I'm not an expert, but I think the information is correct. And I also think that over time your body just starts producing less and less T. Now, that's in my case, but I don't know about other people. I have a few friends who had their T levels dropped a bit.
My T-levels when starting spiro liked to hang around 3-4, and then my spiro dose was cut in half after seven months, and my levels went down to 2.5, and then after a couple of months they went down to 0.5 and have been for the last six months. I don't know the latest results of my test (I find out on friday), but I don't expect them to be higher. But I'm really interesting to see if a change has happened and if things have balanced out a bit since we stopped progesterone. If it's too whacky, I might have to go back on it again. So, yeah, I've been through a few different HRT mixes to try to balance my hormones.
Now, one thing I should mention, which my doctor and I were talking about is that the T they test is free T in the blood, and some people can have a higher level of T in their bodies but that doesn't mean that the Spiro isn't working -- the spiro blocks the T from binding to the receptors, so you can have free T in your blood but it's not going binding to anything.
There is another test that can be done to see if anything is binding. It's a more involved test than the Free Androgen test, but my doctor usually doesn't do it unless the person isn't feminizing. And that can be an issue of biology rather than the amount of medications. For some people, very little happens while others seem to have a lot of changes (it has to do with how many estrogen receptors you have). It's not very common, but in some cases people have the biology where the E doesn't bind at all, or the anti-androgen doesn't work. Only know of two people that this happened, too. For one girl, surgery fixed the problem and she blossomed after that. The other girl hasn't has surgery, but her anti-androgens like to stop working after a few months, so they have to cycle them since her body ends up some how blocking the anti-androgen from working some how or something like that. Again, this is rare, and that's why it's important to talk to your doctor about different changes you notice, and she/he can look at your levels and run a lot of different tests and be able to know what's going on. But remember, people go through growth spurts, so sometimes you might feel that your breasts have stopped growing for a couple of weeks, and then all of a sudden start again. It's common.
My endro said that the Estrogen plays a role in stopping the system from producing T. It also depends on your biology and how much your body already produces. Some people will produce more T than others.
One of my friends started taking tons and tons of spiro, for example, and her T levels weren't going down much (they were kind of high). She was confused (and so was her GP) until she also talked to the Endro and he said that she was fooling herself in thinking the Spiro will drop the levels, because it's just blocking it, it doesn't necessarily drop it. He then upped her E dose and her T levels went down to around 12, I think? Although it's slightly higher than the scale we use (F scale in our paper work is 0.5 to 8.5 or something like that), that doesn't mean that the spiro isn't blocking the T from binding.
So, basically, the moral of the story is not to get too caught up on T levels when you get your blood tested. The most important thing is that if you're feminizing or not. And, believe it or not, lower T levels -- like say, a 0.5 -- isn't as good as it sounds. You need a bit of T in your system for certain things. And if you have very low T for a long time and none if is binding to anything, it could cause health risks in the long run (yay me!).
And related, is the E levels. E levels that are higher don't always mean better. Mine keep loving to spike up and up despite being on the same dose (when I first started HRT my base level was 150, then it jumped to 250 after starting HRT, and on my last test it was at 1080), but my body only takes what it needs and the rest just goes through the liver, is turned into other hormones, and the rest is expelled from your system. The other risk with too high of E is that it could cause health problems in the long run. (yay me again!)
My doctor put it this way: Levels are checked to check your health and see how your body is taking the hormones, but the goal if feminization, not levels. Also, everyone body is different, so comparing levels isn't a good measure. Nor is comparing how fast one is feminizing to another person. Comparing too much can led to egos and broken hearts when really, we're all in this together.
--Natalie
