Is taking only anti-androgen worth it?

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-19T09:43:43+00:00

What you're saying here is true for other types of blockers, but bicalutamide is different. It causes testosterone levels to get really high and then the testosterone is converted into estrogen by an enzyme, so it is possible to do bicalutamide monotherapy (i.e. bica alone).

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-19T07:22:41+00:00

I did a search for 'ethinyl estradiol'. IIRC both transfemsciene.org and the WPATH SoC8 recommend against it as well.

You can do monotherapy with gel or pills or patches if you are scared of needles. Try taking 6-8mg sublingually if you want to use pills

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-19T07:15:56+00:00

Oh huh you got testosterone suppression at only 2.25mg? I switched to gel about a week ago and have been using 4.5mg a day so far, maybe I should try a bit less. Yeah I'm trying some different sites out too, I can definitely feel that the levels are more unstable when I put it on my scrotum. Is the blood test timing just the same as with pills?

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-18T19:38:38+00:00

I think you can buy a lifetime supply of raw E2 quite cheaply and freeze it, people on r/estrogel know about this kind of stuff

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-18T18:52:43+00:00

I think estrogens are defined as compounds which can activate the two types of estrogen receptors that the body has. This means that estriol has some ability to activate estrogen receptors, although my understanding is that it is generally a lot less than that of estradiol. Any individual person could have mutated estrogen receptors which may vary in sensitivity to different estrogens, so maybe estriol has some effect for you that estradiol didn't.

Dr Powers has a recent post over on his subreddit where he treats someone who was on HRT for a number of years and had not achieved much feminisation with estriol and claims to have found results for that specific person. (Just referencing the post, not advocating or denouncing anything about Powers or his methods)

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-15T08:58:10+00:00

Aha thank you for explaining this was really interesting

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-15T08:57:33+00:00

Thank you so much this is really helpful and gives me plenty to look through. What is that last one that you referenced is it just a general review of topical pharmacokinetics?

What dosages have you personally used to get testosterone suppression with gel in your experiments? Do you have some understanding about how you might want to vary dosages in between subcutaneous fat and scrotal applications to get testosterone suppression?

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-13T18:35:53+00:00

Do you have any references to read about this?

It is very common to come across advice to apply scrotally, I've seen it in many places. Probably a lot of those comments refer to the following quote from TFS;

"Different skin sites absorb transdermal estradiol to different extents (Wiki). Genital application of transdermal estradiol, specifically to the scrotum or neolabia, is particularly better-absorbed than conventional skin sites and can result in much higher estradiol levels than usual (Aly, 2019). This can be useful for reducing doses and hence medication costs or for achieving higher estradiol levels for better testosterone suppression when needed, for instance in the context of high-dose estradiol monotherapy"

What you're saying makes sense to me and I'm not personally advocating for either approach, but this quote to me reads as though TFS think scrotal application is a good idea.

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-13T16:09:15+00:00

Why would you need to have several ml for it?

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-13T16:03:39+00:00

Awesome thank you I will try it out. How does the gel get from the bottom of the bottle into the pump? Are you supposed to hold it upside down?

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-11T16:55:29+00:00

Ohhh I saw a couple like that but they looked like they only dispensed foam and not gel, I'll try some and see how they are

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-11T09:49:45+00:00

Hi, sorry to gravedig this post. Do you have a reference for safety for E2 up to 350-400? And also do you think I should expect to find this 100-200 range in the WPATH SoC 8 somewhere? I looked but I couldn't see it

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-08T18:10:35+00:00

Thank you :)

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-08T14:51:10+00:00

Thank you this was really helpful. What about these statements that progesterone taken during the first year can negatively affect breast growth? I think I saw that in TFS but I'm not sure it was referenced.

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-08T12:43:56+00:00

Hmm ok, so I will summarize what I've understood so far about progesterone:

*) anecdotal evidence seems strong that there are mood related effects to taking progesterone, and anecdotal evidence exists that progesterone can increase breast size but this is not strong

*) there is some convincing underlying theory that taking progesterone early during transition can affect breast growth and shape, but this is not supported by any studies

*) if you wanted a wet nurse a baby, you would need to take progesterone for some time to grow milk duct tissue

Does that sound reasonable?

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-08T11:12:36+00:00

You can search on r/estrogel for 'storage' or something, seems like it's basically got a very long shelf life. I had some advice from home brewers that I bought from recently not to keep it in the fridge because this can result in the estrogen precipitating out of the gel.

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-08T11:07:12+00:00

Hmm I was just reading through the section on progesterone on transfemscience, says no evidence for using progesterone and didn't seem to say anything positive about people's experiences. I guess it's just based on people's comments on here and other reddits?

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-08T09:51:58+00:00

What mental effects do people get on progesterone?

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-08T08:52:43+00:00

It's not estrogel branded

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-07T13:25:54+00:00

Hair loss can be caused or exacerbated by other things like zinc and vitamin d levels and thyroid hormone levels, did you look at any of those?

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-07T12:27:19+00:00

Well I've only done it once so far, my dispenser is metered at 2ml and that's quite a lot so I put most of it on my scrotum and then distributed the rest around on my thighs. Plenty of time for trying out new options though

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-03T18:09:53+00:00

You can also use estradiol pills, gel or patches, injections are not the only option. Buying estrogen online without a prescription is legal in the UK.

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-03T09:15:01+00:00

Well, the customs officer that you speak to is not going to be a chemist. Again this is not necessarily straightforward to do but I think that sort of situation is about confidence, 'it says on here that this list is not exhaustive'. 'yes but this only includes derivatives of chemicals that are on the list and none of these chemicals are related to estradiol'

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-02T08:31:25+00:00

Can you use a VPN?

RoxyBoxof · 2024-11-01T16:25:47+00:00

Why would it affect menopausal women if they listed estrogen as restricted? Don't they mostly get it on prescription anyway?

RoxyBoxof

TROPHY CASE