How come no-one seems to take this into account, or even have very much knowledge of it ( and I'm talking specialists here, not just us normal women, although it seems to me these days that we ARE the specialists, but I for one ain't getting paid for the role...)
Sex hormone binding globulin is a chemical which your body makes when it's decided that the level of a particular hormone is too high in the blood - SHBG will then step in and bind some of that hormone to itself, making it unavailable for the body to use. Unfortunately routine blood tests don't show how much of a hormone is free (ie available) and how much is bound up, so you may appear to have high levels of circulating hormones but not actually be able to access them. This is the case with estrogen and testosterone, and a blood test can show if you have high levels of SHBG. I'm on a very high dose of estrogen, blood tests have shown that i am absorbing it, and yet I have none of the usual symptoms of high levels of estrogen eg painful breasts, bloating etc. Blood tests have also shown that I have high levels of SHBG, but at that point all the doctors just seem to lose interest, the message being there's nothing we can do about this. Does anyone have experience of this? - beginning to think I'm just a total freak....