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in reply to @kda's post:

Yeah, I'm looking at giving it a try without blockers, so — that might require going harder than with blockers?

But I've gotten the requisite blood tests done, so that's, well, that's something!

Between patches and pills, which one's less unsuitable? Or are they both just… …totally unworkable for monotherapy?

And yeah, I'm leaning toward the "wait 6 months and then start plugging progesterone" route, based on what others have told me. ,,,

so it's been a few years since I've needed to worry about blockers so I am admittedly hazy on all this and maybe the community knowledge has changed, but pills are entirely unworkable for monotherapy from what I remember. patches,,,, I don't know. I'm on patches currently and love them but again I can't say how they are at suppressing T production

My summary recommendation in terms of comparison would probably be like,, injections + progesterone > patches + progesterone > pills + a non-spiro blocker > monotherapy pills >>>>> pills + spiro.

I had to DIY by ordering stuff from overseas for a year or two and developed a special interest / hyperfixation on this subject for a bit haha. There's a doctor in California, Dr. Powers iirc, whose research I based a lot of my dosing on

I think sublingual pills work a bit differently / better if I remember right but not sure so some nuance there.

also yeah your strat re: progesterone is spot on

Yeah, I'm familiar with the Dr. Powers "micronised bioidentical progesterone up your ass" strategy!

But yeah, that does make some sense? Spiro is a last resort, IMO. I've just heard so much that's ¬good about it.

oh god I'd forgotten about that part of it >.< haha

yyeah it works for some im sure but man it sure doesn't work for most :1

also I've never seen someone use "¬" in a conversation like that before, it's neat! I like that lol

Yeah, like,,,,,

There're so many Unicode characters out there that can provide slightly different shades of meaning to things but still be understandable to most readers, so I won't not use them!

And yyyyyyyyeah. It's.

i cannot recommend https://transfemscience.org/articles/ strongly enough if you want more than anecdotes. still has a lot of "source: myself", but it's something at least.

generally speaking, getting E levels to >200pg/ml in blood will result in T being suppressed by ~90%, so 200-300pg/ml is about what you're usually aiming for, though this depends on your starting T levels i suppose.

75ug/day in patches is roughly equivalent to 2mg/day in swallowed pills and 0.75mg/day in sublingual pills; injections have too many variables to easily summarize though.

it's usually advised to start low and double your dosage every month or two until blood tests are showing what you want. you'll probably find the right levels for monotherapy at around 6mg/day in swallowed pills(/equivalent), though this varies a ton from person to person - i'm usually sitting at around 150-200pg/ml on only 150ug/day in patches, for instance. i'm also on an anti-androgen, but it's not like that meaningfully effects E levels, it just means i don't need E levels quite as high.

hope that gives you an idea of what you're looking for at least!!

Anyway, for estrogen I'm taking 5mg intramuscle every five days, I've not seen my doctor in a while because I can't stand him but went from no tits to tits in about three months having been on pills for... a while (~a decade) before that