Hormone Therapy

[Aaliyah]

Hi, it's Aaliyah! I was just wondering if anyone has any good advice and information on hormones I've been doing tons of research but I like to hear input from people :) My main problem is finding them around here any good web sites to order them from?
MWAH!

[TsJANIRA]

Hey sweety my best advise would be to go to your doctor and, get have him prescribe them for you . Sure you can always go the black market route, like I and many other girls have , but honestly it would be wiser to get them through a legal professional , that way you know for sure it is safe and your doing it the right way .. Much success love !!

[SammiValentine]

Yup go see your Doctor is the correct answer.

Hormones have many side effects, some you cannot even notice and we all react differrently.

With the magical power of hindsight I now know that if I had gone the black market unsupervised way I would more than likely ended up needing brain surgery after a Pituitary tumour. Without a Dr/GP it would of been unknown to me that my body had been soaking up estrogen v.quick and caused my Pituitary gland to go into hyperdrive.. this was only spotted by regualr blood tests on my prolactin levels (which is just one of many things you need to keep an eye on as you probably know if you have been researching!). I was stunned as I felt fine and was having great positive effects from the hormones on my body. I still have to keep an eye on the prolactin levels now but with the right care and a diff dose/method of application it is controlled as such.. ;-)

Good Luck and be sensible, I am glad I was..

[SarahG]

Sometimes DIY is the way to go. I know a lot of people give it a bad reputation, but it's an avenue to force doctors to treat you that can be incredibly important as a method of last resort.

The SoC allows prescriptions after at least 3 months DIY. Why? It's basically damage control. Without DIY as an option a lot of shrinks were taking their sweet time ok'ing hrt for their patients. They would want the patient to come in for session after session after session milking them for money. Or, the way things used to work is the gatekeepers used to go around demanding you be fulltime for 2 years before starting hrt. The idea was to make it as abrasive and belligerent of a process as possible.

People would get fed up with all those delays (2 years is a big deal if it means starting at 20 instead of 18, 22 instead of 20, etc- there are time concerns to think about) and started going on DIY. But since they were DIY they weren't always doing things safely, so they figure if they allow DIY to be a route to getting slips, then doctors can go "look, let me write you slips and do your bloodwork so you don't hurt yourself."

You CAN do hrt diy and still do blood tests. My impression is most people don't. You can walk into most blood labs and order blood work, it will just cost you out of pocket (how much varies, it can be cost prohibitive sometimes).

Doing hrt through prescriptions is not always safer. Unless you have access to someone with experience treating trans people, most of the doctors you will encounter are cluessless idiots when it comes to hrt. I've had more than half of my GP's simply hand me my blood work and ask ME what it meant. They didn't know. I have had doctors ask me what dosages they should put me on, because they didn't know. So the most important thing is reading up on this stuff yourself. Educate yourself, do not assume someone knows what they are talking about simply because they're wearing a white coat (related: not all of the endos & gps who have trans experience are any good- there are many out there who will insist on putting girls on dosages so low it barely does anything).

By all means seek therapy, if you think it will help you. Most doctors are not going to want to write you slips without either 1- already being on hrt, or 2- fulltime with a shrink letter. When I was trying to get on hrt through shrinks no doctor would touch me, they insisted I had to be fulltime and get the letter. As soon as I went DIY? The tables changed and every doctor I saw thought it was no big deal (other than concerns over bloodwork). I've never had a doctor refuse to write a slip in all the years since I started hrt. Part of that is passing the buck, if a doctor sees another doctor already approved it- they will feel less worried about you changing your mind later & suing them.