When you do not have a “normal” case, you tend to spend a lot of time reading and wondering. Please note – my feelings are about MY case, MY situation – I am not suggesting they apply to anyone else.
I wrote in the beginning that I am using this forum to document my journey and allow others to see what I have worked through. That is the point of making posts like this showing my current thoughts.
The initial hypothesis, agreed to by “just about everyone” including Dr Crisler, was that I needed to “throw more Testosterone” at the SHBG to lower it. And that my “high testosterone numbers” were “inflated due to high SHBG”.
I am starting to believe that this may have been invalid. Here is why …
Total Testosterone:
From my Nov 2017 post:
My TT maxed out at 1351. My 8 year average is 1051. The High TT is another factor that has baffled the doctors when taken as a whole with the other blood results.
This was my NATURAL Testosterone. I was not on, nor had I ever been on TRT.
During that same time, my SHBG went as high as 120 nmol/L (ref: 20.6-76.7). In other words, my insanely high T levels had no effect on the insanely high SHBG. Yet “everyone”, including me, hypothesized that the Testosterone numbers were “artifically inflated” due to the high SHBG.
I am having a difficult time believing that now.
Under TRT, my testosterone climbed first to 1411 ng/dL, and then to 1441 ng/dL. SHBG did NOT decrease. In fact, it actually INCREASED. I have searched the internet and I RARELY see Testosterone go much higher. LabCorp for example, stops calculating at 1500, and shows the result as “>1500”. My doctor has stated that he doesn’t think Testosterone should be brought to a higher level than where I am now.
Here is where I think I may have made a mistake.
- My natural Testosterone levels were high. In hindsight, my T levels were not the problem.
- “Everyone” believed that throwing more Testosterone at the SHBG was the answer. I agree that is the best course of action for low T, but I am not sure now, whether it was the right course of action for High T.
- SHBG has always been the problem, not T. I wish the doctors would have suggested I take something to lower the SHBG FIRST. It wasn’t until we realized that increasing Testosterone wasn’t going to solve the problem did I get support on adding medicine (in my case Danazol from my US doctor; although my original doctors could have prescribed proviron because it is legal in my non-US location). But no one was talking about drugs to lower SHBG.
And contrary to posts on this thread, it wasn’t my Ambien, or my almonds, my cortisol, my food plan, or my BPA that was effecting my SHBG. As I eliminated these things and more, SHBG increased.
It wasn’t until the probiotics and the Danazol that my SHBG dropped dramatically. I list them both because I started them both at the same time and can’t rationally state that one or the other caused the SHBG to drop. (Later of course, I proved it was the Danazol without question).
I will be away from my BioTe doctor for a total of 4 months since my last booster insertion. I am really interested to see what my T levels do during this time – especially since my insertion “bump” feels almost non-existent after one month. I will be scheduling regular blood work.
After a few months, I will check LH/FSH to see if my T levels are still from the pellets or whether my testicles have begun producing again.