Effective Way to Lower SHBG?

I’ve been trying to find out if there is a way to lower shbg to increase free T that is proven to work and haven’t come up with anything. The only thing I can come up with is to try to find something that binds preferentially to shbg over testosterone (mentioned Danazol at low doses to my physician and he’s going to look into it).
My T level is in the moderate range but my free T is at the low end of the reference range. My shbg is 80 with a reference range of 10 - 50. I feel like my physician jumped to T replacement too quickly without trying to figure out how to free up T from shbg but that’s because I have no idea what I’m talking about, and he might be right! Lol any insight from you guys?

TRT is the only thing that will lower overly high SHBG, your doctor didn’t jump the gun. Excess androgens lower SHBG.

1 Like

Medications, past or present? Finasteride or Accutane?

Keto? IF?

Theres a bunch of stuff that increases SHBG. These are the main places I start when I ask people about their SHBG.

Mine ranges from 45-55 usually in the higher range. So I am very well aware of your issue.

Tried it all, Boron, stinging nettle, tongkat ali, vitamin D, magnesium blah blah blah.

Some of it DOES work, but not worth following up on. Its usually transient, or maybe its in my head.

TRT does lower it for some, but mainly youll just be giving yourself enough testosterone to spill over the top, so to speak.

1 Like

Thanks, systemlord.

alphagunner - no major medications. Occasional use of nasal steroids and antihistamines for allergies. Finasteride? No. Minoxidil? Yes. I don’t believe they’re in the same family despite being used for the same thing and minoxidil is topical as opposed to systemic. Accutane? No. Clindamycin? Yes. Same situation, different family of medications to treat the same thing.

The first time I had it run I was just coming off of keto maybe two weeks prior and doing so VERY slowly (had only bumped up about 10g of carbs over my keto levels at that point). The second time, I had been off of keto for about 2 months. No intermittent fasting.
Test 1 → Test 2
Total T: 879 → 739 (same reference range of 250-1100)
Free T: 81.7 (reference range 35-155) → 48 (reference range 46-224) *for some reason, there was a different reference range for these on the two tests. Not sure why.
T, Bioavailable (Testosterone: free+weakly bound): not run in first test → 96.7 (reference range 110-575)
TSH: 1.42 → .76 (reference range .4-4.5)
T3: 3 → 2.8 (reference range 2.3-4.2)
T4: 1.2 → 1.2 (reference range .8-1.8)
SHBG: 71 → 78 (same reference range of 10-50)

Prior to the second test, I started taking Boron, Magnesium, and Vitamin D3. Clearly didn’t make a bit of difference.

The first test was done at about 7:30 AM when fasting (as part of a normal metabolic panel) and the second was forced on me by a doctor friend of mine who, when I was discussing this stuff, she goes “roll up your sleeve” and she drew my blood and sent it off somewhere around 1 PM, just after lunch. Not sure if that’s a factor or not. I wouldn’t think so but what do I know? :smiley:

Thanks for any insight/info!!!

EDIT: By the way, I’m 39, probably 16-18% bf, 170 lbs, if that matters at all.

Check out this article. How to Increase Sex Drive

1 Like

Thanks Charlie!
Of my symptoms, thankfully ED and sexual desire has never been an issue. In fact, when I told my wife my doc prescribed T, her face looked like someone had just stabbed someone. In other words, she freaked the f out.
My issues which caused me to bring it up to the doc were troubling getting rid of fat and building muscle, depression/irritability, and low energy. I also was having a lot of trouble sleeping. The doc assumed cortisol was the problem, I assumed it was low T. We were both right. Yay?

I shared that link because there was some info towards the bottom about lowering shbg

My thread is here:

I am still running experiments on reducing SHBG … I’ll be updating again soon. Danazol is one of the drugs I am using.

1 Like

Please tag me when you do.

Thanks, @traveling-man! Interesting thread.
I’m still without meds and have been trying a variety of supplements and vitamins along with diet to optimize my health as much as possible and promote restful sleep. I’ve read (and been told by my doc) that sleep duration and quality can drastically affect a variety of hormones including cortisol (produced by the adrenals). Cortisol is the hormone that “wakes you up” in the morning and as mentioned above, mine is much too high (just like yours, traveling-man). It can also pack on fat and make it hard to build muscle.
One supplement that seems to help with my sleep is PS150 (phosphatidylserine). I take it at night before bed along with a 10mg melatonin (extended release) and on most days, my alarm wakes me up whereas before, I was waking up between 30-120 minutes early, unable to go back to sleep. If you haven’t already tried something like this, definitely do. It might replace your occasional Ambien. From my understanding, Ambien makes you (kind of) unconscious more than it puts you to sleep (a bit of a mixture of the two). The difference is that being unconscious isn’t restful/recuperative.
I need to get my levels of everything checked again…

What’s your progress?