See title. I'm on HRT for over 11 months now, thoroughly enjoying it. I've a hunch the dose is a bit low, though. I get androgen blockers every 2-3 months, my last one was one month ago.

Normally my arm hairs aren't very visible, so I didn't have much dysphoria from that. However, recently my arm hair seems to be growing a lot and thicker, and I'm concerned. Is this normal?

My mum doesn't really have a lot of arm hair, nor do other gals in my family.

My advice here would be to ask a (female) friend if they think you have a lot of arm hair. In my experience we tend to obsess needlessly over things like this when others barely notice, if at all. I shaved my arm hair at the start of HRT but stopped doing it about a year in or so because it was a hassle. Now I have very average arm hair compared to cis women I'd say.

Hmm. How are your blood levels?
And what do you take and at which dosages?

I dunno if it's maybe possible for those hairs to have already set in earlier, or if this is a case of your androgen levels being high still.

Yes this is good advice too. It could be that you are simply better at detecting your own body hair. Could also be that the other women in your family shave or do other forms of hair removal

Doubt it, none of them have done so. My mum does have body hair but it's mainly on the legs. Dad has some on the arms.

My arms actually used to be much less hairy. Pre-E they were, by lack of a better word, gently haired. After E the hairs started to be less noticeable between 6-10 months, but now they seem more noticeable.

Lenzetto spray, 3 doses a day, once a day. Never skipped a day.

Blood levels, not sure. Next test will be in two months, though I think I should get it much sooner (last was many months ago).

I take antiboyotics, last jab was one month ago. I get them every two to three months.

If you're not a fan of it, you can use Nair to maintain it.

I really don't know much about spray as a route of administration, nor an anti-androgen administered only once every 2 - 3 months (!?), so your HRT regime is very easy to feel skeptical towards because it's so unusual.

Blood levels would be really helpful for clarifying whether your T is sufficiently suppressed, E sufficiently high - but yeah, androgens can cause thicker darker hairs, and it's possible that's the cause.

Once I'm home (in about 2.5 hours) I'm gonna look for the blood levels. I have the results there.

I've met plenty of cis women with hairy arms. Some wax or shave it off, some don't. Just personal preference. If you want rid of it and have the cash a decent IPL machine will have decent results. I have this one.

Edit: It works as long as the hair is darker than the skin, if you have dark skin or light blonde hair it won't do much.

Hair is cyclical. I used a cheap IPL gun from Amazon to get rid of most of the thicker hair. I've used it all over my body and it has helped a lot, though I got electrolysis on my face.

But even with the "permanent" methods it's just getting rid of what's growing at that moment. Cycles of hair growth mean more pops up periodically requiring more treatment.

So, first get your hormone levels checked to avoid growing as much and then try some IPL, laser, or electrolysis if you want more reduction.

As for the anti-androgen, there are some injections on a monthly basis, or even every three months. I had something like that

I don't mean to say it's not a possibility that this is a reasonable HRT regimen, just that I'm very much unfamiliar with it (sorta meaningless, just trying to declare my ignorance and the resulting bias or uncertainty).

Just for curiosity's sake - do you know what anti-androgen was injected on a monthly or 3-monthly basis? I would really like to learn more! Was it an oil that was injected, or a pellet that was surgically implanted?

Some doctors in the US are willing to implant an estrogen pellet, and sometimes that can be done roughly on a 3-monthly schedule like that (I've heard once every 3 months, once every 6 months, once a year - so I suspect it depends on the pellet that is implanted?).

Ok, so the results are here. Last measure was August (yeah, oops... I got ill around the time I was supposed to have my next test and prolonged it).

Just before starting (March), I had 125 pmol/L for estradiol, and free T was 358.9.
By August, I had 175 pmol/L for estradiol, and free T was 30.5.

Pinging @dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone as well for this!

thanks! Looks like good T suppression - but August was a while ago, and your E was pretty low ... what anti-androgen are you taking? It could just be as simple as needing a dose adjustment on your anti-androgen, esp. because those E levels are not likely enough to suppress T on their own.

So in my case it's called decapeptyl. It's one of the most common anti-androgen prescribed in France because it has no common side effect (I mean... Apart from the ones we're actually looking for that are due to a lower T level).

I know that it's a low release formula, I don't have more details, sorry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triptorelin

omg, that is beautiful

in the US the equivalent drug is Lupron:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuprorelin

basically these drugs act by telling your brain to shut down production of sex hormones - like you said, they don't have side effects and they're pretty much perfect drugs to function as anti-androgens (at least in terms of stopping production of testosterone by the gonads) ... to my mind, it's an absolute crime that the US doesn't prescribe drugs like this to treat trans patients (they do for trans minors, but not adults), and it has everything to do with the costs of Lupron, which insurance companies don't want to cover.

Thank you so much for sharing the drug name. I'll look into the slow release formula to educate myself more!

T should be reduced a bit further to like 20ish or less to be within the normal range for cis women. Your estradiol levels are very low. Generally we aim for like 400 pmol/L when on blockers, or 800 without, so you're being massively underdosed. If they refuse to meaningfully up your dose please go somewhere else or do DIY.

I would say the issue is mainly that your estradiol dosage is low. If a higher dose of E can't help with bringing your T down then your dosage of blocker needs to be a bit higher as well, or you need to make sure it's always every two months rather than three, or something like that. I assume you're getting some kind of gnrh agonist injected.

Okay so referring back to other conversations in other posts, it's clear transfemscience is right about lenzetto, and you need something different like injections, gel, or even pills. If they give you something else please come ask us about it or check transfemscience or other resources and make sure the dosages are adequate. If they are not please go somewhere else or go DIY.

No problem, always happy to share!

And yeah when I used it it was the most expensive drug I had been on, it was 100% reimbursed, but it was around 100€ for a month. So yeah, it's just a question of money.. As usual :/

They actually upped it after that last recorded level checkup! Back then I took 2 doses, they recommended 3 after they saw it was low.

So the levels are from 2 spritzes a day? With how short the half life is I suppose it's possible 3 spritzes will make a difference but I'm not sure it will be enough.

Hey, I have used Lenzetto 3 sprays with 12.5mg of CPA every day for around six months, as per the indication of the endocrinologist.
The 3 pumps are usually not enough for proper feminization.
Estradiol levels with Lenzetto fluctuated a lot and usually stayed below 100pg/mL (<365pmol/l). It is the only treatment that is given officially in our territory, so after talking to some other transfems in my area and looking at their analysis, they all had the same problem. Some were even taking 4 pumps without much better results.
Lenzetto is just not very strong as an estradiol delivery mechanism, some of us went DIY after realizing that.
Antiandrogen seems to be working fine although like it has been pointed out it's still pretty high.

Injections are sadly not an option, with DIY it is. I dislike needles and want to avoid the liver risk w/ pills, and my skin is rather sensitive (so no patches, though those are an option), so maybe I should look into gel, then.

I upped my dose after the last measurement, so I'll get a new blood test asap. Once I get the results, I'll check if the levels are in better ranges. If not, I'll try upping to four doses myself, split into two moments a day.

The next blood test is in mid-April. If by then the results are still low, I'll switch to gel.

Is that a good idea?

They are, yes.

My antiandrogen injection is Pamorelin, 11.25 mg. One injection every 12 weeks. Also, should I best get that injection before or after the blood test (that will indicate my E and T levels)?

The Lenzetto is 1.53 mg / dose.

Injections don't have a liver risk? It is exactly as safe as gel/patches!
Gel then does sound like what you want, or a stronger spray perhaps (I think gels are just gonna be better in general than any spray)

Oops forgot to add pills in there, that's what I talked about re: the liver risk!

I picked the spray because I find it convenient for its quick drying time, but yeah.

@birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone

+1 for abandoning sprays, gels or patches would probably be better (injections are best, I understand needles are scary, I nearly faint when I get my blood drawn, but subq injections are practically painless with tiny needles - and it's definitely something you can learn to do even with crippling phobia like I have)

I scheduled another blood test, this will be in early March actually. After next week I'll see what the results are. If that yields good results, I can continue. If it's getting nearer the 400 pmol/L, but not there, I'll switch to four doses a day, split over two moments (morning and evening), until I can switch to gel.

This is because needles aren't an option here (yet), unless if you go DIY. My skin is sensitive and so patches aren't an option. Spray however dries quickly and my skin doesn't react badly to it. So, gel it is, if spray isn't effective enough.

is the spray essentially transdermal like gel?

What is the dose "per spray", and how would it compare to gel?

My skin is also sensitive, I don't think I could do patches (this is a big reason I do injections). I think I could do gel now that I'm post-op, but pre-op I really don't think it would have worked well enough for me.

The spray is transdermal, yes.

It's 1.53 mg/dose. It dries significantly faster (2 min, vs 10 min for gel).

it's possible the spray would be just as effective as gel, then - not really sure, but they're both transdermal. I don't know what doses the gel come in, and I also just don't know about how well the skin absorbs estradiol from spray vs gel - I would be really interested to learn more, though!