Dave, How are your total and free testosterone?
I just looked mine up. Shbg is 51, the quest range is 22-77 nmol/l
Otoh, my total testosterone is 319, range is 250-1100 ng/dl
Free testosterone is low at 33, range is 35-155 pg/ml
This was tested at my sickest last November. I'm gonna ask for a retest.
My pcp ignores the free testosterone # and says I'm fine because total testosterone is in range. I'm not sure I agree. I don't know if these ranges are adjusted for age. I'm 61.
I'm seeing a new llmd on Wednesday. An article of his in the Townsend Letter says that men may be more prone to anxiety with low testosterone and he sometimes treats the testosterone before treating for Lymeco because it makes the patient more comfortable during Lymeco treatment and thus more compliant with the regimen. I'll let you know what he says about
my case. When I herx, anxiety is the worst symptom thus far.
His article states:
"All sex hormones can be made from pregnenolone. In addition, pregnenolone makes cortisol, and in a chronic stress state (as we see with Lyme) nearly all the pregnenolone is going to cortisol instead of DHEA and the sex hormones. It makes sense to replace pregnenolone and DHEA in these chronic stress states."
This seems to be what's known as "the pregnenolone steal". I'm not sure though how your high shbg fits with this.
I'm pasting this from labtestsonline.org fwiw :
A high SHBG level means that it is likely that less free testosterone is available to the tissues than is indicated by the total testosterone test. A low SHBG level means that more of the total testosterone is bioavailable and not bound to SHBG. This information may be important in the overall evaluation of an individual with signs and symptoms of a condition related to excess or deficient sex hormone production.
Increased SHBG levels may be seen in:
Liver disease
Hyperthyroidism
Eating disorders (anorexia nervosa)
Corticosteroids or estrogen use (hormone replacement therapy and oral contraceptives)
Decreased sex hormone production (hypogonadism)
Pregnancy
Post Edited (BJD55) : 5/1/2017 2:14:43 PM (GMT-6)