+ 2 29, been on TRT 2 years now.
So I face a rather unique issue that so far doctors have not been able to figure out. My testosterone has always been low, and as a result I was lacking in the masculine features department growing up. Lack of body hair, trouble gaining muscle, lack of aggression and drive. Finally at 25 I began looking into the cause and after a year and half of testing doctors finally put me on TRT. I’ve uploaded bloods on TRT but tomorrow I’ll dig out my old results pre-TRT.
One thing that has stumped doctors is my low SHBG, 2.1 if my memory serves, well under the normal range. This is one of things that initially caused doctors to hesitate when it came to prescribing TRT, while my total test was abysmal (low 200s to low 300s), but my free testosterone was at the low end of the acceptable range.
When I finally got on TRT I saw an insane gain of muscle mass, within 3 months I went from 190lbs to 210lbs where I’ve been ever since (+/-5lbs). Felt great for the first time in my life and saw a huge increase in quality of life.
Now, while on a dose of 200mg/wk my bloods peak at 679 ng/dL. I would think my bloods would come back higher, but I’m thinking this is probably due to my low SHBG. Does anyone else have experience with super low SHBG?
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Hey GreatSpear, I've had similar issues, though I'm 27 and started before I turned 25. Last TRT dose I ran off cycle was 200mg/wk and that gave me 1015ng/dl Total and 26pg/ml Free before next injection. At 100mg/wk before that test, I had 668 Total and 150 free, though I was using low dose clomid then.
I have secondary hypogonadism because of Empty Sella Syndrome, where my pituitary gland had been damaged. My Total T at 24 was 210ng/dl, though many endo's tried to argue that this was normal... At any rate, I also had undiagnosed Severe Sleep Apnea at the time, which definitely impacted natural test hard. My cortisol was high or borderline-high in AM/PM draws, and adding caffeine into the mix to deal with garbage sleep made me have terrible anxiety. Of course, this kept me catabolic and I couldn't repair well because of the Apneas, so I wrecked my body in the gym instead of building it up. Recently, my Thyroid is much better after finding the root cause. After going through almost a dozen endos, I'm finally feeling great as the big 3-0 quickly approaches.
My advice, get a sleep study done and MRI with pituitary study. They may be expensive, but totally worth it if you're having low FSH/LH on top of the low T.
Here's a site that's helped me before, with some more info on low SHBG: https://www.peaktestosterone.com/Low_SHBG.aspx
Alphamale500Overall, 679 ng/dl is a good number for someone your age on trt or naturally. But usually with a 200mg per wk dose of properly dosed test cyp or enanthate, your test level should be around 1800-2000. Did your doctor say whether you have primary or secondary hypogonadism?
Regarding your SHBG issues, I don't think that your low level of SHBG is really having much of an effect on your total test levels. You mentioned your free test number before trt, but what are they now anyway?
At least now you are taking action and addressing your testosterone issues, and you now have a great increase in your quality of life. That's what's most important, right? You said you are under the care of doctors but you didn't say endocrinologist specifically. I'm assuming you are under the care of an endocrinologist but if you're not, you really need to find a very good endo. I wish you the best with everything bro!
+1
Official diagnosis on my medical papers just says “hypogonadism”, but primary is implied in the information that follows since he speculates it is genetics. I had seen an endocrinologist previously, but they were unable to determine a cause for the hypogonadism and turned over long term treatment/management to my primary care physician.
If you check out my bloods from 2017 you’ll see that my test level was 157 ng/dL but my free was 129 ng/dl and that 83% of my testosterone was free.
Last free test level was 17.6 pg/ml (this was checked 1 week after an IM 200mg Cypionate shot) typically they just test the total level because I assume it’s cheaper for them. Next time I go in for bloods (later this month) I’ll be requesting another free testosterone level check.
I don't have experience with low SHBG, but i think at 200mg/wk your test levels are excellent. If it's not broken don't fix it!
Glad to hear that. I had heard from many people that only reaching the 600s on 200mg was rather peculiar. If this is the case, that this dose normally achieves a higher level, then that begs the question of why I don’t see those results.
Tomorrow I plan to do more research on how the body utilizes free testosterone and also request my doctor add free testosterone into my next bloods