Maybeemayhem - Welcome To The ?

I really wish there was a more thorough research base for HRT, because this just isn't reflective of my experience with spiro, and I want to know why.

Within 6 months of 100 mg oral spiro and 4 mg (split 2 mg every 12 hours) estradiol hemihydrate sublingual daily, my T was at 1.1 nmol/L 24 hours post dose and 0.6 nmol/L 1 hour post dose. Admittedly my E at that time was low, 150 pmol/L 12 hours post and 506 pmol/L 1 hour post, but that was remedied by bumping up to 6 mg split 2 mg every 8 hours. My T is consistently 0.6-0.7 nmol/L now, and my E troughs at 431 pmol/L 8 hours post dose, peaking at 1884 pmol/L 1 hour post dose (which is a little concerningly high, I'm soon to get some blood drawn at 2 and 3 hours to get a better picture as to how my levels taper off over time)

I also haven't experienced any of the notable side effects that people have described for spiro, besides needing to pee slightly more, but I just drink like 3-4 liters of water a day instead of the pre-HRT 2-3.

Notably, progesterone did nothing but make me feel queasy, emotionally tender, and incredibly fatigued. Though, I did only take it for 8 days before tapping out.

IDK I just wish I didn't have to dig through papers myself and end up horrifically confused about my healthcare, rather than, you know, my healthcare provider handling that.

also my advice to my fellow trans women nearly 5 years into my transition:

stop smoking/vaping (nicotine). im so fr. it will cancel out your E if you're taking it orally. i wasted like 3 years of E on my nicotine addiction. the minute i stopped smoking my cup size went up like 2 letters lol. i know cigarettes are hot but its not worth it

eat regularly and eat a lot of fatty foods. boobs need calories to grow babygirl

stay the fuck away from spiro and go on bica if you have to be on a blocker (i personally am team monotherapy but obvi ymmv. do what works. spiro doesnt)

go on progesterone. it rules 👍🏽

me: every time my back pain flares up i feel like an 80 year old woman

80 year old woman: every time my back pain flares up i feel like a 22yo transsexual on the internet

listen i get that you want facial feminization surgery so that you can live safely as a woman with less danger of harassment, but have you considered pretending that gender doesn't affect you? i heard that if you pretend really hard it eventually goes away

new year's resolutions

- don't die

- get even gayer

- get an even weirder gender

- reach out to my friends more

“Spilled my heart here” I saw this on my walk today and it broke my heart..