Quote from: Violet Bloom on December 21, 2013, 04:19:20 PM
My doctor only wanted blood testing before AA's and a few weeks after any AA dose increase. They seem to be much more concerned about its potential health effects, particularly where blood pressure is concerned, and prefer to isolate those before moving on to the E. They also prefer not to increase both simultaneously for the same reason. They also implied that in their experience the E is somewhat wasted if the testosterone level hasn't been reduced first. Over-compensating with higher E doses can be dangerous due to blood-clot risk and can cause greater mood instability.
Any of this could be a different story if the delivery method of the doses is changed. My Spiro and Estrace are both oral. Obviously take your own doctor's advice unless you end up feeling sick or crazy.
Yeah, my endo required an initial batch of bloodwork prior to my starting HRT. I still remember what day it was when I had that test done. It was on 9/6/07. My E dose and F dose stayed the same from the start for a long time. Spiro started out at a low dose and was increased over a period of several months (maybe close to a year...I don't remember for sure.) I went off the Finasteride on August 5th, 2009 once I realized that it was a huge problem for me, causing suicidal thoughts and extreme depression. If I had stayed on that stuff I would be long dead by now. By the end of July of 09, I was sleeping 18 hours a day and I had stopped eating. I just wanted to die. But once I got off that stuff, things began to improve.
After I had my orchi on April, 13th, 2010, my dose stayed the same. Then it was in the Spring of the following year that I made the stupid mistake of asking the docs to increase my E dose and they went ahead and did it with no bloodwork at all. Needless to say they were idiots. No competent doc would do that (my current one sure as hell wouldn't have done it and she couldn't believe it once I told her about it.) Once my dosage was increased, everything went crazy. I was constantly hot, having what I thought were heart palpitations, panic attacks, etc. It was pretty screwy. It turned out that I ended up with some other weird stuff that they couldn't quite trace that just happened to hit me at the same time as when I increased the E. Now I am back on my normal dose of E and that is all good. I was also put put on a couple of meds for the other stuff and things got straightened out on that end.
Lesson learned: Go to a competent endo and not some dumb quacks at some internal medicine clinic.
