I’m finally getting my hormones! I’m gonna do injections, and my doctor said she’s comfortable prescribing me oral progesterone as well if I want it. And it’s a female hormone, so why shouldn’t I have it, right? I know it’s supposed to help with breast development, and maybe libido, but I haven’t done as much reading about progesterone as I have estrogen. Should I start it at the same time I start estrogen? Is it even worth taking? Would love to hear others’ thoughts and experiences
EDIT: Seems like the rough consensus is to wait around a year, so I think that’s what I’ll plan on doing. Thanks y’all!
oh, no - I cycle prog because there is no other way to build up a backstock otherwise, and to match the monthly hormonal cycles we see in cis women. And also because I primarily use prog for sleep, not anything else, and that’s only relevant when my E levels are high, which is only during part of my cycle.
Most people probably take it for breast growth; I wasn’t motivated by breast growth (my boobs are big enough, even if they seem small on my frame) and I’m not 100% sure prog actually ever resulted in more breast growth for me anyway.
I started it as an anti-androgen mostly, and as a way to help me sleep when my E levels were elevated when I did monotherapy.
Now I guess I can technically live without it (when I travel sometimes I just forget to take it and it’s fine), but I do get better sleep at the height of my cycle if I take prog, so that’s what I use it for now.
I have read about taking it replicate the menstrual cycle but on a monthly basis, and I have thought about it. Surely it will ease the regular mood cycle we go through. It’s starting to get to me…
I guess I’ll see when I get there since I’m still under a year of hrt
it’s hard to follow a monthly basis when my actual hormone changes are on a weekly cycle, it’s based on the pharmacokinetics of estradiol valerate, when a half life is around 3.5 days and I inject once a week, I have a cycle then that has highs and lows over a weekly period (not a monthly period).
So, the week is like a compressed month - I have highs and lows and in a monthly cycle, progesterone levels rise when estradiol levels rise, so I just roughly do something similar by taking prog when my E levels are gaining and peaking, and then stopping as my E levels drop and then bottom out before my next injection.
regarding mood, I didn’t really solve the mood issues until I had an orchi - my mental health got much better after that. Before then I was doing monotherapy and I struggled to sufficiently block T production even with very high levels of E (like >500 pg / mL at trough, which is really too high for long-term levels).