Does anyone take DHEA?
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@Anna I’m based in the US. You can buy it online here in a few ways but I see if you take too much or not enough it can affect egg quality poorly. Seems like you need to have a lot of bloodwork done to track progress.
Yeah I found it made my testosterone too high for my last round so I’m testing my levels every 6 weeks or so this round to try and optimise it. My clinic haven’t been very helpful as they’ve said there’s no clearly defined optimal levels for DHEA-S or testosterone for women so I’m basing it off of the it starts with the egg book 🤷🏻♀️
@Anna my clinic haven’t been very helpful with this either, my testosterone was slightly low and dheas slightly high! The measurements in the book are completely different to what my clinic used also, what are you using to work it out?
@Lucie I’m just converting the units in to the ones used in the book and trying to get them on the higher end of normal as my levels pre supplementation were low… as I said though, this is me sort of doing my own thing, my clinic haven’t advised this
@Anna I’m doing the same. My doctor will only tell me my testosterone is between 0 and 0.5 which is no use. Even if it is 0.5 it’s still too low for optimal fertility. At 0 it’s impactful on many things. So I’m taking 25mg just a push it up a bit. I’ll just do it for 2 months. I’m 43 and can’t risk poor egg quality with low testosterone even if 0-0.5 is normal, you don’t know of it’s zero lol NOTE: too much testosterone can prevent fertilisation if a good quality egg so you must monitor your DHEA-s and testosterone and stop use accordingly.
@Yog do you know what is the optimal amount for fertility? Mine was 0.5 and my clinic said that was fine but after my own research I realised that was low! I’ve been taking 25mg too and started doing every other day I figure this will boost it but hopefully stop it being too high!
@Lucie you are unlikely to be too high but ideally you would know your DHEA-S. You can buy an online test if your clinic won’t do it. I might do this to check DHEA-S and testosterone in 4-6 weeks. Testosterone is said to be 25-45ng/L for fertility in the first half of your cycle. You’ll have to convert the units I believe as in the UK we seek to measure in different units for a fair few things. DHEA ideally you want around 180mcg/dl (range is 95-270) and you can test any time for this.
P.s my testosterone was 0-0.5 and 0.5 is normal but I noticed it was flagged on my fertility notes as low but it wasn’t addressed. I spoke to my gp and they said 0.5 is normal and wouldn’t listen when I was saying that it might be zero so the range seems a risky strategy! With zero testosterone you are at high risk of poor quality eyes. It’s like because I’m old, they’ve written off my eggs so my testosterone is small fish…
@Yog I’ve also been told mine is normal too but I think it should be around 0.8 for optimal fertility ranges, that’s what a ivf nutrionist advised me! What if your testosterone is low but Dheas is high?
@Lucie you shouldn’t take DHEA-S if it’s high I don’t believe. I certainly wouldn’t self medicate in that situation. I think of you have the full 0.5pmol (and it could be 0 remember) you’d have 14ng/dl. So you’d need 80% higher. 0.1pmol/l would be 2.8ng/dl so you need nearly ten times that to be in a fertile range. It’s crazy they won’t actually give you the number but in any case, I consider myself non optimal. The fertility doctor said she had no issue me taking DHEA. I’ll do a private blood test in 6-8 weeks.
@Yog it’s just crazy we shouldn’t be having to make this stuff up as we go along though! They should be knowing the ranges and advising the dosage
@Yog also even if you do a test in 4-6 weeks and both dheas and testosterone is then too high then what? Has the damage been done?
I don’t know where you’re based but I’m in the UK and the only place I could buy it was online from biovea. I take 75mg per day for 3 months prior to IVF cycles. Gives me crazy vivid dreams but it’s worth it if it helps!