See title. I’m on HRT for over 11 months now, thoroughly enjoying it. I’ve a hunch the dose is a bit low, though. I get androgen blockers every 2-3 months, my last one was one month ago.
Normally my arm hairs aren’t very visible, so I didn’t have much dysphoria from that. However, recently my arm hair seems to be growing a lot and thicker, and I’m concerned. Is this normal?
My mum doesn’t really have a lot of arm hair, nor do other gals in my family.
Hmm. How are your blood levels?
And what do you take and at which dosages?
I dunno if it’s maybe possible for those hairs to have already set in earlier, or if this is a case of your androgen levels being high still.
Ok, so the results are here. Last measure was August (yeah, oops… I got ill around the time I was supposed to have my next test and prolonged it).
Just before starting (March), I had 125 pmol/L for estradiol, and free T was 358.9.
By August, I had 175 pmol/L for estradiol, and free T was 30.5.
Pinging @dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone as well for this!
thanks! Looks like good T suppression - but August was a while ago, and your E was pretty low … what anti-androgen are you taking? It could just be as simple as needing a dose adjustment on your anti-androgen, esp. because those E levels are not likely enough to suppress T on their own.
Lenzetto spray, 3 doses a day, once a day. Never skipped a day.
Blood levels, not sure. Next test will be in two months, though I think I should get it much sooner (last was many months ago).
I take antiboyotics, last jab was one month ago. I get them every two to three months.
I really don’t know much about spray as a route of administration, nor an anti-androgen administered only once every 2 - 3 months (!?), so your HRT regime is very easy to feel skeptical towards because it’s so unusual.
Blood levels would be really helpful for clarifying whether your T is sufficiently suppressed, E sufficiently high - but yeah, androgens can cause thicker darker hairs, and it’s possible that’s the cause.
As for the anti-androgen, there are some injections on a monthly basis, or even every three months. I had something like that
I don’t mean to say it’s not a possibility that this is a reasonable HRT regimen, just that I’m very much unfamiliar with it (sorta meaningless, just trying to declare my ignorance and the resulting bias or uncertainty).
Just for curiosity’s sake - do you know what anti-androgen was injected on a monthly or 3-monthly basis? I would really like to learn more! Was it an oil that was injected, or a pellet that was surgically implanted?
Some doctors in the US are willing to implant an estrogen pellet, and sometimes that can be done roughly on a 3-monthly schedule like that (I’ve heard once every 3 months, once every 6 months, once a year - so I suspect it depends on the pellet that is implanted?).
So in my case it’s called decapeptyl. It’s one of the most common anti-androgen prescribed in France because it has no common side effect (I mean… Apart from the ones we’re actually looking for that are due to a lower T level).
I know that it’s a low release formula, I don’t have more details, sorry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triptorelin
omg, that is beautiful
in the US the equivalent drug is Lupron:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuprorelin
basically these drugs act by telling your brain to shut down production of sex hormones - like you said, they don’t have side effects and they’re pretty much perfect drugs to function as anti-androgens (at least in terms of stopping production of testosterone by the gonads) … to my mind, it’s an absolute crime that the US doesn’t prescribe drugs like this to treat trans patients (they do for trans minors, but not adults), and it has everything to do with the costs of Lupron, which insurance companies don’t want to cover.
Thank you so much for sharing the drug name. I’ll look into the slow release formula to educate myself more!
Once I’m home (in about 2.5 hours) I’m gonna look for the blood levels. I have the results there.