Fellas Thank you all for this information, it’s starting to make sense. And I apologize if some of my questions seem stupid. I have no knowledge of this stuff. I just do what the doc tells me.
Your doc should be explaining this stuff to you rather than making you rely on the words of anonymous strangers on a men’s forum. It’s a dereliction of duty that you as a patient are uninformed.
I 100% agree with you. With this covid crap it’s almost impossible to get an appointment in a decent time frame. And when I do contact them via messages. It’s do bloods, and I’ll refer you to an endocrinologist. Which I have yet to hear from.
Any answers from a professional would be comforting, but it seems it hard to come by.
(If you knew this already forgive me cause I didn’t.)
So I know this post is just about dead, but I keep posting to help people who may be experiencing the same issue as me. I scoured the internet looking for answers and found none before I made this thread.
But I think I may have found it.
After extensively reading on this medication and it’s action on the body. I’ve discovered clomid raises the SHBG sex hormone binding globulin. Which is comprised of estrogen, dht, and test.
When this hormone is too high it basically eats up all your free testosterone. Which is why when we get bloods every thing looks good on paper but we still feel like shit. And no libido… total testosterone has a part. But free testosterone is what we as men enjoy the most in the form of muscle gain, energy and sexual performance.
This also makes sense why our sex drive incredibly increases on clomid and falls off after a while.
Clomid raises testosterone free and total, blocks the e2 receptors, and your body never stops converting to estrogen.
Next thing you know your SHBG is flowing throughout the blood eating up all your free test.
It’s still a theory, but based off lab test and reports it seems this is the culprit, I shot this over to my doctor, and I’m having her order up a free testosterone test and SHBG test. I’ll report my findings.
Also, I wanna point out that once your SHBG is high. Trt cannot correct it. Which also explains why my trt trial failed in making me better.
You have to first lower the SHBG, the you will benefit from trt. SHBG is just gonna eat up any free test you provide.
This would also explain why lower or moderate doses of clomid seem work better then higher aggressive doses cause the conversion is kept in check and never really effects SHBG.
Me personally, I just wanna be off all this shit and be normal again.
I’ll check back after I get my results.
I have no idea what this means. Yes, some testosterone aromatizes to e2. When you raise your testosterone (in this case via a SERM) you will naturally raise your e2. But Clomid doesn’t block e2 receptors anywhere but breast tissue. It’s literally the reason the drug was created. So I’m unsure what you’re trying to communicate here.
That you were on trt for years and are just now learning about SHBG is I have to say kind of troubling. The more people show up here the more convinced I am that doctors do zero explaining of anything to their patients and in return patients have absolutely no curiosity about their bodies. It’s very strange and I’ll never understand it.
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Clomid does block estrogen from reacting with the pituitary gland.
It’s the reason why test is increased on it.
But total test and free test is different.
If you increase estrogen, and DHT. It’s gonna need testosterone to create SHBG.
That deceases your free testosterone which can result in Issues. ED/ loss of libido.
A limited blood draw like most places here do, the draw will look normal. Unless you do a full draw you won’t see it.
As far as the docs go.
It’s easy to understand the miss information you go to a clinic that offers trt. They tell you with the treatment it will raise your test levels. And they will, control you estrogen in the process.
You agree to the treatment.
They don’t give you a crash endocrinology college course.
It’s marketing they tell you the good.
As you go through the treatment everything works as advertised. So no questions are needed.
When they do blood test, they don’t do SHBG on the test. Just testosterone and estrogen, and your blood T cells. (Here at least) and I never needed to ask cause every worked fine.
Till clomid. Which wasn’t from the clinic and was from our fertility doctor.
I should also let it be known I’m a veteran under the VA’s care. If any vets are here they know, They aren’t the best.
They should be testing that. Every blood test I’ve had done—and it’s a ton now—has had all the relevant data. As the patient you need to insist on the blood work that will be of most use to you. It’s sad but you have to be your own advocate.
Yeah, that’s an absolute disgrace. I’m pretty sure every taxpayer would be outraged if they knew just how lousy the VA was run. But that’s a conversation for another forum.