this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
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Trying hard to trust the process, and while I have seen other expected changes in skin, hair, and mood, I am getting anxious that nothing is happening under my shirt. I had some minor sensitivity within the first two weeks, but never anything painful.

This Friday will be 6 weeks on HRT. 2mg Est, 4mg Prog, 200mg Spiro daily.

Edit: thanks for talking me off the cliff everyone, I'm much less anxious now ๐Ÿ˜…

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[โ€“] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (23 children)

I had breast soreness pretty quickly. Increased sensitivity could be right (that's how it was for me at first), but at some point it did become painful enough that I had to change how I slept, etc.

My advice: switch to injections (I recommend subcutaneous as you can use very small needles that can be painless).

As others have said, oral is a poor way to get estrogen - 80+% is eliminated by the liver, and the rest spikes blood levels and eliminates relatively quickly, creating vicious ups and downs without providing sufficient and consistent estrogen blood levels to estrogenize the body by. Anecdotally the people I know IRL who do pills have slower and less feminization than those who inject.

(I actually started hormones at the same time as an IRL friend, and a year later my friend still passes as a boy and boymodes full-time, and I ... wouldn't be able to pass as a boy anymore. The main difference is that they take oral and I inject.)

Highly recommend reading: https://transfemscience.org/articles/transfem-intro/

[โ€“] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 month ago (20 children)

Is there a reason not to do injections (unless you have bad enough fear of needles so that you can't do it)? To me it seems to be by far the best option in every way (at least price, effectiveness, frequency of administration, convenience) and I see no reason to pick anything else. Not that I personally have much of an alternative anyway because I'm doing DIY right now.

[โ€“] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I have a horrible needle phobia, and even so I did a lot to overcome it so I could do injections. Ultimately I agree, injections are the best method. Transdermal (patches or gel) isn't that bad of a route for lower doses, but pre-op I wanted to do monotherapy when bica didn't seem to help my biochemical dysphoria enough.

Even post-op I still do injections, as my skin is very sensitive, so I was worried about getting rashes from the patches, and I also exercise a lot and worried about the patches coming off (they can be expensive to replace, this is just a major downside to patches).

[โ€“] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah, the patch coming off is what I would be worried about as well, especially also when showering. Patches would be my top alternative because they also last a while but it's just an extra thing to have to be careful about.

Congratulations on overcoming your needle phobia! :)

I've not yet had one come off in the shower, and I'm not particularly careful. The adhesive gets a little loose, but it goes back to normal pretty quickly once you dry off. Having tried gel, injections and patches I have to say patches easily beat everything else for me! That's assuming you don't get irritation from them, of course.

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