Is I am sorry I am late to respond.
My input:
I would have simply ignored the SHBG value and started with 100 mg per week. However, from reading your posts here, I am wondering who is running the program here, you or your doctor? Of course I am aware that a patient should have a say in what he receives or questions about why he is receiving a prescription in regards to dose and drug. Do you or someone just say, “I’d like to use 160 mg per week.” I know that’s not how my doc works, and he is great.
Anyway, I would have started with that amount and ignored everything in regards to TRT for one month. This would mean no thinking about estradiol, SHBG, dosage, other drugs (aside from another diagnosis), or even input from an internet poster such as myself or others. And then I would simply see what happened and how I felt.
Only then and if something was not right would I go back to the doctor with complaints.
Who knows? And if it is actual water retention, this might be an implication that you’re taking too much medication. Edema is not normal! Did you weight yourself before eating breakfast on all days you weighed yourself?
After being untreated for hypogonadism for over a year, it took me over six months to feel like I fully had my well-being and function back. However I strongly suspect some of the delay was because of a psychosomatic factor of a depressive mood because of a lack of treatment. Libido and erection quality took quite some time to come back.
At first I thought perhaps I wasn’t even getting the correct dose despite normal T levels because my symptoms were subsisting.
But after some time, I did what I just recommended: ignoring my symptoms while being treated and moving the heck on with my life. It worked out for me, which is obvious from my posts in this forum. So did HCG.
I tell men who are starting TRT to NOT discuss anything on the internet, think about “optimal” values (there is not any such thing), or think about every nuance of their function and well-being.
And as someone here said he doesn’t know anyone taking under 140 mg, I don’t know anyone taking anything other than 100 mg per week.