26Y/O, Symptoms for 8 Years. Look At My Blood Test Results?

Few caveats:

  • I am not on TRT.

  • Apparently the “Testosterone II and SHBG are assayed on the Siemens Centaur/Atellica”. Not sure if that’s important.

  • Felt like shit since about 18 years old. I had a huge drop in wellbeing on every metric when I hit about 18. I had my testosterone tested when I was 17 and it was about 400 ng/dl (lower than it is now), during that time I felt really great.

  • I have moderate insomnia that I struggle with and treat. I average about 6 hours of sleep a night. Generally poor quality sleep. I’ve struggled with this for most of my life, and I’m not really able to make it better with lifestyle changes.

  • Low libido, poor erection quality, morning wood is lacklustre.

  • Inability to build muscle or make progress in gym.

  • Diet is pretty balanced, but not ideal. Not much junk food, medium to high carb.

  • Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t do drugs.

It seems like my SHGB is high and my LH is quite low. Could this indicate secondary hypogonadism?

Looking for all sorts of advice. I just wanna feel decent, and if TRT helps me get there, then I’ll take the jump.

The immunoassay is useless for Free T as it tends to mostly overestimate, but in this instance this testing method was accurate as your Free T percentage when factoring in Total T and SHBG is → 0.309 nmol/L = 1.74 %, 2-3 percent being normal.

These are typical low-T symptoms and the most common.

A midrange Total T level and above mid range SHBG levels, this doesn’t bode well for feeling optimal in any way as I’ve seen countless men with labs like these completely recover on TRT.

My cortisol was sky high when I was low-T and came down after starting TRT.

The poor sleep begs the question of sleep apnea, it would be helpful if you posted CBC results.

How is your blood pressure?

  • Doing a sleep study in a few days, but i’m 95% sure I don’t have sleep apnea, the symptoms just don’t line up.

  • My cortisol, prolactin, SHBG, and E2 seem a bit high, right? Would it be possible to lower those numbers help me make the most of my total T and improve my free T.

  • Blood pressure is as follows:
    SYS: 113
    DIA: 65
    HR: 62

Regarding CBC, I have a blood test from September of last year. See below, not sure if it’s what you’re looking for:

Those with sleep apnea have higher hematocrit, which you do.

The SHBG is tricky and we have little control over it, a few things can elevate it, starvation diets, a result of low-T and hyperthyroidism, the later not being the case here. The E2 isn’t high, it’s 31 by US measurements with 35-45 (depending on the assay) being the on the top end for a natural guy not on TRT.

A few people have had success with boron to lower SHBG, but will not correct things if all of your symptoms is the result of low-T.

I would like to add that good quality sleep is a huge factor is sustaining healthy testosterone levels, chronic sleep problems can lead to low-T.

Thanks for your response. I’ll keep you posted on my results with the sleep study. Also, I actually have some boron supplements lying around, I’ll start incorporating it and see how I feel.