Transfem
A community for transfeminine people and experiences.
This is a supportive community for all transfeminine or questioning people. Anyone is welcome to participate in this community but disrupting the safety of this space for trans feminine people is unacceptable and will result in moderator action.
Debate surrounding transgender rights or acceptance will result in an immediate ban.
- Please follow the rules of the lemmy.blahaj.zone instance.
- Bigotry of any kind will not be tolerated.
- Gatekeeping will not be tolerated.
- Please be kind and respectful to all.
- Please tag NSFW topics.
- No NSFW image posts.
- Please provide content warnings where appropriate.
- Please do not repost bigoted content here.
This community is supportive of DIY HRT. Unsolicited medical advice or caution being given to people on DIY will result in moderator action.
Posters may express that they are looking for responses and support from groups with certain experiences (eg. trans people, trans people with supportive parents, trans parents.). Please respect those requests and be mindful that your experience may differ from others here.
Some helpful links:
- The Gender Dysphoria Bible // In depth explanation of the different types of gender dysphoria.
- Trans Voice Help // A community here on blahaj.zone for voice training.
- LGBTQ+ Healthcare Directory // A directory of LGBTQ+ accepting Healthcare providers.
- Trans Resistance Network // A US-based mutual aid organization to help trans people facing state violence and legal discrimination.
- TLDEF's Trans Health Project // Advice about insurance claims for gender affirming healthcare and procedures.
- TransLifeLine's ID change Library // A comprehensive guide to changing your name on any US legal document.
Support Hotlines:
- The Trevor Project // Web chat, phone call, and text message LGBTQ+ support hotline.
- TransLifeLine // A US/Canada LGBTQ+ phone support hotline service. The US line has Spanish support.
- LGBT Youthline.ca // A Canadian LGBT hotline support service with phone call and web chat support. (4pm - 9:30pm EST)
- 988lifeline // A US only Crisis hotline with phone call, text and web chat support. Dedicated staff for LGBTQIA+ youth 24/7 on phone service, 3pm to 2am EST for text and web chat.
view the rest of the comments
This is a bit of a cop-out answer, but the effects of HRT vary hugely based on the person. The "relief" you are feeling might be placebo, might be due to biochemical dysphoria, or a bit of both.
When I was on injections, I definitely felt a bit crappy at the end of the week, and a lot better about 30 minutes after my dose.
When I was getting my dose for patches worked out, I felt what I can only describe as "testosterone anxiety", which persisted as I slowly bumped up my dose over a couple of weeks and eventually went away when I got up to three patches. (Now I'm on spiro and back down to two, and things are fine). This was a different feeling to injections wearing off.
Now the only thing I notice is that I get four days of being really tired and bitchy pretty consistently every 25 days or so. I'm not going to speculate what that is, but since I'm on a very stable dose of two patches every two days, I don't think it's due to dosage.
What's your dose? I'm using patches and on one patch, replaced twice a week.
I'm on 2 x 0.72 mg patches every two days, plus 50 mg spiro and 100 mg prog every day. That gets me to 268 pg/mL E2 and 58 ng/dL testosterone, last blood test. I'd like to switch to a different anti-androgen though; I'm getting pretty fed up with the effects of spiro.
That's likely your menstruation cycle! Trans women have observed and experienced menstruation since HRT became a thing
We have all the parts needed to experience menstruation, just less of some of the tissues involved, so typically we experience weaker or even not noticeable periods. Some trans women do have very strong periods including period shits, cramps, and large mood swings. It's also possible that how we take HRT affects how noticeable the period is. I'ts not well studied for obvious reasons.
Also, all the different ways of taking HRT have different half lives which is why you feel better or worse when low. Often doctors prescribe people valerate for injections but put people on on a 7 day injection cycle when the half life is 4.5 days, and don't give people a high enough dose for them to have comfortable levels on day 6 and 7. Ideally valerate is instead taken every 5 days to avoid a very large dose and to avoid the 2 days of being too low.
With gel and pills the half life is very short and so you can notice the same day if you are a few hours late, but blockers will change the experience a lot ofc.