# Ben: protocol and stack reference Two states below. The August self-report is more current but unconfirmed by any panel. The April snapshot is what the 25 April 2026 bloodwork actually reflects, so use it when interpreting those numbers. --- ## Most recent self-report, 27 August 2026, unconfirmed Ben reports dropping most of the April stack because he felt no subjective effect from it. Currently: - **Pregnenolone 100 to 200 mg AM.** New. Tried 50 mg previously inside a large stack and could not isolate the effect. Reports both 100 and 200 mg as clearly effective: stable, non reactive, centred, focused, decisive, "slightly on the angry side" in a way he currently likes - **Pregabalin (Lyrica) 75 mg situational.** Rare. Used for stressful trading days or dates, to avoid acting out of anxiety - **TRT continuing.** He quoted 160 mg/week split into two doses. The April file says 180 mg/week. **Reconcile this, do not assume** - **hCG continuing** **Aromasin: stopped, confirmed 27 August 2026.** Restarted around 11 April 2026, taken for roughly 2 to 3 weeks, stopped. Estradiol unmanaged since about early May, roughly four months, while TRT, hCG and now pregnenolone all push the aromatisation load up. Off-AI history: 62, 86, 89 pg/mL. See the estradiol section in SKILL.md, this is the largest live risk in the file. **Dayvigo (lemborexant): still taking it nightly, works well.** Confirmed 27 August 2026. The taper trial that was scheduled for week 5 to 6 post AI restart evidently did not happen or did not stick. Still unclear and worth asking: whether retatrutide, magnesium and the omega 3 products are also stopped, or just the oral vitamin stack. ### Interactions to raise on this current state - **Pregnenolone plus DHEA 25 mg is double dosing one lane.** DHEA 25 mg was started to correct DHEA-S of 103.4 against a range floor of 139.7. Pregnenolone sits upstream of DHEA. Running both makes the DHEA-S recheck uninterpretable and the ceiling unpredictable. Pick one, or at minimum know which is doing the work - **Pregnenolone does NOT feed the estradiol cascade** (corrected 27 Aug 2026). No human study shows oral pregnenolone raising testosterone or estradiol in men. The E2 concern rests on TRT plus hCG alone - **Pregabalin schedule, not dose, is the variable.** "For a date or a stressful trading day" is an intermittent reinforcement pattern. The mechanism by which it escalates is the schedule. A useful line to hold: roughly 4 times a month, and treat pre-planning it as the signal rather than the frequency - **The pregabalin tolerance warning made here earlier is RETRACTED.** The claim that anxiolytic tolerance develops faster than side-effect tolerance is backwards and unsupported. See `references/anxiety.md` for the full correction and the settled recommendation, which is: leave his 75 mg PRN alone, do metacognitive therapy first, hold daily dosing in reserve. - **"Pregnenolone is causing his tension" is RETRACTED.** He falsified it on 27 August: tense on days he skips it, and tense for a decade before starting it. - **The 5-alpha-reductase explanation for his pregnenolone response is RETRACTED.** Measured human PK runs the other way: oral pregnenolone raises allopregnanolone about 7-fold in men. What stands is that it lowers DHEA-S by roughly 5%, working mildly against the DHEA 25 mg he was given, and that the real caveat is the inverted-U (partial allopregnanolone elevation is anxiogenic in a susceptible minority). The DHT:T ratio of ~5.2% is still real and still argues against finasteride or dutasteride, just not for the reason given here originally. - **Pregnenolone was never in any panel.** Progesterone baseline was under 0.20 in April, which makes it the clean comparator whenever the next draw happens --- ## April 2026 snapshot, reflected in the 25 April panel ### Injectables - TRT 180 mg/week testosterone - Aromasin (exemestane) 6.25 mg approx 2x/week - Retatrutide (active cut) - NAD+ injectable - MT2 ### AM daily TMG 1 g, NAC, methylated B complex (Codeage), DHEA 25 mg, CoQ10, Carlson Elite DHA, high EPA omega 3 (approx 2 g EPA), PE-22-28 800 mcg intranasal, Selank, DHH-B 7 mg, benfotiamine 1 g, tadalafil 5 mg ### With food, lunch or dinner Zinc 25 to 30 mg, kept away from calcium, iron and coffee ### 3x per week D3/K2 ### PM Ashwagandha KSM-66 (5 on, 2 off, hepatotoxicity signal at continuous long term use), magnesium L-threonate, Dayvigo (lemborexant) ### Situational Lyrica (pregabalin) 75 mg pre date, Selank PRN ### Dropped and why - Standalone B12 — serum 1482, redundant - Lithium orotate — low marginal value - Berberine — floated then dropped, no metabolic problem to fix (HbA1c 5.3, glucose 86, HOMA-IR 1.7) --- ## Standing interaction notes to carry forward - **B6 load.** Methylated B complex plus Thorne multi was flagged for cumulative B6. Codeage is the primary B source, Thorne reduced to one capsule for mineral coverage. B6 toxicity is a real ceiling, not a theoretical one - **Zinc, revised 27 August 2026.** The April panel measured blood zinc at **549.24 ug/L against a floor of 551**, marginally low, **while he was taking 25 to 30 mg daily**. The old framing here was that he risked overshooting and depleting copper. The measurement says the opposite: he was sitting at the floor despite supplementing. Copper pairing at roughly 1 mg is still sensible on a long run, but it is not the live concern. Caveats: plasma zinc is an insensitive marker, his IL-6 GG and hsCRP 2.44 push it down independently of intake, and he was mid cut. RBC zinc would settle it. **Of everything he dropped, zinc is the only item with a measured abnormality behind reinstating it** - **Vitamin D is saturated at 92 ng/mL. Do not increase.** Any advice to add D3 is working from stale or wrong data - **B12 is 1482, above range, supplement driven.** Do not add - **Carlson Elite DHA is DHA dominant**, which is right for e4 brain delivery but wrong for the triglyceride problem, hence the separate high EPA product. Both have a reason to exist. If simplifying, EPA is the one that addresses a measured abnormality (TG 177, VLDL 35), DHA is the one that addresses genetic risk - **Ashwagandha KSM-66 hepatotoxicity signal** at continuous long term use, hence the 5 on 2 off pattern. Worth rechecking ALT/AST if it goes continuous - **Anything felt subjectively is acting on receptors. Anything not felt is acting on markers.** The oral vitamin stack was never going to be felt, which is why "I stopped because I felt nothing" is not evidence it was not working. Judge those by the marker, not the sensation. This is the single most useful reframe for his supplement questions ## The behavioural pattern this file exists to counter Ben adds compounds readily and rechecks the marker rarely. Before endorsing any addition, ask what the last addition did to its marker. Currently outstanding: 1. Did the July 2026 follow up panel get run? 2. Did DHEA 25 mg move DHEA-S toward 250 to 400, and is that now confounded by pregnenolone? 3. Did E2 normalisation actually fix the 3 to 5am waking? That was the whole purpose of the Aromasin restart. Ask for the result, not the plan 4. Did the Dayvigo taper trial happen (half dose for a week, then 3 consecutive nights off), and what happened?