WHAT PARTICULAR HORMONES ARE CAUSING YOUR ACNE?
You would be better off making a few changes to your daily routine before testing your hormones and beginning to add any pharmaceutical substances to your regimen. Make sure your diet is healthy and possibly find out whether you fall under the category of people who are genetically predisposed to acne. You may read about all of this in the earlier article where we talked about the main causes of acne that aren't hormone-related (link).Today, however, the narrative of the story will delve into detail on the reasons why your hormones might not be in balance, how they might affect your skin, and what steps can be taken to prevent such occurrences. First and foremost, we need to keep in mind that injectable testosterone can undergo a variety of enzymatic conversions and that many of its impacts on our physiology are due to the molecules that are its metabolites.
What happens to testosterone and where it can go through the hormonal cascade are topics for an entire lecture (it's also interesting to note that endogenous testosterone comes from pregnenolone via the cholesterol-pregnenolone-progesterone-testosterone pathway, which also supports the need for HCG on a long cycle because you wouldn't get these hormones otherwise), but in this article we would primarily focus on testosterone conversion to estrogens via the oestrogen receptor.Starting with oestrogen (more particularly, estradiol (E2), which is the powerful "slice" of it but can be used more broadly when discussing acne). If your oestrogen levels are high, you can find that your skin is gradually becoming oilier. Women who were unfortunate enough to use birth control tablets containing oestrogen experience the same problem.
Your skin produces more sebum when oestrogen levels are too high, which may give you a greasy appearance. The answer is, in fact, fairly straightforward: you should keep an eye on your oestrogen levels to prevent them from rising above the reference range (anything above 50 pg/ml is definitely undesirable). This could be accomplished by using aromatize inhibitors (AI).
Given how strongly letrozole inhibits our bodies' ability to aromatize testosterone, it is reasonable to state that it is probably not the greatest option. At the same time, really good possibilities that would absolutely work include exemestane or anastrozole (also known as arimidex). Since the aromatize enzyme's activity heavily depends on a person's genetic makeup and body fat percentage, it's probably difficult to predict the exact dosage, but if we assume that you take 500 mg of test per week, 0.5 mg of anastrozole daily or EOD and 12.5 mg of exemestane daily or EOD are good starting points. Again, this should be recommended on an individual basis, and your blood test is the only reliable predictor.
DHT, what about it? DHT can, in fact, irritate and dry up the skin, which would result in a different kind of acne. Remember that suppressing your oestrogen while you have high DHT levels will only make things worse. Because of this, it is usually preferable to have a blood test before attempting to interfere with any enzymatic process in your body.
What should be done if we are dealing with a 5-10 fold increase in DHT levels? As we have already described above, high DHT can also significantly degrade your skin quality, not even mentioning its capacity to trigger prostate hyperplasia (another problem that demands a thorough discussion). By the way, this happens frequently during intense steroid cycles, particularly if DHT derivatives are present.
Anti-DHT drugs must be used. Again, though, not all of these are long-term viable. Finasteride and dutasteride are two meds I personally wouldn't advise because they can cause clinical depression, as well as somewhat chemically impair your libido and make you generally unmotivated.
Pregnenolone is converted into allopregnenolone by the enzyme 5-reductase, which also converts testosterone into DHT. This second metabolite is a key neurotransmitter involved in mood-enhancing functions. It is not a good idea to turn it off.
What then should we do with DHT? Find a more reasonable solution. Fortunately, it does exist and is known as saw palmetto. Personally, I advise seeking for the extract and taking it daily in quantities ranging from 300 to 1000 mg, changing it according to blood tests and your own health. The majority of people respond well to these dosages.
In conclusion, it is safe to state that we have largely covered the subject. Keep in mind that skin should be taken care of because some instructors believe it to be an organ. Make sure you take in this advice and keep working to become a better, more attractive version of yourself (what else is there if not to be pretty).