese girls were taking yesterday, you mentioned something about not being sure how much they take of something...well anyways, they take low doses of PM (350mg) but rather high doses of placenta (as much as 2g) / collagen (7-11g)/ hyaluronic acid (120mg) / calcium / enzyms. i'm guessing this is why their hormones don't get messed up so bad. if you want to add something more to your routine or up dosages, why not try one of those same ones? they won't do any harm (make your skin glow), placenta will help balance out your hormones and has the growth factors (or so ginie said)

[mochaccino]

Augentrost, I'm not just randomly trying things, like you seem to be implying. I'm trying to take my test results in consideration, rather than just ignoring them, and look at every option available to me. When I chose to follow the "Japanese" style NBE program, I didn't vow a sacred vow to follow it without any changes for all time. I see no reason to think that it would work perfectly well for every women in every situation.

If your going to act shocked that I would ever attempt to balance my hormones with anything other placenta, at least bother to show me any good evidence whatsoever that it actually does so. It's not enough to say that Ginie says so. I don't consider her or Chiyo to be the ultimate guru, who's word I would never question. They have to present evidence for what they say, just as much as anyone else.

Your argument seems to be that placenta is the ultimate hormonal panacea, because Ginie and/or Chiyo say that it "balances hormones" (a vague term, if there ever was one). Just imagine! All those endocrinologists out there that could just be giving people large doses of placenta until all there hormone problems magically resolve. No matter what your existing hormonal imbalance, placenta will resolve it. All that time spent doing actual research and treating patients. Haven't they heard that some random women on the internet says that placenta balances hormones? You may think I'm being unfair, and that this is not the argument that your actually making, but until you convince me otherwise, I don't know what else to think.

[mochaccino]

Just to be clear, I've decided that the only changes I'm going to make to my program are to take PC for a cycle or two, and focus on dieting and exercise. PC is just a "bandaid", and I'm hoping that the diet and exercise program will adress the root cause of my issue, but if my imbalance has some other root cause, I honestly don't what I'll do about it. If anyone says "take placenta" I'll scream

I wanted to take something to raise testosterone, but after researching, I found that there are only two "testosterone" supplements for which there's strong evidence are DHEA and actual testosterone patches. DHEA is a bad idea for the reasons Tibetan pointed out. Testosterone patches have the same issues as DHEA, plus the HUGE added problem of permanently severely impairing your own ability to produce T in only 4 to 6 weeks, to the point that anyone who uses them is advised to continue using them for the rest of her life.

I thought I could address low T from the opposite angle and inhibit aromatase, but the only aromatase inhibitors that have been shown to work in vivo are powerful cancer drugs, laden with side effects. Even if I were willing to take the risk, which I'm not, AI's are never prescribed to premenopausal women because our bodies just churn out enough extra aromatase to completely overwhelm the effects of the drug. After reading that even drugs like tamoxifen can't significantly lower estrogen in premenopausal women, I gave up on trying to find a natural alternative. There don't seem to be any effective natural alternatives anyway. The touted natural AI's, like grapeseed, work well enough on cell cultures, but don't seem to have any effect on estrogen in vivo.

[Augentrost]

Augentrost, I'm not just randomly trying things, like you seem to be implying. I'm trying to take my test results in consideration, rather than just ignoring them, and look at every option available to me. When I chose to follow the "Japanese" style NBE program, I didn't vow a sacred vow to follow it without any changes for all time. I see no reason to think that it would work perfectly well for every women in every situation.

If your going to act shocked that I would ever attempt to balance my hormones with anything other placenta, at least bother to show me any good evidence whatsoever that it actually does so. It's not enough to say that Ginie says so. I don't consider her or Chiyo to be the ultimate guru, who's word I would never question. They have to present evidence for what they say, just as much as anyone else.

Your argument seems to be that placenta is the ultimate hormonal panacea, because Ginie and/or Chiyo say that it "balances hormones" (a vague term, if there ever was one). Just imagine! All those endocrinologists out there that could just be giving people large doses of placenta until all there hormone problems magically resolve. No matter what your existing hormonal imbalance, placenta will resolve it. All that time spent doing actual research and treating patients. Haven't they heard that some random women on the internet says that placenta balances hormones? You may think I'm being unfair, and that this is not the argument that your actually making, but until you convince me otherwise, I don't know what else to think.

actually i was implying that your posts over the last day changed their tone in my opinion rather abruptly and it looked like you were gripping at straws trying to find the reason for some "malfunction" in your program. i was being "nice" asking if something had happened. secondly, i generally assume people remember what they themselves write, you mentioned in a previous post that you didn't know the dosages taken by the japanese girls and you were going to take 4 pills "because ginie did". third, you asked for opinions, in the future don't ask for them if you don't want to hear them. fact is, my hormones are balanced and yours are not....obviously i'm doing something right

i'll refrain from looking at your thread from now on, i wasn't aware you prefer the "Company" of only a select few

[mochaccino]

Augentrost, there's no good reason to drag this on, so this is the last response I'll post. I should have been mature enough not to allow this discussion to turn into an argument. I regret not taking the high road.

First and foremost, I absolutely do NOT only prefer the company "of only a select few". I resent that accusation.

Whether or not you realize it, your post really did imply that I hadn't thought things through and was doing things at random. I only got angry because I felt like I wasn't being given the benefit of the doubt that I've thought through my own actions. I still could have just ignored that implication, and I wish I had.

Even though I don't agree with your placenta suggestion, I would never, ever get angry at you, or anyone else jsut for suggesting something that I don't think will work. I always welcome corrections, and opinions, right or wrong. I hope people don't get the wrong impression of me because of this.

[TibetanPrincess]

such a difference a day can make.

your program went from being "non-intrusive" to playing hormone bingo all of a sudden, what happened?

you mentioned wanting to mirror ginie or the japanese girls programs, are you taking collagen?

i was looking up some of the dosages the japanese girls were taking yesterday, you mentioned something about not being sure how much they take of something...well anyways, they take low doses of PM (350mg) but rather high doses of placenta (as much as 2g) / collagen (7-11g)/ hyaluronic acid (120mg) / calcium / enzyms. i'm guessing this is why their hormones don't get messed up so bad. if you want to add something more to your routine or up dosages, why not try one of those same ones? they won't do any harm (make your skin glow), placenta will help balance out your hormones and has the growth factors (or so ginie said)

Hun- Augentrost, its called tweaking and that's exactly what she's doing. You do what you must to tailor the program to suit your needs.You would know that if you were here long enough and reading her threads since then. She's been on the forums a very long time and has researched a nbe a very long time. There have been quite a few nbe'rs who have simply copied these programs, yielding with no success.

[TibetanPrincess]

Just to be clear, I've decided that the only changes I'm going to make to my program are to take PC for a cycle or two, and focus on dieting and exercise. PC is just a "bandaid", and I'm hoping that the diet and exercise program will adress the root cause of my issue, but if my imbalance has some other root cause, I honestly don't what I'll do about it. If anyone says "take placenta" I'll scream

I wanted to take something to raise testosterone, but after researching, I found that there are only two "testosterone" supplements for which there's strong evidence are DHEA and actual testosterone patches. DHEA is a bad idea for the reasons Tibetan pointed out. Testosterone patches have the same issues as DHEA, plus the HUGE added problem of permanently severely impairing your own ability to produce T in only 4 to 6 weeks, to the point that anyone who uses them is advised to continue using them for the rest of her life.

I thought I could address low T from the opposite angle and inhibit aromatase, but the only aromatase inhibitors that have been shown to work in vivo are powerful cancer drugs, laden with side effects. Even if I were willing to take the risk, which I'm not, AI's are never prescribed to premenopausal women because our bodies just churn out enough extra aromatase to completely overwhelm the effects of the drug. After reading that even drugs like tamoxifen can't significantly lower estrogen in premenopausal women, I gave up on trying to find a natural alternative. There don't seem to be any effective natural alternatives anyway. The touted natural AI's, like grapeseed, work well enough on cell cultures, but don't seem to have any effect on estrogen in vivo.

I never said DHEA is a bad idea, its just that we don't know what YOUR body is going to do with it. The only way to find out is to try it and see how you feel. I can see this would be a little scary to do if you can't afford taking tests periodically to see how your body is responding with supplemental DHEA.

There is a reason for your low T, we just have to find out what's causing it. Its such a pain but sometimes we have to experiment and take notes.

I have low T too as a result from wonky adrenals yet I have higher androgens! Those nasty mandrogens, lol! Trying to figure that one out is just a losing battle until I restore my adrenals to full function again.


Also, I have read on other forums, menopausal women having much success with grapeseed extract to either buffer the effects of estrogen and to help with preventing an overabundant amount of estrogen spikes when doing forms of HRT. I believe E receptor postive (for cancer) women take this along with their estrogen supplementation. But then again as you are were probably questioning, does it have any real AI effects?