Interesting SHBG/Thyroid test results
A while back I mentioned that I ran across some interesting research that showed that thyroid hormones (either T3 or T4, did not matter) can increase SHBG levels. It got me thinking that I've seen a progressive increase in my SHBG over the last 6 years and it does seem to have a correlation with my increasing doses of Armour Thyroid over that same period of time. My SHBG was high to begin with, but it has progressively increased. This got me to thinking that perhaps I should try some experiments with reduced Armour Thyroid doses.
My standard dose of Armour for the past couple years was 90mg per day. At this dose, my SHBG was 94.4 (normal range 19.3-76.4). I've been using Winstrol at 10mg per day to keep the SHBG in the 20-30 range so that I can reduce my T dose to prevent my hemoglobin from getting out of control. However, at 10mg Winstrol per day, my liver labs are on the border of being high (if it's not one thing it another).
So, about 6 weeks ago, I begin to drop my Amour dose; first to 75mg and then 60mg. Concomitantly, I dropped my Winstrol dose to 5mg per day (2.5mg AM and 2.5mg PM). My plan was to do some interim testing before I dropped my Armour dose any further to see where I was at with both SHBG and with the liver labs. I seems that I found the sweet spot right away. My SHBG was 26 even though I cut the dose of Winstrol in half. My liver labs were all in the normal range and my T3 and T4 were all in the normal range too.
Interestingly, my SHBG was actually a little lower than it was at 10mg Winstrol with the higher Armour dose, and that resulted in higher than normal Free T. looks like I can adjust my T dose down to control hemoglobin, by adjusting my Armour dose down and still keep thyroid hormones in the normal range.