SHBG questions

[English]

Hi Guys,

I am recovering from a drug reaction via diet, lifting etc. Got my T back to 600 from 300, put on over 20LB of muscle after losing the same amount. My problem is rising SHGB. When i tested at 300 for T my SHGB was 31. When i tested at 600 for T my SHBG rose to 51 which wipes out my gains in total T, that also confuses me because i read that more androgen tends to reduce SHBG.

This is too high and i continue to be symptomatic of low androgen - ie i am sometimes brain fogged and i am no longer a stud!!

By the way my E is well under control. Was just 36 last time out and is usually below 18.

Measures currently in place to lower SHBG are:

- High protein diet to raise insulin (also plenty of carbs and saturated fat - almost all organic and grass fed etc)
- 6 mg daily boron supplementation, cycled with avena sativa month on month off.
- Stress relief measures (meditation etc. etc.) - the illness totally stressed me out
- currently cycling IML epi andro for 3 weeks, not just because DHT reduces SHBG, but also to emulate CDNUTS who recovered from same ADR using similar strategy

So, my questions are:
1- Any other suggestions?
2- Should i consider Danazol? But isn't it suppressive and therefore not a long term option?
3- Proviron? Again, i understand this is suppressive, but what about 25mg a day? Also, would it nail my E to unhealthy levels?

Guys, i continue to feel shit compared to a normal human, so any insight will be very welcome.

[entropy]

Hey English, good to see you here. These guys are the brightest of the bright in the performance community and have helped me quite a lot already. They'll definitely steer you in the right direction.

I wouldn't personally recommend anything like proviron/danazol/dht derivatives when we technically have access to the real thing via (still legal) prohormones. Also cdnuts experience with androhard and this studyhttp://press.endocrine.org/doi/abs/10.1210/jcem-56-2-320
Leads me to believe that anything but the real thing is potentially counterproductive.

The biggest aspect of all of this is time IMO. All the work we do to fix our problem just puts time on our side, time does the healing in the end of it all. You have my email anyway buddy, I hope these guys have more info for you.

[Jelisej]

Welcome to forum!

OK- I think your question should be- why is my SHBG high?
And that is a difficult question, one of the reason is that you aromatise a lot- SHBG very often follows E2, and your E2 is high- 36 pg/ml is too high, especially on 600 ng/dl of testosterone, so that is one of reasons- now if you would use aromasin/exemestane which would lower your E2, and SHBG as well (exemestane does lower SHBG somewhat as it has some androgenic action?), that would maybe bring your free test up a bit, maybe even your total test.
but again, question is why such high aromatisation when free test is low?
And I dont have an answer to that question as there are number of possible causes, for example it could indicate problem with liver?
one of them that comes to my mind is adrenal insufficiency? As you said "brain fog"- and brain fog is usually symptom of low cortisol level.
So I think you need to go step back and investigate all possible causes, do some bloodworks and then take it from there.

[Scope75]

Already....

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Jelisej again.

[English]

Thanks to Entropy and Jelisej, I don't know what Scope means about spreading reputation around though, does that mean i should introduce myself a bit more!!!

That makes alot of sense regards the issue being E2. I previously had undetectable E and i had achy joints so i changed my diet and binned many of the T raising foods that i was religiously sticking too - that do so by reducing aromatose. I also started eating grapefruit every morning which reduces E metabolisation and drinking alcohol moderately (for same reason). Joint problems disappeared, but obviously i've gone a bit too far. The E figure of 36 was actually when i had T of 480, so i must be converting way too much to E now i have higher T. All this coincides with me putting on over 20LBs, mostly in muscle, but no doubt my fat percentage rose too which would have increased aromatase.

Regards adrenals, i have excellent figures and did a 24hr test, also all other isolated blood tests have shown ideal Cortisol. TSH ideal too.

Hence, i think it looks likely that my SHBG is sensitive to E. Wow, i had no idea that a little too much E can set up such a spiral and effectively wipe out free T.

Given my dramatic diet change and the timings exactly coinciding, i reckon i will re-adjust my diet, hit the pomegranate juice and the odd glass of red wine, give it a couple of months, re-test.

Thanks again, the answer was staring me in the face, although to be fair i did not realise that 36 was too much E, however when you look at the amount of free T available, even when my SHBG was 31, it clearly is too much.

So i suppose SHBG is partly the bodies defence mechanism to too much E. No doubt i am oversimplifying - or just wrong!!

Thanks again, i am chuffed with this answer, if i need an AI, i will come back for guidance, but i reckon diet and the fact that i am doing a prohormone cycle will do the trick.

With regards pro hormones, yeah i am on epi andro right now and am binning the idea of derivatives in the form of Proviron etc. I agree with you Entropy, thanks though.

[English]

Am considering Aromasin after researching that the most powerful foods for anti E also tend to be the most powerful anti DHT foods (exactly the opposite i need for my specific condition)
Does anyone know if AI's are also anti DHT? Given that foods are usually both, this wouldn't be so strange.
Also, i don't want to permanently block aromatase in my body, and i found the following drug description for Aromasin that says exactly that:
AROMASIN® Tablets for oral administration contain 25 mg of exemestane, an irreversible, steroidal aromatase inactivator. Exemestane is chemically... Can someone confirm/deny this? Is this normal for an AI? Are there any others that don't permanently block Aromatase?
I am new to this scene, although i have lifted regularly throughout my life, i have never dabbled with hormones, and after fin, i don't want to risk fucking myself up any further. Further advice would be appreciated. Thanks guys.

[Haritec]

Others will explain this better than me - but when they say irreversible in this regard they do not mean for life. The exemestane binds to aromatase irreversibly - in that it does not let go and the aromatase is disabled from converting anything to estrogen. But it only does it for one molecule for each molecule of exemestane. It is also called a suicidal inhibitor (as I recall ) in that it destroys itself by binding to aromatase.

Your body continues to make aromatase and if you don't take any fresh exemestane - that new aromatase wont be bound to exemestane so will be active just like normal. The terminal half-life was 8.9 h. Maximal estradiol suppression of 62 +/- 14% was observed at 12 h. So after about 24 hours most of the effect is gone.

Pharmacokinetics and dose finding of a potent aromatase inhibitor, ... - PubMed - NCBI

[English]

Thanks Haritec, i appreciate that, so basically it is safe with no permanent effects.

Can you or someone else tell me the dosage for mild E suppression. I don't want to hammer E as it is only 35 +, however because my free t is low, i need to lower E a bit to coax SHBG down, which in turn, i assume, will raise free T and then increase E a little more. So logically i would guess that i need to start low and gradually increase dosage until my system is balanced. Am i right? What dose would i start on? Also, if someone were to want to get hold of genuine aromasin......? PM me?

[weekend]

^but, one must remember that despite the half life, estrogen remains suppressed for longer because it takes time to return to baseline levels of aromatase.

[Jelisej]

^but, one must remember that despite the half life, estrogen remains suppressed for longer because it takes time to return to baseline levels of aromatase.

With aromasin/exemestane estrogen returns slowly to baseline after 5-7 days, without rebound. If one had very high levels than it may take more, not quite sure.

English, it seems that you sussed it out, btw drinking alcohol defintiely increases both E2 and SHBG as liver is then preoccupied with detoxification, in general liver has a lot to do with both E2 and SHBG, people with liver problems tend to have high SHBG.


If your cortisol is ideal (top of range) and if TSH is good less than 1.5, and no other underlying problems your testosterone levels should go up with decent lifestyle.

ideal E2 levels should be around 25 +/- 5, more than that its not good, especially if your testosterone is low.