When looking at the research on DHEA there are many benefits to this wonderful hormone, but also a nasty side effect for some of us. I have been experimenting with 10 mgs TID to see what this brings my levels to from 25 mgs BID taken at 8 am and 2 pm. When dosing hormones it appears that taking it smaller dosages more frequently is best way to optimize it so there are huge peaks. Now the question is that quest labs scales are moderated for a persons age group. From what I have read and research one goal is to be top 1/3 of the range of a 25 year old. Quest Dhea-s lab goes up to I beleive 540 so then an optimal range is about 450-500 which I achieved with 25 mgs of DHEA BID and felt really good until the estrogen caught up with me. After the first 3 weeks blood test were taken and ultra sensitive e2 had me <2 and I felt great then all of sudden about 6 weeks into the protocol with every thing the same I felt all the e2 symptoms come on full force so i waited 2 weeks and got my blood levels checked and it came up 41 on the 13-54 range which I feel is much more efficent at finding problems with e2 because ultra e2 is too sensitive measuring a point in time. Now the magic question is since I have been taking iodine hopefully my 2, 16, 4 ohe is hopefully is fine. Last time on 8 pills of DIM 50 mgs of iodoral i just broke into the normal range of ratio of 2 with 2/16 ratio while taking only 25 mgs of dhea a day after 3 months on this protocol. The bad part is that I had no methylated metabolites which verifies issues of methylation which I believe is my biggest issue which is only going to be addressed with genetic testing from genova once I have the funds. On 25 mgs of DHEA a day my dhea -s levels only hit 290 but this is from once a day dosing. With dhea dosages of 50 mgs causes my e2 to go significant which makes me feel like superman for first few weeks then feel like a grumpy old man another 3 weeks later. So should one try to go for the more youthful levels of dhea and just adjust the current adex dosage to compensate for the rise of e2? I did see the benefits of sharper moods, better thinking, also ability to tolerate stress alot better then normal, youthful change in skin in a short amount of time I was at that dosage, better strength gains, and even my SHBG was going down from 35 to 27. My best shbg of 15 was with a dhea of 500 ng/dl before I started on TRT. I am also concerned that if my 2/16,4 ratio is out of balance that taking more DHEA will result in more bad estrogen metabolites increasing cancer risk.

Could a dangerously low 2/16, 4 hydroxesterone ratio cause problems related to estrogens excess such gyno, BPH, and irritability, low free testosterone despite having normal e2 levels in the serum.

If one can not methylate these properly what are the dangerous of this as well?
Could this explain why I feel stable on Sam-e and when i run out of it I feel depression return almost immediately.

I have read that even though you may have a good ratio if they are not methylated properly that the good estrogen can not even be utilized to give protective properties which they are known for.

My goal is to get the most stable DHEA levels with optimizing the benefits while minimizing side effect. If that means going up from .75 mgs of adex to 1 mgs it would be worth it for the benefits of dhea.

How long does it take dhea to reach plasma levels? If I took one reading of <2 3 weeks after wards and another reading of 41 6 weeks later. Could this imply that DHEA take longer to reach plasma levels then once thought?