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Trough blood test (good?) (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 2 weeks ago by to c/mtf@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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I've got my results in for my levels taken 2 hours before my next dose. I did apply for the "female" blood test (as shown), but for some reason it's giving the advice in relation to my "birth sex" which is obviously a bad idea. Anyway ignoring all the red I'm pretty sure these levels are what I was aiming for. For context I am on Estradiol Enanthate, and take it weekly, so the peak-trough difference should be fairly low.

  • E2: 1479pmol/L | 402.85pg/mL (Decent but higher than expected)
  • FSH: <0.30U/L (Understandably low)
  • LH: 1U/L (Understandably low)
  • Free Androgen Index: 3.78 (?)
  • Progesterone: 0.79nmol/L | 0.25ng/mL (Expected)
  • Prolactin: 311mIU/L (Seems fine)
  • SHBG: 41nmol/L (Seems fine)
  • T: 1.55nmol/L | 44.71ng/dL (Good, though higher than expected)

I think these are all good but I thought I'd post them here too just in case I'm missing something or interpreting them incorrectly.

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[–] 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (8 children)

your E is a bit high but not the end of the world (though i'd probably reduce your E dose a bit in the future). i am surprised how high your T is considering your E levels but it doesn't seem terribly high so that's probably fine too. SHBG looks good

can't speak for any of the others, i don't test for any of them

EDIT: looks like you only started HRT like 17 days ago according to your post history? from what i've gathered (and this aligns with my personal experience) it takes at least 3 weeks for your levels to more or less stabilize after changing dosage. probably explains why your T is still so high despite the very high E levels (but definitely reduce your E)

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    Yeah I also thought that was a little weird, but I can't really lower my E levels without worrying about having my T be too high, thank you though, I mainly was just looking for more opinions on it <3

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    Oh I used a loading dose, I'll be doing more blood tests for that reason but I'll take your advice, should I stay on 6mg or reduce it??

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    my point was more that even if you ramp the E levels up quickly, it can still take a while for your body to react and clear most of the T out of your system. clearly your T is being suppressed to some degree because it's far below cis male levels, but it's hard to say how low it actually is.

    are you injecting valerate or enanthate? at any rate, 6mg is generally overkill (a lot of the recommended dosages for DIY are targeting levels high enough to suppress T in virtually anyone under the assumption that folks might not have access to blood testing). in my case, i actually started at a similar dose (6mg enanthate weekly), and then essentially did a binary search with blood tests every 6 weeks to figure out the minimum dose necessary to keep T suppressed, and now i take like 10% more than that. i would definitely recommend reducing your dose, but you'll need repeated tests to figure out how low to take it and if you don't have easy+regular access to blood work you could totally stay at your current dose and it'd probably be fine.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    Thank you, this is pretty good advice (I am on enanthate).

    I think I'd probably stay at my current dose and then do another blood test in a couple weeks, if my T levels drop then I'll lower it. But I would really want to avoid having my T levels increase, I thought about doing something like that (binary search), but I don't really want to sit through that.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago* (1 child)

    the other thing you could do is just keep dropping your dose by a small amount (e.g. 0.2mg) after each blood test, and you'll eventually be able to figure out where "the line" is when your T starts to trend upwards (which should start happening gradually before it gets high enough that you start to notice any effects). in any case, staying at your current dose shouldn't be an issue :)

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    • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    Took me a while to get all of my doctors to switch to female levels. They complained that other tests might end up showing wrong values. So far the only issue I've had is the cholesterol tests show high when they are normal on the male scales. Everything else is way more accurate or isn't gender specific really.

    As for levels, 400 pg/ml for estradiol is my target level even if a lot of places say 100 or 200 still based on old breast cancer research on 60+ cis-women and/or using estrone rather than estradiol treatments. My current is pretty high at peak, but around 300-400 at trough.

    My testosterone is also around 5-10ng/dL on monotherapy even before I had bottom surgery. And while anything under 50ng/DL is considered normal for women I have never gotten that high, even at troughs, but we're all different.

    I don't get the other tests from my provider, but I may ask next round if she can add those, but likely my insurance won't cover them, so I probably could just order them myself, I suppose. I do take progesterone, but only orally and I've not had much effect from it so I'm guessing it's probably low.

    But overall looks pretty good to me as a non-medical-professional but as someone like most of us who has had to become a near expert in gender specific endocrinology just to get what we need, LOL.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 2 weeks ago

    Thanks, as DaPorkchop_ said I'm still likely adjusting and my T levels could drop further.

    I probably could just order them myself

    If it helps I have mine taken by Randox, though I think they only have locations in the UK.

    like most of us who has had to become a near expert in gender specific endocrinology just to get what we need, LOL

    Tell me about it lol, my parents really don't trust me on this either, they're very sympathetic to systemic harm. I have been encouraged to ask a professional but I'm almost entirely sure they'd tell me to get off HRT so I don't see the point, and I'd rather not have my parents just take their word for it.

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