shbg QUESTION?

[andshane80]

So my total test was 869 In great range

MY free test was on the low end and SHBG was 69, which was about 15 points above normal

I have had trouble losing weight for a few years.

I am in shape, workout, had all my blood work come back good.

Please tell me what side effects one might experience from high shbg with low free test. once gain, all my other hormone levels are in range.

If I can get this SHBG down, they said I can figure out my real levels and see if I need testosterone replacement or not.

I am taking danazol for 30 days, 25mg a day.

e2 is 27 which is perfect in range.

What side effects does one have with high SHBG. The sides I experience are more associated with high estrogen even though I don't have that

[GearHeaded]

you'll feel like you have low test levels (even though your total is not low).

look into Proviron . it will fix you right up

[andshane80]

ok that is what I thought. Just the 10-15 pounds of weight gain even on a decent diet and doing quite a bit of cardio sucks. Really not sure why I am bloated all the time as well. Hope getting this SHBG down will help.

[Mr.BB]

So my total test was 869 In great range

MY free test was on the low end and SHBG was 69, which was about 15 points above normal

I have had trouble losing weight for a few years.

I am in shape, workout, had all my blood work come back good.

Please tell me what side effects one might experience from high shbg with low free test. once gain, all my other hormone levels are in range.

If I can get this SHBG down, they said I can figure out my real levels and see if I need testosterone replacement or not.

I am taking danazol for 30 days, 25mg a day.

e2 is 27 which is perfect in range.

What side effects does one have with high SHBG. The sides I experience are more associated with high estrogen even though I don't have that

SHBG role is to bind with free hormones, and balance it. But for some reasons may take it to exaggerate in this control, the most common is stress.

There are many kinds of stress, stress can be from smoking, drinking or doing to drugs, or from overwork, busy life, etc.... all those are stress to our bodies.

Be careful with what drugs you take as it may disrupt your sex hormones cycle, aka HPT axis, doing more harm than good. Ideally you find out whats causing the stress and solve it there, as the effects of drugs like danazol are stopped upon discontinuation.

Start by doing bloodwork with include cortisol tests, any doctor would order this with high SHBG value...

[hammerheart]

So my total test was 869 In great range

MY free test was on the low end and SHBG was 69, which was about 15 points above normal

I have had trouble losing weight for a few years.

I am in shape, workout, had all my blood work come back good.

Please tell me what side effects one might experience from high shbg with low free test. once gain, all my other hormone levels are in range.

If I can get this SHBG down, they said I can figure out my real levels and see if I need testosterone replacement or not.

I am taking danazol for 30 days, 25mg a day.

e2 is 27 which is perfect in range.

What side effects does one have with high SHBG. The sides I experience are more associated with high estrogen even though I don't have that

Total T and SHBG are always related. High SHBG causes Test to accumulate inertly, that means if it were lower, then total and free T would also be lower as a result. That means if it were in a healthy range (especially if forced down by a drug) then total T might score so much lower that you would be eligible for TRT.

Upregulating factor can be many, f.ex hyperthyroidism, low insulin from low carb diet, overall poor nutrition and prolonged dieting...

[Youthful55guy]

Are you taking thyroid meds? They absolutely do push up SHBG levels. I found a major study documenting it and my own labs at different doses of Armour confirm this.

If not, then you are probably one of the unlucky 10% of men who are genetically programmed to as an extra sugar molecule to the SHBG protein. This effectively more than doubles the half life. So for every nmol you produce, it has double the effect on protein levels in the blood.

SHBG strongly and preferentially binds testosterone over other steroid hormone, effectively sequestering it to an inactive form in the body. Worse, as you have witnessed, it drives up Total T and makes it appear to docs not in the know that you have borderline high T levels. THis is because the protein protects T from metabolism in the liver. However, since it is not bioavailable, you feel like crap because you have low free T. Only free T can pass through the blood brain barrier where it is needed to make you fell normal. There is some evidence that even bound T does exert a peripheral effect in some tissues, but it's not nearly as effective as Free T.

There are several effective treatments (like danazol), but they suppress endogenous production of T, so even though you get the levels of the protein in the normal range, your freet T levels may actually drop because you are producing less T. You have to combine these steroid inhibitors of SHBG production with TRT.

I have found this strategy to be extremely effective. However, I've never tried danazol, so I don't have any advice to share with that particular drug. For me the drug of choice is Winstrol (Stanozolol ), but it is not commercially available in the USA any longer. It was discontinued by the manufacturer for marketing, not safety, reasons. It is available quite inexpensively in the EU and can be easily obtained through alternate channels. After much experimentation, I've found the optimum dose for me to be 0.25mg twice per day (AM and PM). This brings my SHBG from the mid to upper 70s to about 25-30 nmol/L. At this very low dose (compared to bodybuilder doses), it does not effect my liver labs. At double that dose, I find it suppresses SHBG too much and my liver labs are borderline upper end of normal.

Another drug I've tried is Anavar (Oxandrolone). It is also very effective in suppressing SHBG but I need about double the dose (5mg AM and PM) and it's about 4X the price of Stanozolol. The only benefit with Anavar is that it is commercially available in the USA and approved for treating chronic wasting diseases like HIV. There is also a very recent major randomized double blind clinical study that shows it is effective in suppressing SHBG in HIV patients.

You will get lots of advice on the use of various supplements (like nettle root). However, I've tried them all and the only thing they are effective at doing for guys genetically programmed for high SHBG is effectively reducing the size of you wallet. Don't waste your money.

[andshane80]

my am cortisol was 14 which was right in the middle. I thought cortisol or estrogen symptoms. I have taken pro hormones off and on from 22-30 or so, really without a proper PCT. I wonder if that messed me up now. However, all my other blood is good. My shbg and low free test is all we can find. THyroid is good. Etc.
So if I take something to lower SHBG for a month, retest, and my shbg is normal now and free test improved, what is the next protocol do you think. I wont keep taking danazol, so will the SHBG creep back up? Just retesting after 30 days to see what went on. Some suspect the total test might go down below 500, which would explain my symptoms, right/

[andshane80]

LEt me know if my prior use of pro hormones might have caused this? Also if I get the SHBG down and test goes to say....700 for total and free goes up, shbg in check because of danazol 30 days, what is next? If I feel great and lose some weight, everything is back to normal, do I need to supplement still or what/

[andshane80]

[Youthful55guy]

LEt me know if my prior use of pro hormones might have caused this? Also if I get the SHBG down and test goes to say....700 for total and free goes up, shbg in check because of danazol 30 days, what is next? If I feel great and lose some weight, everything is back to normal, do I need to supplement still or what/

If you are genetically programmed for high SHBG, then you will need treatment for the rest of your life. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Once you stop Danazol (or whichever treatment you choose) your SHBG will jump back up in a matter of days.

I've not done a lot of research on the use of Danazol (Danocrine) since it is so expensive and difficult to find without a prescription. I am curious whether or not it lowers your endogenous T production. From what I've read, it does have a very slight angrogenic effect, so I'm guessing that it will. It will be difficult to determine in your case, since bringing down your SHBG should also bring down your Total T because the T is no longer being protected from liver metabolism. This is good though if your Free T increases. Free T metabolizes quickly in the liver.

The only alternative approach I've seen or tried is to saturate the SHBG with T so that enough spills over to free T to keep your Free T within at least the lower end of the normal range. The problem with this approach is that with SHBG as high as yours, you'll need to bump T into the 1200 to 1500 ng/dL range to make that happen. The downside to this is that SHBG bound T does have some peripheral effects, and among them are stimulation of hemoglobin production. My experience is that it's not a sustainable protocol.

The approach I settled on is the use of a SHBG lowering med in combination with relatively normal doses of TRT. This keeps my Free T where I want it (upper 75th percentile of a 20-30 year old) and my hemoglobin at a level that is controllable with regular blood donations.

I'm interested in seeing how your Danazol experiment works out.

[Youthful55guy]

Oh, BTW, here's a post on Danazol from another forum that I copied and pasted into my notebook as a reference to dosing and effectiveness. Thought you might like to see it:

When I started TRT 8 months ago my SHBG was 57. My doc prescribed 20mg Danazol ED (along with the TRT) to lower SHBG. While my test levels have trended up, my SHBG has been trending down over the last 8 months and I hit a new SHBG low of 27