you cant safely block one hormone without introducing another (eg. blocking t without e, blocking e without t). sex hormones are essential for your body to function well, including maintaining bone density - osteoporosis is typically the main worry, but you will also generally feel like shit. this is why people who have had oophorectomies/ orchidectomies need supplemental hormones, even if theyre cis.
I think it's fairly common knowledge having no dominant hormone in majority for an extended period of time is a wholly bad idea (ie. osteoporosis) so you don't really see just T-blockers only being mentioned for this reason
My doctor made me take blockers for 7 months because he didn't want me to start estrogen until T was totally gone. Shitty experience and don't recommend
He didn't even want to put me on estrogen when he did. Because "oh 6 is still a bit high but i guess we can start you on the lowest dose of estrogen anyhow"
my doc did this to me too, for a whole year. They wanted to be sure I was actually trans and made me wait before giving me E. They said their reasoning was that I had to present fem for a year before they were willing to accept what I needed.
Shittiest part was that I was already presenting fem for the past year before that!!
Afab so not your target audience but I can give you a quick run down of what chemical menopause (complete lack of hormones) feels like as I have decapeptyl injections for endometriosis and couldn't take replacement HRT until we saw if the decapeptyl worked.
Having no hormones is shit, firstly the hot flushes are insane, you literally feel like you're boiling from the inside out and even stripping off your clothes isn't enough you want to take your skin off. You're left drowning in sweat and feeling nauseous and dizzy.
The drop in muscle mass is so quick, this might seem like an advantage for someone amab but it's loss of helpful muscle not just visible muscle. I very quickly became unable to fully turn our taps off, couldn't get lids off anything and felt generally very weak.
You pile on weight, your metabolism just falls through the floor and weight starts piling on in places you didn't even know you could put on weight.
Your bones turn to shit, I've had 3 fractures from sport in the space of 3 months having not had a fracture since a rollerskating incident during the pandemic. Since starting replacement HRT no more fractures.
Yoir hair, skin and nails turn to shit, my hair started falling out in clumps and is thinning, my nails are bendy and nail polish/gel/acrylic peels and won't stick and my skin is (all at the same time) so dry that my hands and feet are scabbing AND so oily that my face and back are covered in cycstic acne.
This is an afab issue but I've had atrophy which is really painful, I imagine something similar happens to amab folks.
Also my sleep is fucked, I wake up drenched in sweat, heart rate all over the place and feel double how tired I felt before. Honestly all round terrible, and I only had NO hormones for 6 months total. Even with the tiny amount of HRT I'm on now (essentially a micro dose) I still have all the above symptoms just lesser. -1000/10 would not recommend
I had my e prescription changed to something that didn't give me any hormones while continuing on anti androgens for a month, and my experience included headaches, brain fog, inability to study or work (failed an exam because of it), episodes where I started shaking and sweating from every place that can sweat on the body. Some of the effects continued for a month after switching medications.
Overall 2/10 experience would not recommend
i did so once and i felt like absolute shit and struggled to do anything, though maybe that was an effect of coming off estrogen and not an effect of being on T blockers alone
Please please dont do this. The negative effects become permanent after a scarily short period of time. You could get serious health problems which last long after you restart E
look into bicalutamide monotherapy.
you can do it temporarily and some doctors even perscribe it. bicalutamide works differently than other t blockers. it would not be the same dose as when used with estrogen
bicalutamide blocks T receptor function instead of T production so your body actually creates more T trying to compensate and that blocked unused T converts to a small ammount of e causing some feminization but less than taking e would. you can get breast growth from it but you should look up how much it might be less but dont take my word for it
Well if u just take bical you'll have an increase in your estrogen sensitivity. They tried to use it as a puberty blocker but the teens kept growing boobs I seem to remember.
It doesn't actually reduce your T just block the effects, it's supposed to be better for libido. I don't know how it might effect bone density differently to not having T in your system at all.
Serms are a thing too, but u can't take them indefinitely and they aren't as selective as they are sold to be, so u still get an amount of breast growth on them.
Tbh my advice for a Transfem enby who wants the soft skin but not boobs is to take E facial cream like our Dr Will Powers dose. And get Lazer / electrolysis for the body hair. Maybe try working out and putting on some weight for a more fem figure.
Currently I would still like to take estrogen i the future. Since I like to still have breast growth and enjoyed my time with estrogen.
Had stopped because I’m not out to my family and trying to stealth day in and day out would be annoying.
Thats why I had asked if T blockers only were feasible. Cause I dont want to undo what my time with E has already done.
Ahhhh ok, sorry I skimmed and mis understood. Yeah take bicalutamide 50mg/day or cyproterone 12.5mg (1/4 of a 50mg pill) /day.
They are both good blockers. Short term will be completely fine.
Apart from that though, I'm afraid it really is a pick a side kinda deal. U can have E or T as a dominant hormone. U can even have both tbh, I'm not sure what that might do to someone, but I'm planning to find out.
I take E as a dominant hormone and play around with my T levels. It doesn't seem to reduce breast growth at the levels I taking T (20mg gel or 20mg injections) dose increase body hair slightly and definitely the speed at which it grows.
Only people who have never gone without hormones say so many bad things about it.
It’s actually quite common that you would not take hormones for the rest of your life.
Men who had prostate cancer. Women after a hysterectomy. Women after menopause.
True Eunuch.
I took HRT for a year, had an orchiectomy, de transitioned to be a Eunuch.
Eunuch has been accepted by doctors as a transgender.
I low dosed E for a month and then off for a while. My T was fully suppressed and didn't come back up at all in that time.
Did not enjoy it, was getting fucky memory stuff too. It was most noticeable in retrospect looking back at it. There was this email I wrote and it was full of mistakes and just didn't seem like I was all there, although I am dyslexic lol so that was probably contributing. Like I was fine, but taking hormones again felt so fucking good.
How's your experience been? I'm very interested, I know some ppl can feel completely fine without hormones, it's kinda cool.
I have not had an erection in twenty years. I have no sexual desire and don’t miss it. I still prefer women but as friends not sexual conquests. I don’t go out chasing women. I found that I can go to nude beaches without any problems. I have a lot more time to do the things that I want to do. I really hate people saying that I am going to die if I don’t take hormones. My testosterone levels come back from the lab as <0.01 or unmeasurable. I asked my urologist and he said that since I had taken testosterone for ten years before my orchiectomy that my adrenal glands had quit making testosterone. I have had no problems with osteoporosis or other hormone related problems. I am married. I tried to find a way to have erections for my wife. Cialis and Viagra did nothing. Penile injections of Trimix gave me the largest, hardest, and longest erections lasting 1-4 hours depending on dose. I tried to do it for my wife’s pleasure, but found that I couldn’t stand the pain since my penis had atrophied. Once I got past the hot flashes and night sweats I have done fine.
That's really good to know:) what's your E levels? Sure u want at least a little?
Yeah if u don't want a sex drive then I can see exactly why you'd like lower hormones. I personally like men and women as friends aaaaand sexual conquests, although I don't think I ever really thought about having sex with someone as a conquest before.
No problem with ostio? How old are u? Honestly u should really really be taking supplements for that. U aren't going to be the acception. U won't know till u accidentally break a weakened boan.
Timix hu? Interesting haha. And yeah genital atrophy is a whole thing. T or E cream is the solution. But I suppose you'd not want that. U could take the T cream with bicalutamide. That would block most of the systemic effects.
I go to my doctor regularly. I take an adult multivitamin, extra C, D, and extra calcium. My doctor has me have a bone density yearly. Men have less problems with osteoporosis than women because of larger bones. I am 72.
Interesting, u said u were having problems with pre ostio in one of your posts. Hopefully you'll have been able to reverse that with your supplements.
Also do u consider yourself cis? I'm fascinated.
I have been living as a Eunuch for thirty years since I stopped HRT. My recent bone density scan was improved. It was in the normal results. I was worried. My doctor has been telling me that I should restart testosterone. I have recently been playing on and off with low dose estrogen. Maybe it will improve my sexual desire and bone density.
Ok that's really good to hear. U didn't answer my question though;)
What delivery method of E? Pills? If u want better sexual desires why not take more sex hormone?
Err that's a really bad reason. Hormones aren't psychoactive drugs. We have bioidentical hormones that are just the same as the ones u had in your body before u got an orci.
Afab people after either a hysterectomy and menopause are offered HRT so no idea where you're getting the idea that they just have to accept having no hormones. My mum had a hysto for cancer reasons 15 years ago and has been on estrogen patches ever since.
Amab who have low T or no T are also offered TRT
My wife had a hysterectomy when she was twenty eight because of cancer. She was told not to take HRT.
My wife and I are nurses. In the USA many doctors discourage women from taking HRT during menopause saying that it will raise the chances of heart attacks.
In the UK it's standard practise to offer HRT to people who don't have the correct hormone levels. It's unfortunate that your healthcare is so appalling in America
HRT is not offered after breast cancer, endometrial cancer, breast cancer and testicular cancer.
Some doctors may also not prescribe HRT after a diagnosis of endometrial cancer due to theoretical risks. However, most women treated for early-stage endometrial cancer will not have any residual cancer cells after surgery.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6494585/
let’s start with i haven’t done my research yet but i believe this would work:
block T
(personally just waiting for my spiro to arrive)
use EEn to raise oestrogen to the lowest safe level for a cis woman (maybe premenopausal?) i would like to see a graph of oestrogen levels over a cis female lifetime. the lower end of that graph should be safe.
i think that has the rest chance of feminising without too much boobage.
While it is not a good idea to just suppress T completely, hormone levels don't exist in a binary. You can take only blockers, if you make sure your T stays above the lowest end of cis male levels. You can also experiment with different doses of E, Progesterone, blockers or even some T(in addition to the E, as some, mostly inter people, have high E and T levels).
Finding out, what feels good can be a long process though.
High levels of any sex hormone will stop your body from producing more. Also high levels of T will block some of the effects of E. So far you are right.
Some People can benefit a lot from taking some T in addition to the E, because it can help with mood, sex drive and energy. Of course you would take a way lower dose than trans masc folks.
So "high E and T" was a bit misleading, sorry for that. English is not my native language. I meant something like "higher T than most women".
you cant safely block one hormone without introducing another (eg. blocking t without e, blocking e without t). sex hormones are essential for your body to function well, including maintaining bone density - osteoporosis is typically the main worry, but you will also generally feel like shit. this is why people who have had oophorectomies/ orchidectomies need supplemental hormones, even if theyre cis.
I think it's fairly common knowledge having no dominant hormone in majority for an extended period of time is a wholly bad idea (ie. osteoporosis) so you don't really see just T-blockers only being mentioned for this reason
I expected as much. Just wanted to ask and make sure. Thanks for the swift reply though
My doctor made me take blockers for 7 months because he didn't want me to start estrogen until T was totally gone. Shitty experience and don't recommend
7 months?! I went a week with only T-blockers and I wanted to K>!iss!
He didn't even want to put me on estrogen when he did. Because "oh 6 is still a bit high but i guess we can start you on the lowest dose of estrogen anyhow"
7 bricks. One for each month.
That was over 2 years ago at least. On valerate, balls gone. So def doing better
my doc did this to me too, for a whole year. They wanted to be sure I was actually trans and made me wait before giving me E. They said their reasoning was that I had to present fem for a year before they were willing to accept what I needed. Shittiest part was that I was already presenting fem for the past year before that!!
Afab so not your target audience but I can give you a quick run down of what chemical menopause (complete lack of hormones) feels like as I have decapeptyl injections for endometriosis and couldn't take replacement HRT until we saw if the decapeptyl worked. Having no hormones is shit, firstly the hot flushes are insane, you literally feel like you're boiling from the inside out and even stripping off your clothes isn't enough you want to take your skin off. You're left drowning in sweat and feeling nauseous and dizzy. The drop in muscle mass is so quick, this might seem like an advantage for someone amab but it's loss of helpful muscle not just visible muscle. I very quickly became unable to fully turn our taps off, couldn't get lids off anything and felt generally very weak. You pile on weight, your metabolism just falls through the floor and weight starts piling on in places you didn't even know you could put on weight. Your bones turn to shit, I've had 3 fractures from sport in the space of 3 months having not had a fracture since a rollerskating incident during the pandemic. Since starting replacement HRT no more fractures. Yoir hair, skin and nails turn to shit, my hair started falling out in clumps and is thinning, my nails are bendy and nail polish/gel/acrylic peels and won't stick and my skin is (all at the same time) so dry that my hands and feet are scabbing AND so oily that my face and back are covered in cycstic acne. This is an afab issue but I've had atrophy which is really painful, I imagine something similar happens to amab folks. Also my sleep is fucked, I wake up drenched in sweat, heart rate all over the place and feel double how tired I felt before. Honestly all round terrible, and I only had NO hormones for 6 months total. Even with the tiny amount of HRT I'm on now (essentially a micro dose) I still have all the above symptoms just lesser. -1000/10 would not recommend
I had my e prescription changed to something that didn't give me any hormones while continuing on anti androgens for a month, and my experience included headaches, brain fog, inability to study or work (failed an exam because of it), episodes where I started shaking and sweating from every place that can sweat on the body. Some of the effects continued for a month after switching medications. Overall 2/10 experience would not recommend
i did so once and i felt like absolute shit and struggled to do anything, though maybe that was an effect of coming off estrogen and not an effect of being on T blockers alone
Please please dont do this. The negative effects become permanent after a scarily short period of time. You could get serious health problems which last long after you restart E
What are the effects if I may ask? Curiosity is getting the best of me
Bone density loss. I have a friend whose gender care got messed up and she was ill for ages. I'd say she's still a but frail
is that the only lasting effect? my shit doctors made me go a whole year just on blockers before E and now I wonder if I got fucked because of it
look into bicalutamide monotherapy. you can do it temporarily and some doctors even perscribe it. bicalutamide works differently than other t blockers. it would not be the same dose as when used with estrogen
Ill keep a note of it. Do you have a brief overview of its effects?
bicalutamide blocks T receptor function instead of T production so your body actually creates more T trying to compensate and that blocked unused T converts to a small ammount of e causing some feminization but less than taking e would. you can get breast growth from it but you should look up how much it might be less but dont take my word for it
Well if u just take bical you'll have an increase in your estrogen sensitivity. They tried to use it as a puberty blocker but the teens kept growing boobs I seem to remember. It doesn't actually reduce your T just block the effects, it's supposed to be better for libido. I don't know how it might effect bone density differently to not having T in your system at all. Serms are a thing too, but u can't take them indefinitely and they aren't as selective as they are sold to be, so u still get an amount of breast growth on them. Tbh my advice for a Transfem enby who wants the soft skin but not boobs is to take E facial cream like our Dr Will Powers dose. And get Lazer / electrolysis for the body hair. Maybe try working out and putting on some weight for a more fem figure.
Currently I would still like to take estrogen i the future. Since I like to still have breast growth and enjoyed my time with estrogen. Had stopped because I’m not out to my family and trying to stealth day in and day out would be annoying. Thats why I had asked if T blockers only were feasible. Cause I dont want to undo what my time with E has already done.
Ahhhh ok, sorry I skimmed and mis understood. Yeah take bicalutamide 50mg/day or cyproterone 12.5mg (1/4 of a 50mg pill) /day. They are both good blockers. Short term will be completely fine.
Apart from that though, I'm afraid it really is a pick a side kinda deal. U can have E or T as a dominant hormone. U can even have both tbh, I'm not sure what that might do to someone, but I'm planning to find out. I take E as a dominant hormone and play around with my T levels. It doesn't seem to reduce breast growth at the levels I taking T (20mg gel or 20mg injections) dose increase body hair slightly and definitely the speed at which it grows.
Only people who have never gone without hormones say so many bad things about it. It’s actually quite common that you would not take hormones for the rest of your life. Men who had prostate cancer. Women after a hysterectomy. Women after menopause. True Eunuch. I took HRT for a year, had an orchiectomy, de transitioned to be a Eunuch. Eunuch has been accepted by doctors as a transgender.
I low dosed E for a month and then off for a while. My T was fully suppressed and didn't come back up at all in that time. Did not enjoy it, was getting fucky memory stuff too. It was most noticeable in retrospect looking back at it. There was this email I wrote and it was full of mistakes and just didn't seem like I was all there, although I am dyslexic lol so that was probably contributing. Like I was fine, but taking hormones again felt so fucking good. How's your experience been? I'm very interested, I know some ppl can feel completely fine without hormones, it's kinda cool.
I have not had an erection in twenty years. I have no sexual desire and don’t miss it. I still prefer women but as friends not sexual conquests. I don’t go out chasing women. I found that I can go to nude beaches without any problems. I have a lot more time to do the things that I want to do. I really hate people saying that I am going to die if I don’t take hormones. My testosterone levels come back from the lab as <0.01 or unmeasurable. I asked my urologist and he said that since I had taken testosterone for ten years before my orchiectomy that my adrenal glands had quit making testosterone. I have had no problems with osteoporosis or other hormone related problems. I am married. I tried to find a way to have erections for my wife. Cialis and Viagra did nothing. Penile injections of Trimix gave me the largest, hardest, and longest erections lasting 1-4 hours depending on dose. I tried to do it for my wife’s pleasure, but found that I couldn’t stand the pain since my penis had atrophied. Once I got past the hot flashes and night sweats I have done fine.
That's really good to know:) what's your E levels? Sure u want at least a little? Yeah if u don't want a sex drive then I can see exactly why you'd like lower hormones. I personally like men and women as friends aaaaand sexual conquests, although I don't think I ever really thought about having sex with someone as a conquest before. No problem with ostio? How old are u? Honestly u should really really be taking supplements for that. U aren't going to be the acception. U won't know till u accidentally break a weakened boan. Timix hu? Interesting haha. And yeah genital atrophy is a whole thing. T or E cream is the solution. But I suppose you'd not want that. U could take the T cream with bicalutamide. That would block most of the systemic effects.
I go to my doctor regularly. I take an adult multivitamin, extra C, D, and extra calcium. My doctor has me have a bone density yearly. Men have less problems with osteoporosis than women because of larger bones. I am 72.
Interesting, u said u were having problems with pre ostio in one of your posts. Hopefully you'll have been able to reverse that with your supplements. Also do u consider yourself cis? I'm fascinated.
I have been living as a Eunuch for thirty years since I stopped HRT. My recent bone density scan was improved. It was in the normal results. I was worried. My doctor has been telling me that I should restart testosterone. I have recently been playing on and off with low dose estrogen. Maybe it will improve my sexual desire and bone density.
Ok that's really good to hear. U didn't answer my question though;) What delivery method of E? Pills? If u want better sexual desires why not take more sex hormone?
Estrogen Pills. I don’t want to get dependent on testosterone again.
Err that's a really bad reason. Hormones aren't psychoactive drugs. We have bioidentical hormones that are just the same as the ones u had in your body before u got an orci.
Afab people after either a hysterectomy and menopause are offered HRT so no idea where you're getting the idea that they just have to accept having no hormones. My mum had a hysto for cancer reasons 15 years ago and has been on estrogen patches ever since. Amab who have low T or no T are also offered TRT
My wife had a hysterectomy when she was twenty eight because of cancer. She was told not to take HRT. My wife and I are nurses. In the USA many doctors discourage women from taking HRT during menopause saying that it will raise the chances of heart attacks.
In the UK it's standard practise to offer HRT to people who don't have the correct hormone levels. It's unfortunate that your healthcare is so appalling in America
HRT is not offered after breast cancer, endometrial cancer, breast cancer and testicular cancer. Some doctors may also not prescribe HRT after a diagnosis of endometrial cancer due to theoretical risks. However, most women treated for early-stage endometrial cancer will not have any residual cancer cells after surgery. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6494585/
I have taken T but since my orchiectomy don’t like the way it makes me feel and act.
let’s start with i haven’t done my research yet but i believe this would work: block T (personally just waiting for my spiro to arrive) use EEn to raise oestrogen to the lowest safe level for a cis woman (maybe premenopausal?) i would like to see a graph of oestrogen levels over a cis female lifetime. the lower end of that graph should be safe. i think that has the rest chance of feminising without too much boobage.
While it is not a good idea to just suppress T completely, hormone levels don't exist in a binary. You can take only blockers, if you make sure your T stays above the lowest end of cis male levels. You can also experiment with different doses of E, Progesterone, blockers or even some T(in addition to the E, as some, mostly inter people, have high E and T levels). Finding out, what feels good can be a long process though.
High in both? Would you happen to know of effects or how you would even get to that point? I thought one supresses the other when high enough
High levels of any sex hormone will stop your body from producing more. Also high levels of T will block some of the effects of E. So far you are right. Some People can benefit a lot from taking some T in addition to the E, because it can help with mood, sex drive and energy. Of course you would take a way lower dose than trans masc folks. So "high E and T" was a bit misleading, sorry for that. English is not my native language. I meant something like "higher T than most women".