I had low t symptoms that appeared pretty much of nowhere 3 years ago. Had blood, TT was around 350, shbg 32. didn’t get e2 but pretty sure it was normal.
Hi I’ve been self medicating trt for almost 2 years now and never really been able to really dial in except during a period of a 3-4 months where I done 2 small cycles. 250 mg test cyp per week + some hcg + 1 mg arimidex per week. Then 125 mg/W test + dbol (no ai). Was also doing keto diet during that time. Everything was great until I tried to jump to 250 mg per week while on dbol and suddenly lost my libido cause of very high E2.
After that I kept trying different dosage and protocols, playing with arimidex dosage and very often crashing it pretty badly. Went off for 1 month last year during which I took clomid, despite high LH (13), my TT was pretty low at around 550, shbg was at 46. Went back on T shots, tried some other compound, but kept swinging between low and high e2, needing increasing amounts of AI. shbg when down around 14, maybe less.
My theory is that I must have crashed my E2 so much and so often that my shbg crashed as well because of the excessive androgens, and now my free T and E2 are just out of control. Both with low and high e2 I lose libido and get ED.
I’m tired of playing around with AI and definitely want to get on a protocol without it. From my research I have found that shbg serves to regulate free hormones. I hoping to raise it so that I can finaly get homostasis (and be dial in). I have switch to a 100-120 mg/w dose since around a month. Last week I’ve drop the arimidex and started taking tamoxifen 20 mg ED (I will take some for another week only). From my research I have found that estrogen increases shbg, as well as tamoxifen. My idea is to endure the high e2 symptoms for a few weeks to let shbg raise to my natural level, and then hope my body will stabilize itself.
Dose this make sense? Is even possible? Is it possible that my shbg as been permently reduced due to my arimidex/androgen abuses over the last 2 years?
It sounds like you suppress SHBG with a lot of androgens and now are having to deal with free hormone excess do to low SHBG, your need to drop the AI for good because is sounds like you’re just trading high E2 for low E2 and it sounds like a no win situation.
You need daily injections, this is what I would tell anyone dealing with excess free hormones, this is what I do to avoid estrogen excess. It’s either this or go back on the AI E2 induced roller coaster and inject my doses less frequency.
Your situation of the suppressed SHBG levels to do abusing steroids may or may not be permanent, but now you have to play the cards where they have fallen and treat it like any other low SHBG guy would and deal with it by going on daily injections to minimize the conversion of FT->estrogen.
I was able to see a small increase in SHBG going to a daily protocol because I used less testosterone to achieve similar numbers, lower amount of androgens means less suppression of SHBG and less testosterone to convert to estrogen.
I find it hard to believe you haven’t heard of daily injections before, I mean you don’t come across and a TRT newbie.
There are plenty of guys who are TRT veterans and have never heard of the concept of injecting daily. Very few on TRT are looking at this forum. Most simply take 150-200mg once a week and have been doing so for years.
I tried EOD subq injections last summer, my TT was in the 440s , e2 was very high probably due to arimidex rebound and low shbg.
No thoughts on letting my e2 be high for a while + taking tamoxifen?
SHBG does not take weeks to change in response to your hormone levels. You will just walk around with high Estradiol; SHBG will be whatever it is going to be for you.
Are you using Test. Cyp? You need to reduce the dose and divide it up into two shots per week.
Nolvadex is meant for PCT. Although some are forced to use it while on high dose aromatizing steroids. You should not need this. Arimidex also should not be used as it shouldn’t be necessary and has negative side effects in and of itself such as decreased insulin sensitivity.
Good to know! I think I’ll get some berberine, used that in the past with success.
On test E. Already on E3.5D. Really don’t want to get on ED. Will reduce dose to 100mg.
Researches show that it does increase shbg. Can provide references. I’m not thinking about staying on this, just for 2 weeks to give shbg a bump. I don’t think it can do much harm.
Definitely want to stay as far away as possible from Arimidex. Interesting that it decrease insulin sensitivity, this probably also contribute to decreasing shbg.
High E2 sides are pretty bad right now (no libido, ED) but that was expected, been there before. Not as bad as low E2 thankfully.
The Nolvadex will protect you from gyno, but the other high Estradiol effects will likely still be present. SHBG is not something that you should be trying to manipulate. Unless there was something you were doing that changed it. If your SHBG is normally on the low side, you need to work around it. In this case, decrease the Test. dose so that you will have less converting to Estradiol.
***After going over your SHBG numbers, they seem average. Perhaps it has gone up and no longer low. You should retest. Being on Test. at 100mg per week shouldn’t alter SHBG much at all.
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A moderate increase SHBG isn’t going to change your hormonal landscape by a large degree, sure large doses of T will increase FT and then feed aromatisation, but simply lowering the dosage should decrease FT and therefore decrease conversion to estrogen.
Sure you might be able to increase SHBG, but you are still going to aromatase which is why you have excess estrogen in the first place, so control/minimize FT to control estrogen. Those who attempt to manipulate SHBG with the intent to balance hormones fail to do so because it’s futile.
My shbg seems to be normal naturally for my age from my blood tests before starting taking hormones. Months are crashing e2 and excess androgen definitely put it at that level. Hopefully it has not become permanent.
Since 45% of test usually binds to shbg (and 50% to albumin), having 50% less shbg than baseline means 22.5%+ of test become free instead of 2-5 %. That’s a huge difference . If my understanding is right, only free T is aromatized. The rest is protected (but inactive) by either albumin (short term) or shbg (longer time).
The binding force of SHBG varies between individuals, so there’s no way you can accurately apply these numbers to you with any degree of certainty. We’re not all clones, our DNA is unique and we are all biochemical different.
I’ve seen guys with SHBG midrange (30) and the SHBG just gobbles up testosterone like I’ve never seen before, then I’ve seen men with high SHBG (70’s) and there FT is a lot high than you would expect to see. These fellows don’t follow your fixed percentage numbers.
Even if these numbers were spot on for you, your overlooking the ratio of FT->E2 conversion, if the conversion rate is high, increasing SHBG isn’t going to do what you hope to accomplish.
Almost every member here will tell you manipulating SHBG is pointless, many have tried and many have failed.