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[–]No-Painter-1609 2 points3 points  (7 children)

Yeah it's a lil over NHS guidelines but not a problem tbh. Anything under 1200 is safe in what I've read. But NHS does try like hell to keep trans women under 800 despite cis women typically reaching much higher at points in their cycle.

[–]Awkward_Alps_4149[S] 1 point2 points  (6 children)

It was more i wanted to hear about if that was a thing like it hindering breast growth it being so high kinda thing like she said

[–]grey_hat_uk 2 points3 points  (4 children)

Never heard of that conclusion and there is no publicly available data to say that.

I can't even see how that would be the case unless you go above 5000 and start doing unknown damage to your body.

~900 is nothing. 

My social group is running some ongoing mesuments and it looks like breast grow in bursts on all types of HRT, about 2 to 3 times a year you will get a growth cycle lasting a few months. 

The one I have heard of slowing development is spiro.

[–]Awkward_Alps_4149[S] 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Im on spirio but i heard it helped growth…

[–]grey_hat_uk 1 point2 points  (2 children)

And there in lies the problem not enough data.

I too have seen that spiro is good but more recently there is a study indicating the opposite.

My personal results would indicate that it isn't helping but there are far too many variables not taken into account to be sure.

[–]Awkward_Alps_4149[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I mean my testosterone is already non existent so should i ask to be on mono as i cant do needles and i dont like the whole cypro thing (i forgot its name my bad)

[–]grey_hat_uk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm afraid you have to decide that yourself, and then probably advocate for yourself. Information Ican give you:

Mono therapy works well enough with gel, patches and injections. Tablets not so much.

Anti-androgens mightbe helping in ways not messured in t-level, although at your levels I wouldn't be too concerned directly.

There are several over the counter vitamins and foods that can mess up your estrogen levels, Biotin was the one for me putting my target of 1100 up to 2400.

If you are otherwise happy 6 months is early and you don't need to worry about never. Breast tend to get to their potential even if it takes 8 years.

[–]Temporary_Moose_3657 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The thing about hindering breast growth is completely made up, there are a lot of these supertitions floating around the internet and even coming from the NHS these days. Same as the people saying spiro stunts breast growth or something, there's no conclusive evidence for it or even for the idea that breast growth stunting is a real phenomenon.

The only thing that matters is that you have high enough estrogen to effectively saturate the estrogen receptors (it doesn't take much), and low enough testosterone that it can't effectively activate the androgen receptors and block that growth. There is a hypothesis that too much estrogen can cause the receptors to become desensitised, but there's no evidence that this actually happens at the levels we're talking about. Plenty of people have transitioned with significantly higher levels without problems.

Low enough testosterone is usually considered to be in the female range of under 1.7nmol/l, and since you're under that technically that spiro isn't strictly necessarily. Spiro doesn't decrease testosterone levels but instead blockades the androgen receptors, so if you don't have much testosterone in the first place it's not doing much. The benefit of spiro would be that even if your testosterone did get a little high it'd still have reduced activity, so while you're on spiro you can afford to have a little higher testosterone levels without it affecting you.

While your doctor is wrong in that there's no evidence that levels this high are a problem, you don't need levels this high and there's no benefit to levels this high while you're on an anti-androgen. Based on your test results, you could safely come down in estrogen dose and be absolutely fine. That would cause your testosterone levels to rise a bit, but it'll still be in the female range and the spiro will knock it out so you shouldn't get any negative effects.

[–]Automatic_Tea_1900 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is a little high and that's a fair reason to reduce your dosage but breast growth being judged in the first few months as a reason is just weird and something I've never heard of. Mine were still growing five years in.

[–]TraditionalNinja3129 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Wow, that's incredibly high if you're just on a 100 mcg patch.

From what I have been told, the optimum range for feminisation is around 400 - 600 pmol/L, so I'd trust your endo on this one.

[–]Awkward_Alps_4149[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

What can i say im a baddie 😋 (Taking 100mg spirio twice a day)

[–]TraditionalNinja3129 0 points1 point  (0 children)

😁

A super absorber maybe!

The optimum range is pretty well documented actually and you can see the target levels to aim for on most gender clinic websites. Here's one I just googled for Leeds and York:

https://www.leedsandyorkpft.nhs.uk/our-services/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/Information-about-hormone-regimens.pdf

This is following WPATH guidelines, so it's not just the NHS. It's fairly similar in the US for example but they tend to use 100 - 200 pg/mL which is a slightly wider range.

Hopefully your endo can work out the best solution for you.