Mum and dad gave my hormones to the doctor...

[JustAnotherDreamer]

I think they will know what's right thing is if someone abuses maltreats or torments you sure you play there game when they've got the gun but the moment they don't you take there gun and sodomize them with it... Depending on the person if they are naive to the suffering they are causing this ultimate end may not be needed.

Thanks for the message, I tried replying but it won't let me?

[Janet_Girl]

Thanks for the message, I tried replying but it won't let me?

If you are talking about a PM, then you won't be able to until you are at 15 posts.

I have been watching this and as one of those who has suffered because of T-poisoning, I have been hopeful that you would have at least been give anti-androgens.

[JustAnotherDreamer]

If you are talking about a PM, then you won't be able to until you are at 15 posts.

I have been watching this and as one of those who has suffered because of T-poisoning, I have been hopeful that you would have at least been give anti-androgens.

Ohh, OK thanks.

I agree! The thought of becoming more "manlier" is pretty daunting...
As of right now i pass pretty well and luckily have very little facial hair but a lot can change in 6 months and emotionally i don't think i can deal with that.

[Lacey Lynne]

I realize I am rather extreme but I cannot believe you girls aren't horrified at the fact the OP is being expected to submit to further T-poisoning, and not only that but are actively encouraging her to lie back, accept it and be grateful for it? It boggles my mind. How many here would kill to have started a year earlier? OP had the chance and her parents stole it. To my mind that's the worst betrayal imaginable, regardless of motives.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, and I certainly respect it and you.  However, I beg to differ.

Illicit hormones and incorrect administration are apt to be far, far, far more dangerous to her than any alleged "T poisoning."  Hormones are IMMENSELY POWERFUL chemicals.  Their correct administration under competent medical guidance dispenses them very gradually in concentrations of parts-per-billion in order to effect profound changes at the microcellular level at a deliberately gradual pace, like occurs naturally in natal females during their pubescence, to ensure the safety of the patient.  These very words were spoken to me by the doctor who oversees my very own HRT.  That doctor is herself a fully-transitioned transsexual woman, by the way.  She's also one of the handful of top transsexual-transition doctors in the country.  I believe she knows what she's talking about, both by professional reputation and by having transitioned herself.

Lastly, the girl who started this thread is very young.  Even another year or two under the influence of natural testosterone in her body will not make much difference at her age.  Once she's on pharmaceutical-grade HRT under the direction of an accredited doctor at the proper dosage and frequency, her transition will proceed as marvelously and as rapidly as her genetics permit. 

What she's got going for her is youth.  Many of us on here were twice her age, or more, before we took the first dose of HRT.  I am among them.  T "poisoned" me for 54 years.  I'm doing fine!  I'm developing one hell of a hot shape, developing breasts which are starting to fill in very nicely and am very happy.  Of course, I work at staying in shape.  At my age, one has to if they want to be in good shape.

Now, if I can achieve superb results at my age, our young friend here can way, way surpass my results ... by virtue of her youth.  Her overall health takes precedence over "T poisoning."  For all intents and purposes, her parents stopped her from taking illicit dope copped over the internet.  I salute them!  That s--t could REALLY hurt her ... even kill her. 

Once she gets safe HRT given the right way by real doctors, she'll have excellent results and, I daresay, will be thrilled that she did it the right way in the future. 

Again, it's okay if you disagree.  To each their own opinion.  Peace   ...       ...   Lacey

[Tippe]

I tend to disagree. I used to be very focused on doing things the right way and I went through the Danish GIC myself, which ended up taking 23 months before I got started on HRT. I hear simmilar stories from UK women.

I wanted to go through the official route to be safe and sure and to be able to talk everything through before starting, but I found a system which explicitly wanted to observe rather than support me, a system, which officially claims their sole role is to investigate whether anything can be held against your transition and a system which expected me to repeatedly state how much I wanted to transition. Whatever doubts I had or whichever problems I encountered transitioning at school, work and in my family I found I had to hide away in order not to give them anything to hold against me. Instead of doing things in a way suiting me and with honesty I found locking myself more and more into a story, which fitted their needs. I was an actor - playing male for 27 years - but instead of setting myself free to be myself I found this observational paradigm forced me into no less of an act!
I found a system, which even though they were able to help me get a name change made sure to do it just two months late for me to start in an all-girls class with a male name and start second round of practical nurse training with the same name. I'd pretty much say that their lack of supporting my early stages of transition was responsible for a lot of the outright discrimination I faced during my first year. Imagine having to live full time for a year before even being allowed a name change?

Comparing what I've experienced since I started HRT regarding personal development and consolidation in my transition at least the first year at the clinic has been directly counterproductive to the liberation I'm seeking!
When I look back I honestly think it was stupid of me to wait those 23 months instead of getting a gyneocologist referal from the beginning and start right away.

JustAnotherDreamer in your shoes - knowing what I do now - I'd get back to the doctor and tell him that you are happy that he is pushing you forward at the clinic, but that you don't want to risk any irreversible masculinization of your body such as developing facial hair or breaking the voice, because that would make your later life more difficult. Tell him that you are intent on continuing at least spironolactone, but would appreciate having them monitor your blood levels.



Tippe

[pebbles]

I'm inclined to agree with Seven and miss Ashley Shock horror , I fundamentally disagree with the forums policy on self medicating.
I feel it is akin to the naivety of abstinence only programs.

Even if I disagree with it I understand why you all do it and I can't blame someone for covering there ass legally and not wanting to be involved. But that's not a position I can live with.

Yeah it's obvious that these things we take are markedly more dangerous than paracetamols, But if you know damn well but if you take the time to understand how your body works and know howto monitor and potentially counteract or correct for those adverse reactions when they appear and you know why they appeared. Then your probably in just as good a position as your GP or an endo.

Not only that I've felt it first hand GP's can be trans-phobic ->-bleeped-<-s. The idea that they are such perfectionists and will make you safe is laughable.
If you put this information into actual practical knowledge for someone to consume instead of throwing up unrealistic misinformation about how you will probably die if you take that stuff without a doctor watching.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Rational_scale_to_assess_the_harm_of_drugs_%28mean_physical_harm_and_mean_dependence%29.svg
Steroids on this chart could be seen as a = FTM self medding T
E is less damaging than T the reactions it causes are not as serious (ie in T there are undetectable changes to the heart, Aswell as cirrhosis risk, and blood clot risk) while E just has the blood risk, (The liver is a problem only if you adopt certain dangerous kinds of T-blocker)

Thus if E were on this Chart of illegal drugs it would come just under Alkyl nitrites on the same dependence level as Steroids grid 1,1 maybe low 1,2 yet you'd think it was up there with cocaine given how some of you talk about it. Compared to tobacco and alcohol?

[regan]

According to that chart, its less harmful then tobacco.  I respect the forum's position on not discussing self-medicating, but most people self medicating, in my experience, tend to be younger.  In my own experience, my parents health insurance paid for one after another therapist to "fix" me (I've counted no less then 4 times between 13 and 18 that I came out to my parents).  There's absolutely no way I could have used their insurance benefits to do things my way (the right way?).  Being a poor college student and having to pay everything out of pocket, what other choice could I have made?

The fact is we're not making transition any more affordable, just forcing people to mature as the wrong gender longer until they can afford to work within the system.  People self medicate becuase they don't have any other choice.  There's less gatekeeping going on now, but it is still a stong part of the community.

[pebbles]

Actually it's about AS harmful as tobacco it's just considerably less addictive.

[Tippe]

I tend to think the only reason transsexual threatment requires a psychiatric diagnosis is because transition itself is not seen as a normal thing to do in society. If transition was seen as a perfectly sane choice one could make just as well as for example the choice of educational path one takes or the life style one leads then it wouldn't matter why the transsexuals made that choice.

As a health care professional I obviously cannot advice people to self-medicate, however I do find it my duty to provide reliable information regarding the available threatments and their risks so that people may be able to make informed decissions and so that those who are not able to get threatment any other way are able to do it the safest way possible.

As for arguments to present to the doctor, here is a recent meta-analysis including 28 studies

Murad MH, Elamin MB, Garcia MZ,  Mullan RJ, Murad A, Erwin PJ, Montori VM. Hormonal Therapy and Sex Reassignment: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Quality of Life and Psychosocial Outcomes. Clinical Endocrinology, 2010;72(2):214-231. URL: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/716446

It states among others:

"Psychiatric Comorbidities

Pooling across studies shows that after sex reassignment, 78% of individuals with GID reported significant improvement in psychiatric symptoms (95% CI = 56–94%; 7 studies; I 2 = 86%). This proportion in the MF subgroup is 70% (33–96%) and in the FM subgroup is 84% (73–92%).
(...)
Quality of Life

Pooling across studies shows that after sex reassignment, 80% of individuals with GID reported significant improvement in quality of life (95% CI = 0·72–0·88; 16 studies; I 2 = 78%). This proportion in the MF subgroup is 84% (68–95%) and in the FM subgroup is 78% (67–87%)."


Now if the doctor tells you he don't know enough about how to monitor you an  overview can be found in page 17 of this excellent guide

Endocrine Therapy for Transgender Adults in British Columbia: Suggested Guidelines
http://transhealth.vch.ca/resources/library/tcpdocs/guidelines-endocrine.pdf



Tippe

[spacial]

That PDF guide looks excellent. Thank you. Bookmarked

[Miniar]

Anabolic Steroids are not the same thing as internally produced testosterone.
Not even to you girls.

And no matter how closely you keep tabs on your own body, you aren't in the same position as a doctor looking at a blood-test giving him the clear view of exactly how much Estrogen and Testosterone are running through your veins.
You are in a completely different position, one that gives you a chance to spot changes in your being quite easily, but one that is biased, too close to be objective.
You can't change the numbers from your bloodtest by thinking about them, but you can change how you see the changes you feel by thinking about them.

It's easy to convince yourself you're not doing harm when you're actually doing something you really want to do.
Smokers do it every single day. ("I don't have cancer! My grandfather smoked every day and he lived to be 90!"... cough cough spit)
They do it out of a strong addictive "need" to keep smoking.

We "need" our hormones. We do. I understand that.
That's one of the big reasons why I understand the move to self medicate. I even considered it at one point, specifically, the moment after I was told I'd have to do 1 full year of hrt before T.

I do not agree with taking away the OP's hormones cold turkey as such. I think it's a poorly thought out move. That the desperation for hrt is clear and that the doctor is doing her a disservice by just saying "no".
I sincerely believe that this should set off an alarm in the system, since if she's done it once, she's likely to do it again, and that the safest thing to do is to get her into a "monitored" hrt program.

But that desperation is also a clear sign that she can not monitor her own status and wellbeing from an objective standpoint.
I honestly doubt any of us can.

Our lives are so heavily, emotionally invested in our transition and every little feeling of forward progress in that aspect is like a great battle won.
So if we were to begin to feel slight adverse effects, we might ignore them, thinking "it's not bad enough to be causing harm" or something to that effect. If we were to begin to feel more serious adverse effects, we might find ourselves thinking "I'll see if it clears up" rather than to stop taking our precious hormones.
We "need" them.

We can not possibly look at what we need, with such emotion, and hope to overcome that need for sake of objectively monitoring our own health.

That's the biggest reason it's dangerous to DIY.

[Tippe]

It's easy to convince yourself you're not doing harm when you're actually doing something you really want to do.
Smokers do it every single day. ("I don't have cancer! My grandfather smoked every day and he lived to be 90!"... cough cough spit)
They do it out of a strong addictive "need" to keep smoking.

Miniar, given that some people smoke, some people self-medicate and some do both, would you consider it best for them to know of transdermals as an alternative to orals or would you consider it better for them to have no information about administration and dosages leaving them up to experiment?

We "need" our hormones. We do. I understand that.
That's one of the big reasons why I understand the move to self medicate. I even considered it at one point, specifically, the moment after I was told I'd have to do 1 full year of hrt before T.

i've heard stories about the Danish GIC taking away peoples hormones to test them or to keep them in contact with the clinic even after diagnosis and referal has been made. I find it hard to believe such stories, but should this occur to me you can be certain I'll find my way around!

I sincerely believe that this should set off an alarm in the system, since if she's done it once, she's likely to do it again, and that the safest thing to do is to get her into a "monitored" hrt program.

Agree.

So if we were to begin to feel slight adverse effects, we might ignore them, thinking "it's not bad enough to be causing harm" or something to that effect. If we were to begin to feel more serious adverse effects, we might find ourselves thinking "I'll see if it clears up" rather than to stop taking our precious hormones.
We "need" them.

It might also be that if HRT is part of a diagnostic program - or the program leading up to SRS - as is the case in many GIC's one would not tell the doctor about side-effects in order to not look like you dislike the hormones. In Danish law you specifically have to 'feel good' on your hormones so ofcourse I don't speak about minor side-effects such as flatulence and feeling tired at times. I'd think I'd be more open if I'd seen a private non-GIC doctor. And I'd feel more safe too, because my next appointment with this national hospital doctor is scheduled seven months away, which I find quite a long time without labs, but officially this is the only department allowed to provide HRT to transsexuals in Denmark meaning I'd better stick up with that until I get my surgery permit...
I guess I'll be ordering my own tests midway in this period to have a little more feeling of what's going on.

Then when I've acted long enough to get the permit I am free to switch to another doctor who will follow me more closely and I am free to start actually working on getting myself psychologically ready for the procedure, which shows how unfortunate this system is, because if I was acting male for 27 years before I started transition then of course I can act female for let's say three years until I get the permit. But if acting is required to get it then that means that openness is only allowed after I've got it. Now in that case what was the point of forcing me to act for those years instead of being open to discussion in a system respecting that the final decission is to be made by me anyway? The diagnostic period is really just a vaste of time then, which is why I also find my personal development started to occur only after I was allowed to have my hormones. I'm not fund of gatekeepers, because of the effect they have on our openness and honesty. Effects that are realized in lots of litterature. People need to have the freedom to choose themselves and the information permitting them to do so!



Tippe

[Janet_Girl]

   Enough

the rules here stated we do not allow talk about DIY HRT.

It is dangerous and can lead to death.  Yes people do it but that does not mean it is right.

Seven if you decide that you will argue with Minar, be advise Min is a moderator.

Re-reading  the rules is advised.

[Miniar]

Miniar, given that some people smoke, some people self-medicate and some do both, would you consider it best for them to know of transdermals as an alternative to orals or would you consider it better for them to have no information about administration and dosages leaving them up to experiment?

I feel that if a person feels compelled to forge their own path, they should do so with every scrap of information they could possibly get their hands on.

Preferably from a medical standard source.

Miniar: your arrogance is excessive. Who are you to tell anyone that an emotionally charged decision that puts one's life at risk is to be ignored? Regardless of how one comes to a decision, it is always his/her decision and his/her right to act upon it. That includes when the decision can be outright harmful - as in the case of smoking.

Regardless of how "benevolent" you think your beliefs are, when they start impeding the rights of others to do whatever they please with their bodies and lives, you're no better than any tyrant. Degree is irrelevant, as are intentions.

You might want to re-read the post.

I am not suggesting the decision be ignored. I even specifically spoke against denying her the continuing of the decision and suggested that the a more appropriate decision from the doc would have been to get her into a monitored program rather than take them away.

Nor are my beliefs in any way impeding anyone's decisions.
I am in no position to impede anyone's decisions, all I can do is explain how I see things and try and offer advice.

In case you missed my beliefs, the simplest and shortest version would be "hormone replacement therapy should preferably be done with a doctor that can accurately monitor your hormone levels for the sake of avoiding unnecessary problems"
In no way does that mean that a person should be forced to stop once they've started themselves, nor that they should be forced to wait any longer than appropriate for the individual situation.

I do not appreciate being called arrogant and a tyrant for something I have not said at all.
I am a very literal person. When I write my posts, I write what I mean as accurately as possible without adding or subtracting anything. I admit I'm dead tired today and so an error or two in the post is possible, if not likely, but that doesn't mean I'm saying something so completely different than what I have written.

Disagree with me all you want, but then disagree with what I've actually said.
Dislike me all that you want, but do it for something I've actually said and done.
Either way, name-calling's still against the site-rules.

[pebbles]

  Enough

the rules here stated we do not allow talk about DIY HRT.

Are you actually serious? I mean I understand you not permitting dosages or the proliforation of information that could be used to facilitate self-medication but not even permitting any discussion on the topic.

Pathetic absolutely Pathetic.
I however I should point out I disagree with Seven using personal emotive attacks against Minar but I still think that sevan has a point about the indivdual having final say in control over there bodily domain.

I thought this was a support site for all all our TS siblings not just those who's methods of transition you personally agree with.

[Janet_Girl]

Are you actually serious? I mean I understand you not permitting dosages or the proliforation of information that could be used to facilitate self-medication but not even permitting any discussion on the topic.

Pathetic absolutely Pathetic.
I however I should point out I disagree with Seven using personal emotive attacks against Minar but I still think that sevan has a point about the indivdual having final say in control over there bodily domain.

I thought this was a support site for all all our TS siblings not just those who's methods of transition you personally agree with.

I understand why many do it, but it can be dangerous.

[Tippe]

I feel that if a person feels compelled to forge their own path, they should do so with every scrap of information they could possibly get their hands on.

Preferably from a medical standard source.

Exactly my point. I think a moderated space specifically to share high quality, well-referenced guidelines such as the ones from British Columbia would be great. A new one should have recently been developed in Amsterdam, but I haven't got my hand on it yet.
An abbundance of rubbish is floating around in the net, therefore those of us in access of reliable sources should take it upon ourselves to share them.

I am not suggesting the decision be ignored. I even specifically spoke against denying her the continuing of the decision and suggested that the a more appropriate decision from the doc would have been to get her into a monitored program rather than take them away.

Miniar, I'm sorry about the rant you suffered. To me you came across as a person honestly worried, in the best intent, of those not having proper blood monitoring. From professional experience I don't think your approach was the right to make people rethink their choices - for instance curiously the most efficient way to make patients cut down on pain medication abuse has proven to be to give themselves more autonomy and empowerment rather than to control it by staff - but you are entitled to your opinion and I think you presented it calmly and maturely.



Tippe

[Catherine]

Thanks for all your replies!
My appointment went okay...well, apart from the fact i fainted and had a little "fit" whilst the nurse was taking my blood..
Sooo yeah, The Doctor is getting my gender clinic appointment moved forward, Which is pretty cool
Maybe i won't be waiting forever?! ....

Dont expect to get your appointment moved. You maybe lucky and get a cancellation but they are seriously busy at charring cross

[pebbles]

I understand why many do it, but it can be dangerous.

Of course it can be, So we have to provide accurate and non-misleading information about those hazards and allow an individuals at the end of the day to make an informed choice and respect that they made that choice with all the facts for themselves regardless of whether we would have picked that path or not.

[Keroppi]

Janet: am I to understand the implication to be that certain people are on a pedestal so high their opinions are considered inviolable?

When an administrator of a forum is stating the rules of the forum, then no it's not an opinion, but yes it shall be inviolable.

I understand the opinion that since people are going to self med anyway, then let's provide the information for them to do it more safely. However, since most posters are not actual experts, anything they state are at best hearsay. Medical treatment based on hearsay are just dangerous since an user of such information have no way of judging whether the information they read is any good or not. As such, as a general rule, it is only responsible to actively discourage self medication while not condemning people who do due to their personal choice and circumstances.