Calcium D-Glucarate Sensitivity

[hohokus3]

has anyone ever experienced calcium d-glucarate sensitivity (is there such a thing)?  (i apologize in advance for the length here -- lots of details.)

intro: my SHBG is high. per 23andme/promethease, i'm the lucky winner of 15% elevated SHBG levels.  lately, E is elevated as well; doctor and i are exploring supplements to lower E before going to arimidex.  general symptoms are lack of libido, poor erection quality, lack of energy. 

labcorp sample collected april 11th. relevant details:
  estradiol 30.1pg/mL (7.6 - 42.6)
  shbg 48.7 nmol/L (16.5 - 55.9)
  testosterone 805 ng/dL (348 - 1197)

so, estradiol is a bit high, SHBG is high, testosterone is fine. aiming to get estradiol down to around 20-22 pg/mL.

april 23rd: 500mg CDG 2x (1000mg total).
april 24th: 500mg CDG 3x (1500mg total). libido returns. feels like i'm in my early 20s.
april 25th: 500mg CDG 2x (1000mg total). libido overwhelming. 'anything that moves'.
april 26th: ZRT blood spot test for estradiol. 500mg CDG 2x (1000mg total). libido gone. no energy. erectile dysfunction.

the ZRT test came back with estradiol at 345 pg/mL; range is 12-56. this is through the roof high.  my wife is on BHRT, so there's a possibility that there was contamination of the sample, but it's pretty unlikely.  my guess is the CDG drove E down to nothing, and i rebounded.

april 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th: take nothing.  slowly feel more like i did previously.
may 1st: 250mg CDG. water retention. infrequent urination. gain 2 lbs.
may 2nd: 250mg CDG. genitals retracted. nipple sensitivity. brain fog. assume 250mg is still too high.
may 3rd, 4th: take nothing.
may 5th: ZRT blood spot test for estradiol, 125mg CDG. libido returns.
may 6th: 125mg CDG. nipple sensitivity. genitals retracted. no libido. water retention. gain 2 lbs.
may 7th: 125mg CDG. same as previous day. gain 3 lbs.
may 8th: ZRT blood spot test for estradiol; discontinue CDG.

blood spot test from the 5th just came in; this one is 66 pg/mL (range 12-56) -- so slightly elevated, as expected.  it will be a couple of days for the results from the last test to come in. 

for me, CDG appears to work, but i'm apparently very sensitive to it. after taking a tablet, i can feel it 'come on' in ~45 minutes. the effects build, initially a burst of energy that feels like i've had too much coffee. heart palpitations (hormone change?). at ~5 hours, effects taper off.  my best guess is that it forces me onto an E roller coaster, where i keep bouncing around between nothing and too high. my doctor agrees that the symptoms are high E related, but i've not done a blood test to confirm -- my suspicion is that the final test from the 8th will come back too high.

most of the research i've seen is about whether CDG will actually do anything; most anecdotal reports i've seen indicate no effect. if it does work, the dose seems to be 1000mg/daily, or more, and it takes a week or two to be noticeable.

250mg is the smallest amount i could find locally. it was a compressed tablet; i got to 125mg by cutting these in half.  my last experiment with this will be with the 'life extension' 200mg capsules; i intend to open these, divide up the powder into 4x 50mg piles, and stuff it back into empty capsules.  this is a pain, and i doubt it will be worth the effort.  the goal, ultimately, is to chop 8-10 points off of total E -- i'm not sure what 50mg would do, and even if it did do anything appreciable, the effect would last ~5 hours before my body starts aromatizing additional E to get back to where it wants to be.  in my estimation, the half-life of CDG is just too small to be useful.

(for reference, the 500mg tablets were 'thorne research'. the 250mg was 'vitamin shoppe'.)


i went back to 23andme/promethease, CDG research & wikipedia.  as i understand it, cruciferous vegetables stimulate the liver to produce CYP1A2 enzyme, which metabolizes caffeine, estradiol, paracetemol (and other things, but not testosterone).  so, i'm guessing CDG stimulates the same -- i can't find any direct reference between the two, but it seems plausible, considering CDG is marketed for 'detox' effects and estradiol elimination.  back in promethease, i'm flagged as a 'fast metabolizer' -- meaning i process caffeine and other CYP1A2 items more quickly than normal.  so, it seems logical to me:  taking CDG on top of the genetic 'fast metabolizer' is like throwing gasoline on a fire -- i burn through the estradiol rapidly on a small dose of CDG, and i go into estrogen rebound.


so, my ultimate question is: does this sound plausible?  has anyone ever experienced extreme sensitivity to CDG?  has anyone seen reports/studies/anything to that effect?

[PeakT]

Okay, those are weird measurements.  Never seen anything like that.

We had one person who was using calcium d-glucarate successfully, but I think he coupled it with zinc if I remember right.  When I say successfully, it bumped him down a bit but nothing huge. 

I have to be honest:  the most plausible thing to me is that there was some contamination of the sample or perhaps that you actually absorbed some of your wife's?  Do you have any evidence that someone can rebound like that?

[hohokus3]

I have to be honest:  the most plausible thing to me is that there was some contamination of the sample or perhaps that you actually absorbed some of your wife's?  Do you have any evidence that someone can rebound like that?

contamination was my initial suspicion as well.  my wife has been on BHRT for the past 2-3 years, and over the last 2 my energy levels, libido & erection quality has decreased -- so contamination has certainly been considered.  i've had my T checked several times, and it's always been in the upper 3rd of the range, so i've come to suspect it's slightly elevated E or low free T (due to SHBG or high E) causing my symptoms.

first round of blood work was ~2 years ago, which showed estrogen at <15.  did a ZRT saliva test around the same time, which showed E in range (1.8pg/mL, range 0.5-2.2). did another saliva test a month after that, which showed E at double the previous result (4.6pg/mL, range 0.5-2.2). at the time, i assumed saliva testing was a waste of money and inaccurate.

now it's 2 years later, and my E is suspiciously on the high side again, so.. maybe the 2nd saliva test was OK?  or maybe i've been getting cross-contamination for the past 2 years.  my doctor was skeptical of that, because my wife has been taking a mixture of estrogen/progesterone, so if my E was elevated due to contamination, we would expect my progesterone to be elevated as well.

as far as the huge blood spot result -- i assumed contamination at first, but the more i thought about the way i felt, the less i was convinced. i've not seen any studies/reports that indicate "estrogen rebound", but i have seen a lot of discussion on steroid forums about it, so it does happen.  the best explanation i've seen is this:

estrogen rebound is not only very rare but only happens in certain situations. First you need an EXTREMELY high test level such as what you would have on 1000mg test. Next for rebound to happen you need to have bottomed out estrogen levels [typically only letro dose this or adex in doses over 1mg per day]. Next these levels have to remain unbalanced for 2-3 days. The rebound happens from an extreme imbalance.

i haven't seen anyone saying, "this is estrogen rebound" and quoting E numbers in the hundreds, but i have seen lots of posts with wildly varying E figures -- highest i've seen was ~700, which is pure insanity -- but again, these are 'recreational' users, so it's kind of apples/oranges.


for what it's worth, i tried 120mg of DIM last evening. after 30-45 minutes, i got a building sense of energy, felt extremely fidgity and found it hard to sit still. after ~2 hours, energy started to decline pretty rapidly and i felt worse than before taking it. eventually, all i wanted to do was sleep; it was hard to keep my eyes open.  after ~5 hours, it was like nothing had happened -- no longer energetic, no longer tired -- it's like i hadn't taken anything. slept badly, woke up 4-5 times to urinate (much more than usual). woke up with aching joints. morning wood which resulted in morning sex, but no real libido -- i could have been thinking about tax returns just as easily.


i'll get the final blood spot test (after taking the 125mg for a few days) and see what that is, but it seems like i'm just very sensitive to 'cruciferous vegetable' based supplements.


really, i wish i could test aromatase levels directly.  or if the blood spot tests were $5/pop (instead of $35), i'd love to get 10-15 of them and stab myself once an hour.

[PeakT]

Well, hohokus - I don't know what to tell you.  I've never seen anyone with #s like yours and so variable.  Some of the online docs do phone consults - maybe that would be worth it?  They've dealt with 100's of clients, etc. so maybe they've run across something like this before...

By the way, you are going through one of the big labs (Sonoran, LabCorp, Quest...)?

[hohokus3]

By the way, you are going through one of the big labs (Sonoran, LabCorp, Quest...)?

proper blood over the past few years has been done by quest or labcorp.  i've been using ZRT as a reference, since you can get "do it yourself" blood spot tests for relatively cheap, but i'm not basing anything off of those results -- just using it as a guideline along with symptoms.

it seems i'm just freakishly sensitive to DIM and calcium d-glucarate.  so, it is what it is, and if E is a problem, i guess i'll move on to arimidex.

[PeakT]

By the way, you are going through one of the big labs (Sonoran, LabCorp, Quest...)?

proper blood over the past few years has been done by quest or labcorp.  i've been using ZRT as a reference, since you can get "do it yourself" blood spot tests for relatively cheap, but i'm not basing anything off of those results -- just using it as a guideline along with symptoms.

it seems i'm just freakishly sensitive to DIM and calcium d-glucarate.  so, it is what it is, and if E is a problem, i guess i'll move on to arimidex.

Sure, but realize that Arimidex is a bigger gun...

[hohokus3]

i finally got the final blood test result for my calcium d-glucarate experiement.

may 5th, 8:00am: estradiol 66 pg/mL (ZRT range 12-56)
may 5th, 8:30am: 125mg calcium d-glucarate.  libido returns.
may 6th, 9:30am: 125mg calcium d-glucarate.  nipple sensitivty. genitals retracted. no libido. water retention.  gain +2lbs.
may 7th, 8:30am: 125mg calciun d-glucarate.  same symptoms as previous day.  gain +3 lbs.
may 8th, 8:20am: estradiol 81 pg.mL (ZRT range 12-56).  discontinue calcium d-glucarate.

so, i'm glad to see this isn't in my head.  on a larger does of CDG, i had a result of ~345 pg/mL, an extreme estrogen yo-yo.  maybe that sample was contaminated, but it's very unlikely these two were.   it's the same yo-yo, but not as extreme -- maybe in proportion to the lower dose (about 10% of original).

at any rate, moving on the arimidex.  it's a bigger gun, but it's got an army of users, a ~48 hour half-life, and a lot more supporting evidence -- so maybe bigger, but maybe more precise as well.

[PeakT]

i finally got the final blood test result for my calcium d-glucarate experiement.

may 5th, 8:00am: estradiol 66 pg/mL (ZRT range 12-56)
may 5th, 8:30am: 125mg calcium d-glucarate.  libido returns.
may 6th, 9:30am: 125mg calcium d-glucarate.  nipple sensitivty. genitals retracted. no libido. water retention.  gain +2lbs.
may 7th, 8:30am: 125mg calciun d-glucarate.  same symptoms as previous day.  gain +3 lbs.
may 8th, 8:20am: estradiol 81 pg.mL (ZRT range 12-56).  discontinue calcium d-glucarate.

so, i'm glad to see this isn't in my head.  on a larger does of CDG, i had a result of ~345 pg/mL, an extreme estrogen yo-yo.  maybe that sample was contaminated, but it's very unlikely these two were.   it's the same yo-yo, but not as extreme -- maybe in proportion to the lower dose (about 10% of original).

at any rate, moving on the arimidex.  it's a bigger gun, but it's got an army of users, a ~48 hour half-life, and a lot more supporting evidence -- so maybe bigger, but maybe more precise as well.

Well great warning.  Can you tell us dosage and frequency again that you were taking?

[hohokus3]

Well great warning.  Can you tell us dosage and frequency again that you were taking?

original experiment was with 500mg 2x daily ('thorn research' brand). estrogen crashed within 3 days, rebounded to 345 on day 4.

second experiment was with 250mg 1x daily ('vitamin shoppe' brand). same result in same time period, but rebound wasn't as hard. didn't do blood tests for this.

final experiment was 125mg 1x daily ('vitamin shoppe' brand cut in half). starting E2 66 pg/ml; crashed within 3 days, rebounded to 81 on day 4.

the only special thing that sticks out is that i don't eat cruciferous vegetables. not as a kid, not as an adult, not really ever -- so maybe i'm extra sensitive to the active ingredient(s)

[mrmdk]

Huh.   I started taking CDG (500 2x/day) for 2 weeks.   I haven't noticed ANYTHING like that except a small reduction in pain from my DISH.   I had no idea it had any hormone effects, I'm taking it because, like Glutathione, Glucaric Acid is a cellular detoxifier. 

[PeakT]

Huh.   I started taking CDG (500 2x/day) for 2 weeks.   I haven't noticed ANYTHING like that except a small reduction in pain from my DISH.   I had no idea it had any hormone effects, I'm taking it because, like Glutathione, Glucaric Acid is a cellular detoxifier.

I don't think it usually does have much effect.  I'm not reading about guys really getting a big hormone adjustment from this.  But it looks like it may happen in a few guys for whatever reason.