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men of lemmy, if you've ever taken estrogen, what was it like? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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Just wondering what the experience is like for cis men who have experienced estrogen dominance...

I've read that there are accounts of side effects in men who take estrogen for prostate cancer and who experience depression.

There are also the famous cases of Alan Turing and David Reimer. Was hoping for more first hand accounts of what the cis male experience is like on estrogen.

Just wondering if anyone has experiences they're willing to share. Thanks!

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[โ€“] [S] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

is it ok to ask why you were taking estrogen monotherapy? Also, enanthate (EEn) as an ester is common with trans DIY HRT, but I've never heard of a pharmacy in the US having it (seems like valerate and cypionate are the two esters available).

I raise this because my question was for cis men, but it sounds like you were self administering estrogen likely for reasons that make you not a cis man ๐Ÿ˜… (EDIT: based on your comments in femboy and trans communities, I'm pretty sure you're not the target demographic for my question, regardless of how you happen to identify currently).

2 months is not long given EEn's half life, it's possible your body continued to experiencd testosterone dominance for most of that time, I would guess the second month was more likely when you would experience loss of involuntary night-time erections, etc.

Did you get blood work to check your estrogen and testosterone blood levels during this time?

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  • [โ€“] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Re-reading your original question, it should have been pretty obvious in retrospect that I am not really in the target audience. welp, my bad :P

    I didn't get any blood work done unfortunately, since my doctor's office refuses to do it without a specific request from my GP (and the whole reason I wanted to do a trial run DIY was because I can't realistically do this kind of stuff the legit way at the moment), so I just went with a dose a bit higher than the dosages I'd seen recommended online for "most" people and figured it was unlikely that that wouldn't be enough. Since I saw nipple changes almost immediately I assumed that it was doing the trick, but the expected other effects just never came and I stopped when my nipples had become large enough that I was about to start needing a bra to stop them visibly poking through my shirt.

    I didn't really consider that the longer half-life was super relevant to the "startup delay", most resources I found online seemed to show it nearly reaching the steady state level after only one or two doses. If that was actually the problem that's a pretty big derp on my part, but I'm already planning to give it another shot once I'm not living at home.

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  • [โ€“] [S] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    yeah, EEn is a great ester for long term monotherapy, but it's not ideal for a short term monotherapy trial for diagnostic purposes - valerate (EV) would be better, it has a half life of 3.5 days and will increase your blood estrogen level much more quickly, and thus shut down testosterone production more quickly, allowing you to see how it feels much sooner. I could tell within a few days of my first EV injection.

    Though some trans women never experience changes to mood, a minority experience worse mood, and most do experience benefits to mood - usually alleviating depression, anxiety, and intrusive suicidal ideation symptoms. My depression was lifted fairly quickly, basically in direct relation to testosterone suppression, so within the first week of EV injections I saw some improved mood and then much worse mood as testosterone production came back and I saw physiological signs like involuntary erections return.

    But the first 3 - 4 months on EV were highly unstable and variable, with relief from symptoms like anxiety not happening until after three months and mood benefits being made clear through longer term patterns. The biggest mental benefit for me didn't come until I was post-op and my body no longer produced testosterone, until then I experienced ups and downs with my mood.

    I have a trans girl friend IRL who will probably never get an orchi because she likes her current hormone levels and doesn't want her T to get too low - so there is a lot of variance.

    You don't have to have mental or mood changes to be trans or to continue on HRT: if it's not causing depression for you and you feel fine, and the changes to the body are desirable to you, that's reason enough for most people. I wouldn't take your experience with EEn as confirmation you shouldn't be in HRT or aren't trans.

    Skin will get softer on estrogen, hair usually gets thinner and lighter, eye color can change, fat distribution will gradually change from depositing fat at the neck, shoulders, back, and belly to the thighs, hips, and boobs.

    Obviously breast growth is the main side effect that can't be reversed (it's not just fat distribution, breast buds will grow that won't go away) and it's helpful to have a rough sense of whether having breasts is OK for you or not. (Even so it's still technically reversible-ish with surgery.)

    Let me know if you have any questions or just want someone to chat with about this. ๐Ÿซถ

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  • [โ€“] 4 points 1 year ago

    I want to give you a belated "thank you" for writing this up! I had kinda been feeling like I'd reached a dead end with my whole gender exploration adventure, but you have not only inspired me to do a second (longer) trial run using EV instead of EEn (which I have just started), but I'm also gonna go to a local meetup for trans/enby/questioning people later this week. Something about your comment here really helped me get out of the rut I was in. Thanks for all your support!!! โค๏ธ

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