Blood Test Advise (Questions)

[Deborah]

I just got my blood test results, this time a couple of weeks in advance of my endo appointment.  So, I have a couple of questions to prepare myself with some information before I have that appointment.

These are my relevant values.
Estradiol 187 pg/ml
Testosterone Less than 3 ng/dl
Test Free 0.8 pg/ml

Estradiol is up about 30 from last time.  I was considering asking to change to injections rather than pills but I'm now thinking that is not really necessary.  This blood was drawn five hours after my morning pills so I think my level is high enough.  I'm doing a morning evening split dose now.  Any thoughts?

I think testosterone is too low, down from 19 six months ago.  It probably explains why I have been tired for a couple of months.  Im thinking I could ask to reduce my spiro by 1/4 to 1/2.  (I doubled it a year ago). Has anyone else reduced spiro like that?  What happened to your T levels?

[Yes, I am generally happy with how things are progressing except for the excess tiredness.]

[Anne Blake]

Hello Deborah,

I can't tell you a thing about blood numbers, being as I have yet to get post hrt testing done (doc wants to wait another couple more months for the first blood test). But I am really curious about the answers from some of the others in site that have walked this road. The injections are of particular interest to me, just for the purpose of taking out the toll that e pills place on our digestive organs. Any thoughts on this?

On your T levels, I had been taking T shots for a few years trying to get my levels under control (and finally gave up on it 6 months ago). The blood test folks and lots of anecdotal web and web MD sites suggest that the uncertainty levels of T measurement is huge. Time of day, sample to sample and exercise levels can shift it between 15% and 40%.

Anne

[Deborah]

Hello Deborah,

I can't tell you a thing about blood numbers, being as I have yet to get post hrt testing done (doc wants to wait another couple more months for the first blood test). But I am really curious about the answers from some of the others in site that have walked this road. The injections are of particular interest to me, just for the purpose of taking out the toll that e pills place on our digestive organs. Any thoughts on this?

On your T levels, I had been taking T shots for a few years trying to get my levels under control (and finally gave up on it 6 months ago). The blood test folks and lots of anecdotal web and web MD sites suggest that the uncertainty levels of T measurement is huge. Time of day, sample to sample and exercise levels can shift it between 15% and 40%.

Anne

According to my endo. As long as you start out healthy, internal problems from oral E are not really an issue and they had not seen anyone develop any problems.  My blood tests seem to support this and are all still normal.

On T, it can vary but mine has shown a steady decline.

Start 826 ng/dl
3 mo 175
9 mo 119. Then I doubled the spiro
14 mo 19
Now at 19 months <3

So I'm not really seeing evidence in my case for a lot of daily variance as the values are continually decreasing as expected.    Since they have decreased to essentially zero, and I can physically feel that, I think so much spiro may no longer be needed.  I'm just not sure if that will cause a big rebound.

[Anne Blake]

Hello Deborah, thanks for the lessons on numbers and risks. I can hardly wait for my first rounds of numbers but that is still a couple of months away. Doc wants to wait until ~4 months. Transitioning sure is a waiting game but it has so much excitement along the way.

Good luck with your appointment. Anne