My Visit with HAN and Dr. Overbeck

nickatnite

New Member
So here's my story. (It's going to be long so if you don't want to read you mine as well stop now.) I'm a 27 year old male who has always been physically active, eats right (mostly organic) and has never taking a steroid or pro-hormone in my entire life. Make that any drug in general, including marijuana. (excluding a few drinks here and there.) Anyway as of 2008 I noticed I was gaining weight in my midsection. Now as men we all know we usually gain weight in our midsection. However I was gaining at an alarming rate and I wasn't changing my dietary habits or physical activity levels. One day I was doing curls in the mirror and could see this potbelly which drove me crazy. After awhile I decided to go see my primary doctor. He agreed to run some tests and we checked the regulars.. Cortisol AM, and a few thyroid tests. Everything came back normal. However My cortisol came back at 10.0, which after doing further research was a little on the low side. He told me that everything is fine and I should just work out a little bit more and see how things go. Well after about another 6 months I was still gaining weight. Besides gaining weight I was extremely tired, depressed and my libido was starting to slip. This put a major damper on my relationship because my chick thought it was her. What a freaking nightmare. So I went back to my primary doctor and he took a look at me. He noticed I gained more weight since the last time I saw him and decided to put me through to an endocrinologist. The endocrine guy took a look at me and thought maybe I had cushings syndrome. I had a big stomach and stretch marks which are pinpointers of cushings. He ran a number of tests and said that everything was normal. Note: My Cortisol was 7,5, Total Test 271 with 241 free, SHBG 11, estrogen 20. Now I'm not a rocket scientist but those numbers didn't look right. I was 26 years old at the time and my cortisol was low, total test low. I knew something wasn't right. The endocrine told me that everything looks fine and that it seems fine and I do not have cushings all my levels seem to be normal. I must not be working out enough he claimed. After that I was livid and decided to hit the internet and see if anyone had any sim. problems. I knew something wasn't right. After all I went from 170lbs to 200lbs in like a years time! Luckily I found this site and met a lot of new people who were very eager to help. After posting some of my test results HAN asked me if I would like to meet with himself & Dr. O. I agreed and lucked out because they were located in my hometown. Dr. O and HAN took one look at me and couldn't believe the bullshit I was hearing about "everything was normal." My belly fat was so bad it looked like someone stuck a flat tire under my skin. I could of probably been a stunt double for the worlds first pregnant man on Oprah. My first visit with Dr. Overbeck & HAN was about an hour. HAN did extensive muscle testing, Dr. Overbeck took a look at me and did the basic checks and then we sat in the office for awhile and discussed everything that was going on and threw around some ideas of what it could be. Before I left they gave me a script with a number of different tests from everything under the sun. We did blood tests & saliva tests. Saliva for cortisol only. After everything came back the tests showed that my adrenals were shot. Dr. O and HAN agreed that we need to pinpoint what is causing the adrenal fatigue and not just put a band-aid over the problem by putting me on a steroid for the rest of my life or giving me some type of test cream. This made me very happy and I was extremely thankful that there's practitioners out there that want find the source of the problem, and not just treat the symptoms. Too many Doctor's out there just want to treat the symptoms and that really pisses me off. Don't get me wrong it has a lot to do with the pharm. companies pressuring them and their lack of education. There are GOOD doctor's out there but I feel like it's becoming harder and hard to find. Anyway, back to the point.. So after getting the test results back Dr. O and HAN decided to put me on a low dose of Cortef (Hydrocortisone) just to give me some energy and try to get me going again while they do some more tests to pinpoint what's sucking the life out of me. They also mentioned that we would be re-testing the thyroid after a few months to see if there is any change. Apparently the thyroid will not work with cortisol! This I didn't know and after mentioning it to my primary care physician he didn't know that either. (Little scary.) So after a few months of taking the Cortef I started feeling a lot better. I had more energy, was more positive. But I still pregnant with twins. (In all seriousness my belly was big.. I will probably upload pictures) After taking the Cortef for a few months they ran a bunch of tests and it turns out I had insulin resistance. The weird thing was is that my triglycerides were fine and so was my fasting glucose. HOWEVER, my DHEA was 236! It seemed that low DHEA was causing my insulin resistance. After looking everything over once again and ruling out any other possibilities they decided to prescribe me a transdermal DHEA cream. I am now about one week into it and there's a night & day difference. My libido is starting to come back and I feel amazing. AND I'm off the Cortef. It seems like the LOW DHEA has been the problem all a long. The scary thing is if I listened to my primary care doc and the endocrine guy I would of definitely had diabetes and probably heart disease. If not Cancer with these low levels! They said if I just let it go I prob would of only lived until 50s. It's pretty f'ing scary! I owe a LOT of thanks to HAN and Dr. O. They both know what they are talking about. And I consider them friends for life. I look forward to recovery. I recommend anyone who has an issue that they are unsure about or feels like there's no hope to give them a call/e-mail. I've seen a lot of trash talking on here about how HAN tries to promote himself and that the muscle testing is witchcraft well its not. I actually went to a class with HAN and learned the muscle testing. It's legit and it works. I am even attending a university in the state which I will be getting my bachelors in Science. I will then move towards and Masters and Doctorate in Science/Alt. Medicine so I can hopefully help people just like him. Going through this nightmare has driven me to learn as much as I can because there's too much misinformation out there. And so many of us are suffering for reasons that aren't even our faults. I will be posting some pictures and updates as time goes on with my progress for those who care and to show these guys know what they are talking about. Until next time, take care and thanks for reading. (If you made it this far) Ha.
 
Pictures..

2d7btd4.jpg

5clq52.jpg

sgrclu.jpg

33lcq6o.jpg
 
Glad to hear you are doing better, thanks for posting.

Did you get DHEA tested or DHEA-S? And was it blood/saliva or both?

My DHEA-S came back low in a blood test but came back very high is saliva. As you can guess, I was stumped. I did take DHEA pills for a week but it made me feel so strange and horrible that I had to stop. I am doing ok now on Danazol and DIM, but could do better.
 
Both, including DHEA 24hr urine.

DHEA-S (Blood) = 333
DHEA (24 hour urine) = 236
DHEA (urine spot test) = 88

I've attached my Saliva results (Note the Saliva test was done before taking Cortef.)

1z3cu20.jpg
 
Last edited:
Thanks man, and no problem. Did a Dr tell ya to take DHEA or were you just medicating yourself? You have to be careful. Too much DHEA or too much Cortisol can make you feel like shit also.

As you can see the DHEA and DHEA-S results vary. I personally feel that the 24 hour urine DHEA is a better marker to see what is going on. You might want to look into it.
 
I was self medicating based on my results. My cortisol saliva came back perfectly in range. I may try a DHEA cream to see if that makes a difference, but I won't take the pills again. I guess the problem with DHEA pills is its unpredictable nature. It could raise androstenedione, estrogen or progesterone before doing anything for actual DHEA-S levels.
 
Hey dehook --
I would definitely find a Dr in your area to monitor what you are doing. You really have to be careful because you are right, DHEA can convert to others things that are not good. Especially bad estrogen. I know HAN does phone consultations too. Might be an option. Good luck man, let me know if you need anything.
 
I already did a phone consultation with HANS a few months ago. That it wasn't of much use to me doesn't mean I wouldn't recommend him to others. I could tell from our hour-long conversation that he possesses a wide breadth of knowledge, and tries to tackle things from the root rather than the band-aid approach adopted by most doctors. Unfortunately he didn't understand some of my labs fully (I live in the UK, which uses different units), and as a result told me my problems were with estradiol when they really weren't. So there's some constructive criticism for ya HANS, learn to convert units before consulting with patients outside the USA.
 
Last edited:
Thanks. Right now it looks to be stress. My mom was sick with Cancer for about 8 years and I was really stressed out during that period and after she passed a business partner of mine screwed me over, then was topped off by my chick leaving me. Stress can definitely lower DHEA levels. I'm surprised they didn't hit 0 after all that. The good thing is it doesn't seem like anything is "majorly" wrong, but I'm crossing my fingers. Having levels that low and only being 27 is not good. Appreciate the support.
 
I already did a phone consultation with HANS a few months ago. That it wasn't of much use to me doesn't mean I wouldn't recommend him to others. I could tell from our hour-long conversation that he possesses a wide breadth of knowledge, and tries to tackle things from the root rather than the band-aid approach adopted by most doctors. Unfortunately he didn't understand some of my labs fully (I live in the UK, which uses different units), and as a result told me my problems were with estradiol when they really weren't. So there's some constructive criticism for ya HANS, learn to convert units before consulting with patients outside the USA.

Mental note made.
I'm constantly learning my self more and more every day. The combination of DR O and my self make a good team, because we overlap and work in tandem really well. We have learned to narrow things down quick and very percise time frame and will not let people lingering for 3 months at a time by make changes on the fly if its not working ..
 
Last edited:
nickatnite - have any of your labs changed since using the DHEA cream? I'm assuming that your DHEA-S levels have gone up, but has it affected SHBG/testosterone/etc?
 
dehook - going to test those levels probably in a month or so and i will post the results. i just started to the dhea cream a week ago so it will take a little bit of time before the levels change. i am very eager to see the results myself.
 
Dhea TD should not raise dhea-s levels in the blood. How ever some people it may but more so we will look for the urinarry rise in the dhea to be an indicator as well as his symptoms being alleviated.
 
So that would mean that as of now, low DHEA being the answer to your problems is just speculation? I look forward to seeing your results...
 
NO its is not speculation he was basically below levels in 24 hour urine test.. So as you can see he is also getting a clincal response from starting the TD DHEA as well. It was medically validated also well as symptoms corresponded to it as well.
 
Yeah but as you know transdermal DHEA can also raise testosterone, estrogen, progesterone and free t3, and it can lower SHBG, etc. Without labs I don't see how you can know for sure that it is the increase in DHEA that has alleviated most of his symptoms, although based on the fact that he has discountinued the need for cortisol it would seem the most likely explanation.
 
Back
Top