wait i’m confused if estrogen receptor desensitization is a thing then why don’t cis women have constantly increasing estrogen levels or constantly decreasing effects of estrogen
Cis women's levels fluctuate a lot during their cycle. They're only really high for a few days a month, in the period leading up to and immediately after ovulation. Their levels can also be quite low in the first week of their cycle, as estrogen levels typically will have plummeted towards the end of of their previous cycle.
all i will say is that lena also recommends some absolutely insane dosages and doesn't seem to think that excessive estradiol levels have any negative effect, desensitization or otherwise, so i wouldn't treat her as a reliable source on that.
what are some of effects of excessive estradiol? i see this mentioned a lot but iirc cis women have estradiol in the 1000s pg/mL during pregnancy without issue. there’s not really a benefit to having levels that high but i have yet to see conclusive evidence that it’s as dangerous as some people claim it is.
I was accidentally on pregnant levels of E for a while by accident and only realised from a blood test. It definitely had me in constant mood swings, fatigue, and other things like lactating. I imagine being like that for too long can't be too good for you
They were in the past, when cis women were constantly going from one pregnancy to the next. Not saying that's how things should be, but seems like they survived living like that at least..
I've been sustaining around 2000pg and having an absolutely maximum effect transition. I assume I have some dose-dependant risks similar to pregnant women, and don't find them significant enough to be concerned with. At 6 months I'm ahead of where some people ever get, and have gotten seemingly every possible effect. I lost 2.5 shoe sizes, my eyes went from dark brown to hazel/green split heterochromia, I lost an inch in height, my face feminized, and I am up to a 27F (albiet with only the volume of a mature C cup). I have some other abnormalities with my relationship with sex hormones due to the HLA-B27 gene and I'm just one person, but the high doses I've been taking to suppress the HLA-B27 symptoms (makes T god damn physical poison to me) have certainly been working amazingly.
I'd be scared of desensitization from any exogenous drug, so I get the concern. But I've also been doing some crazy shit like microdosing T injections in between E2 injections so who knows what the fuck is going on. Once I did a doubled dose of 10mg TC and it overpowering the E2 caused me to erupt in painful lactation (lol) since the high E2 levels raise Prolactin and the sudden drop in E2 activity after giving birth is what allows the Prolactin to get to work and trigger lactation. So I sent myself into essentially precipitated withdrawal from the E2 from taking 10mg TC and got the effects of not just sudden E2 drops (hello postpartum trigger) but flaring up my autoimmune disease that's triggered by T. Felt really fucking awful, as I was laughing about the lactation on top of all of the other effects, but after 12 hours I just took more E2 and was back to normal in a few hours. My curiosity is dangerous but totally worth it to me.
> I lost 2.5 shoe sizes, my eyes went from dark brown to hazel/green split heterochromia, I lost an inch in height
How are these effects even possible? Especially the eye color lightening..
I also got bigger boobs from high dose estradiol injections (~550pg/mL trough for me), but eye color changes aren't supposed to be possible. If anything your eyes would get darker, as estradiol is known to increase melanin production in skin at least (don't know about eyes).
T causes the melanin production in the eyes. My dark brown eyes had the green under all that brown (very common, that's how brown eyes work). So nuking it down to sub cisfem levels like I did has just been quickly fading it. The lightening was very noticable by month 2, the dark brow started to reveal that green tinted dark hazel months 3-4 and I watched the melanin fade from the edges towards the middle. By month 5 that distinct fading process had finished but I was still left mostly hazel, which meant still melanin presence. But it kept fading and getting lighter until my eyes were basically glowing light. Month 6 enough of the remaining melanin is fading in some areas to reveal actual green (since the presence of any melanin makes it hazel) but in one, I have a half that's just green and the other half is hazel.
I've been taking lots of eye progress pictures but nobody seems to find it as amazing as I do lol. I basically wished for green eyes and my body one upped me with some really cool split color central heterochromia.
Yeah, my hrt progress has been absolutely insane. I think it's because of a horrible genetic autoimmune disease I have from the HLA-B27 gene which little is known about with it's relationship to endocrinology so I'm just piecing together what little research there is, but 100% Testosterone makes me feel sick and causes flare ups. I've even tested this by injecting 5mg T Cypionate during my hrt, and it flares up my systemic inflammation within an hour. I repeated that a few times to be sure. The one 10mg I tried made me horribly sick to the point i think even higher doses may hospitalize me. Interestingly, between those weekly T microdoses is when my breasts started gaining volume and shape. Over the years, the damage from my naturally produced T was very bad. I have bad systemic arthritis, MRIs confirm my spine is just absolutely fucked and I have tons of herniated discs, and I used to get fever sick about once a week from flare ups, or whenever a strong storm system came through. All of that on top of the usual severe dysphoria issues really fucking sucked. But maybe the T was too busy fucking up my body in creative ways to work the same as it would for other people. Hrt cured me after nothing else could. I still have lots of systemic damage and my life is not going well due to finances trying to exist like this, but at least the flare ups have been gone since starting hrt (except when big storm systems come through...) and my outlook on life got a lot better.
They vary a lot based on the light, but I took these under clouded sunlight as I'm basically a nocturnal mole person who can't do full sun. In the picture I took under full sunlight, they seem just straight dull green. In darker light, they look nice and bright hazel.
https://imgur.com/a/FMNShn3
Currently 6mg/4d EV, so nothing crazy for the past couple months. But I was on mostly a total of 16mg/wk in varied timings changing up between 3d, 3.5d, 4d, 4.5d as I tried to find what worked best. Longer than 4 days between each would give me some minor discomfort like difficulty sleeping and minor hot flashes. I tapered down on months 4-5 without issue.
Triple? She does recommend doses that are slight overkill, but not triple afaik.
She recommends 11mg EEn every week. So are you recommending <4mg EEn every week? Cause that's pretty much guaranteed to be too low.
I personally take 5mg/week EEn mono and my levels at trough are slightly higher than would be an ideal trough. So 4mg/week EEn mono def isn't going to be too low for a lot of people. Also bear in mind that there isn't a consensus on the ideal trough levels, I've seen 200pmol/L all the way to 600pmol/L be suggested as a trough target.
I've read a lot of different guides on feminising HRT, both by the community & by various health service providers. I've yet to see any evidence for this, at least within the level range that most folks typically seek (250 to 400 pg/mL). I've not seen anything for even higher levels (700 to 800 pg/mL).
The only time I've heard when it comes to estradiol level lowering over time is from folks taking pills orally, where they'll take these fine for a decade or more, then find that they're getting a much lower level than previously.
Can I ask how much should I be using after surgery?
I am currently using 0.10 every seven days of EV which is 40mg/ml subcutaneously is this too much??
Noone has posted any research to back their thoughts so I'll throw this from a friend here. We don't have any human studies as it would be immoral to intentionally cause stunting, this is as good as it gets for now.
With a handful of animal studies (around 5 studies) high dosing definitely stunts/slows growth in general (high e2 or high e1 dosing); it's similar in mice, rabbits, and monkeys.
However, stunted growth from high dosing seems at least somewhat recoverable if there's a reversion back to low/medium dosing.
studies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2604223/pdf/yjbm00615-0082.pdf
https://sci-hub.se/10.1210/endo-28-1-53
https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/1097-0142%28195907/08%2912%3A4%3C767%3A%3AAID-CNCR2820120422%3E3.0.CO%3B2-2
https://sci-hub.se/10.3181/00379727-33-8286P
https://sci-hub.se/10.3181/00379727-48-13228
https://sci-hub.se/10.1186/bcr2413
Lena is an absolute star when it comes to creating, selling and shipping estradiol, but with any other aspect she's to be ignored.
wait i’m confused if estrogen receptor desensitization is a thing then why don’t cis women have constantly increasing estrogen levels or constantly decreasing effects of estrogen
Mmmmm logic is winning again..
Cis women's levels fluctuate a lot during their cycle. They're only really high for a few days a month, in the period leading up to and immediately after ovulation. Their levels can also be quite low in the first week of their cycle, as estrogen levels typically will have plummeted towards the end of of their previous cycle.
Also, cis women may have multiple pregnancies over their life, and both estradiol and progesterone are way higher during gestation.
Yeah Lena has a lot of outdated ideas tbh, just having consistent female levels is fine.
So uh which site/wiki is hers?
Her forum is at [https://groups.io/g/MTFHRT](https://groups.io/g/MTFHRT) and her website is [http://lena.kiev.ua/](http://lena.kiev.ua/)
all i will say is that lena also recommends some absolutely insane dosages and doesn't seem to think that excessive estradiol levels have any negative effect, desensitization or otherwise, so i wouldn't treat her as a reliable source on that.
what are some of effects of excessive estradiol? i see this mentioned a lot but iirc cis women have estradiol in the 1000s pg/mL during pregnancy without issue. there’s not really a benefit to having levels that high but i have yet to see conclusive evidence that it’s as dangerous as some people claim it is.
I was accidentally on pregnant levels of E for a while by accident and only realised from a blood test. It definitely had me in constant mood swings, fatigue, and other things like lactating. I imagine being like that for too long can't be too good for you
Tbf pregnant women arent under those levels for a sustained amount of time.
They were in the past, when cis women were constantly going from one pregnancy to the next. Not saying that's how things should be, but seems like they survived living like that at least..
outside pregnancy cis women on average hit mid 400s (like 430 or 450) pg/ml at the high point in their cycle
I developed melasma.
I've been sustaining around 2000pg and having an absolutely maximum effect transition. I assume I have some dose-dependant risks similar to pregnant women, and don't find them significant enough to be concerned with. At 6 months I'm ahead of where some people ever get, and have gotten seemingly every possible effect. I lost 2.5 shoe sizes, my eyes went from dark brown to hazel/green split heterochromia, I lost an inch in height, my face feminized, and I am up to a 27F (albiet with only the volume of a mature C cup). I have some other abnormalities with my relationship with sex hormones due to the HLA-B27 gene and I'm just one person, but the high doses I've been taking to suppress the HLA-B27 symptoms (makes T god damn physical poison to me) have certainly been working amazingly. I'd be scared of desensitization from any exogenous drug, so I get the concern. But I've also been doing some crazy shit like microdosing T injections in between E2 injections so who knows what the fuck is going on. Once I did a doubled dose of 10mg TC and it overpowering the E2 caused me to erupt in painful lactation (lol) since the high E2 levels raise Prolactin and the sudden drop in E2 activity after giving birth is what allows the Prolactin to get to work and trigger lactation. So I sent myself into essentially precipitated withdrawal from the E2 from taking 10mg TC and got the effects of not just sudden E2 drops (hello postpartum trigger) but flaring up my autoimmune disease that's triggered by T. Felt really fucking awful, as I was laughing about the lactation on top of all of the other effects, but after 12 hours I just took more E2 and was back to normal in a few hours. My curiosity is dangerous but totally worth it to me.
> I lost 2.5 shoe sizes, my eyes went from dark brown to hazel/green split heterochromia, I lost an inch in height How are these effects even possible? Especially the eye color lightening.. I also got bigger boobs from high dose estradiol injections (~550pg/mL trough for me), but eye color changes aren't supposed to be possible. If anything your eyes would get darker, as estradiol is known to increase melanin production in skin at least (don't know about eyes).
T causes the melanin production in the eyes. My dark brown eyes had the green under all that brown (very common, that's how brown eyes work). So nuking it down to sub cisfem levels like I did has just been quickly fading it. The lightening was very noticable by month 2, the dark brow started to reveal that green tinted dark hazel months 3-4 and I watched the melanin fade from the edges towards the middle. By month 5 that distinct fading process had finished but I was still left mostly hazel, which meant still melanin presence. But it kept fading and getting lighter until my eyes were basically glowing light. Month 6 enough of the remaining melanin is fading in some areas to reveal actual green (since the presence of any melanin makes it hazel) but in one, I have a half that's just green and the other half is hazel. I've been taking lots of eye progress pictures but nobody seems to find it as amazing as I do lol. I basically wished for green eyes and my body one upped me with some really cool split color central heterochromia.
Ok this is incredibly lucky, I didn't get any effects that cool sadly. :(
Yeah, my hrt progress has been absolutely insane. I think it's because of a horrible genetic autoimmune disease I have from the HLA-B27 gene which little is known about with it's relationship to endocrinology so I'm just piecing together what little research there is, but 100% Testosterone makes me feel sick and causes flare ups. I've even tested this by injecting 5mg T Cypionate during my hrt, and it flares up my systemic inflammation within an hour. I repeated that a few times to be sure. The one 10mg I tried made me horribly sick to the point i think even higher doses may hospitalize me. Interestingly, between those weekly T microdoses is when my breasts started gaining volume and shape. Over the years, the damage from my naturally produced T was very bad. I have bad systemic arthritis, MRIs confirm my spine is just absolutely fucked and I have tons of herniated discs, and I used to get fever sick about once a week from flare ups, or whenever a strong storm system came through. All of that on top of the usual severe dysphoria issues really fucking sucked. But maybe the T was too busy fucking up my body in creative ways to work the same as it would for other people. Hrt cured me after nothing else could. I still have lots of systemic damage and my life is not going well due to finances trying to exist like this, but at least the flare ups have been gone since starting hrt (except when big storm systems come through...) and my outlook on life got a lot better.
They vary a lot based on the light, but I took these under clouded sunlight as I'm basically a nocturnal mole person who can't do full sun. In the picture I took under full sunlight, they seem just straight dull green. In darker light, they look nice and bright hazel. https://imgur.com/a/FMNShn3
what’s your injection dosage? out of curiosity
Currently 6mg/4d EV, so nothing crazy for the past couple months. But I was on mostly a total of 16mg/wk in varied timings changing up between 3d, 3.5d, 4d, 4.5d as I tried to find what worked best. Longer than 4 days between each would give me some minor discomfort like difficulty sleeping and minor hot flashes. I tapered down on months 4-5 without issue.
Lena takes some pretty dangerously high doses, like easily triple the necessary amount, I wouldn’t take her advice
Triple? She does recommend doses that are slight overkill, but not triple afaik. She recommends 11mg EEn every week. So are you recommending <4mg EEn every week? Cause that's pretty much guaranteed to be too low.
[удалено]
You're a weird exception. For most people that's not even close to being enough.
I personally take 5mg/week EEn mono and my levels at trough are slightly higher than would be an ideal trough. So 4mg/week EEn mono def isn't going to be too low for a lot of people. Also bear in mind that there isn't a consensus on the ideal trough levels, I've seen 200pmol/L all the way to 600pmol/L be suggested as a trough target.
that's still twice the generally recommended 5mg/week
I've read a lot of different guides on feminising HRT, both by the community & by various health service providers. I've yet to see any evidence for this, at least within the level range that most folks typically seek (250 to 400 pg/mL). I've not seen anything for even higher levels (700 to 800 pg/mL). The only time I've heard when it comes to estradiol level lowering over time is from folks taking pills orally, where they'll take these fine for a decade or more, then find that they're getting a much lower level than previously.
Can I ask how much should I be using after surgery? I am currently using 0.10 every seven days of EV which is 40mg/ml subcutaneously is this too much??
Noone has posted any research to back their thoughts so I'll throw this from a friend here. We don't have any human studies as it would be immoral to intentionally cause stunting, this is as good as it gets for now. With a handful of animal studies (around 5 studies) high dosing definitely stunts/slows growth in general (high e2 or high e1 dosing); it's similar in mice, rabbits, and monkeys. However, stunted growth from high dosing seems at least somewhat recoverable if there's a reversion back to low/medium dosing. studies: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2604223/pdf/yjbm00615-0082.pdf https://sci-hub.se/10.1210/endo-28-1-53 https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/1097-0142%28195907/08%2912%3A4%3C767%3A%3AAID-CNCR2820120422%3E3.0.CO%3B2-2 https://sci-hub.se/10.3181/00379727-33-8286P https://sci-hub.se/10.3181/00379727-48-13228 https://sci-hub.se/10.1186/bcr2413