I don't know why but I had a really bad reaction to this and I took it before going on a store errand which was a huge mistake. I had to sit down in the store's office section (thankfully they had one

) because it felt like I was having a heart attack.
Maybe men and women react differently to it. IDK. Just wanted to put the warning out there for anyone else. At least maybe just to try a tiny dose to start and of course, not when you have to be somewhere but home just in case.
That's a good call, I agree.
IDK if it's a male or female thing but when I was looking deeper into adrenal fatigue/dysfunction, it was mentioned that the longer one had been in that state the more sensitive they would be to treating adrenals and cautioned going low and slow.
My experience with pregnenolone wasn't easy sailing. I started with the recommended pregnenolone replacement dose in a transdermal product of 50mg/ml per day. There were positives that first day that made me keep experimenting. The first few hrs i remember my brain fog cleared and I had good energy and my general joint pains like knees and back etc disappeared. It was like all my inflammation went away. But then a few more hrs later the horse bolted and I felt way overstimulated, headache, nausea etc and didn't sleep at all that night. I can imagine what you went through too, Judee.
I was intrigued by how good I initially felt even though it sent me into a hell hole. I gave it a few days to wash out and tried half the dose, nope no good. Let it wash out etc. The benefit of the transdermal was I could titrate the dose to a very small dose. I was basically putting a small dab on my wrist every couple of days and was where I started from that I could tolerate and I felt good on and I can't recall how long it took but several months I built up to using 50mg a day.
My morning cortisol which is suppose to be in the upper third of the normal range, was only just in the lower third of the range and my dhea was below the normal range. Once I could tolerate the 50mg of pregnenolone a day, my morning cortisol was in the middle third of the range. I did have to add dhea for it to increase and I had to increase it the same way I did with pregnenolone, very low and slow.
I think having dhea within a normal range is important too and can help balance out the effects of pregnenolone/cortisol like a yin and yang I guess.
I still take 25mg of dhea as my levels drop below normal when off it. I haven't used pregnenolone for a couple of years now but a blood test a few months back showed my morning cortisol was in the upper third of the normal range. So maybe the pregnenolone helped there???
As well as helping improve down stream hormones, it's supposedly can help neurotransmitters function better. I'm not really up on it though.
I have some old posts on pregnenolone, probably atleast 10yrs ago but above is a review that I can recall off the top of my head.
I think anything stimulating/energising if used in cfs, one should go low and slow.