I was on patches at first, then switched to oral estradiol, taken sublingually. When I mentioned to my doctor that I had drooled pn myself and spit blue on the sidewalk once or twice, she said "You can just swallow the damn pills, Devlyn, you're getting plenty of estrogen."
These things aren't critical, we make too much of them. It isn't a maximum overdose of E that gets the job done, it's long-term exposure to it. 🙂