Susan's Place Transgender Resources

My doctor gave me a blood test. The results came back, but she wasn't the one to call me or tell me what they meant. It was just a nurse. So she had no clue what anything was, and she wasn't in the mood to help either. But she said, estradiol is high, estrone is really high, testosterone is high, o wait I mean low. Its low. (that's how she said it too)

And then she gave me these numbers (without units mind you) and that was it. She said she'll let my doctor know I would like to talk to her. But what do I do till then? These numbers look wack. I'm worried about the estrone being 798, and the estradiol  only being 131. And I don't get why they used male ranges to test me when my driver license, insurance info, and name clearly all say female. Cause now I don't even know the healthy female ranges according to this lab's system. 

estradiol 131              1-40
estrone 798                10-60

Testosterone 41          240-950

Your estradiol and T levels look fine. Try not to worry :)

They look OK. But they also depend on so many other factors, are you on implants, pills, etc. What was the previous, one off results mean little, it is the trend that is important
Also your LFT and SHBG etc..

They use the male range because you are being adapted from male to female. Your body mass and physiology is that of a male.

Our physiology will remain largely male as FtM remain largely female.

For example my blood volume etc will not change and most of my blood pic will not change to the female normal range.

From a pathology point of view I personally like results for trans people as as XY female or XX male. To me when I get those results I know that (for example) the woman I'm looking at has a normal range for people with an XY driven physiology etc.

Cindy

Hi Hippo,

I might suggest if this is the attitude of your doctor, you need to change. I hope you didn't pay them. What you were subjected to is well below any duty of care practice.

Is this your HRT dispensing health professional?

@ girl you look fierce. No 800 E1 is not too high, considering a 3rd trimester woman can be in excess of 10,000.

Huggs
Catherine

Don't worry if a nurse calls you and gives you the info on the phone. Worry when they won't give you the info on the phone but tells you to come into the office.

Thanks everyone for answering. Yeah I'm on estradiol pills. I'm just going to wait till my doctor gets back. Shes apparently having health problems of her own. I'm also supposed to get in to see an endo soon too. My appointment isn't till April 23rd though. But hopefully my current doctor who is just a GP will get better soon and be able to give me an idea on if my levels are fine.

Quote from: girl you look fierce on March 14, 2013, 10:00:18 AM
They put me as F on my blood tests (Idk why actually, my legal documents all say M) but it has not been a big issue! Well anyway you want to get in female ranges, at least sex hormones. 800 E1 is too high for anyone isn't it??

IDK what the normal E1 levels are... but E2 is kinda on the low/normal side of conventional mtf treatment as far as what I've read. T is fine... a little higher than what I would want mine to be at personally... but a girl is easily in normal range when she's at 40. My tests show normal female ranges of T to range form 4-48.

BTW my tests have only female ranges and show my gender as female too... even though my sex hasn't been legally changed (has M on my license).

Everything I read was like 5-85. That's what it was with my last doctor too. Girl I hope you get that under control... eventually that stuff will change the way you look....

Quote from: Cindy James on March 14, 2013, 03:55:10 AM
They look OK. But they also depend on so many other factors, are you on implants, pills, etc. What was the previous, one off results mean little, it is the trend that is important
Also your LFT and SHBG etc..

They use the male range because you are being adapted from male to female. Your body mass and physiology is that of a male.

Our physiology will remain largely male as FtM remain largely female.

For example my blood volume etc will not change and most of my blood pic will not change to the female normal range.

From a pathology point of view I personally like results for trans people as as XY female or XX male. To me when I get those results I know that (for example) the woman I'm looking at has a normal range for people with an XY driven physiology etc.

Cindy

No they use the male ranges because they're incompetent and lazy.

The goal range for transgender people is generally on the order of hormonal levels that are congruent with the gender of identification. Using the gender of identification reference ranges makes it much easier to follow that, otherwise the test results will flag the levels EVERY time regardless of if things are ok or not. Our physiology is not male, or female, it is human.

This is not rocket science, if memory serves you work in medicine so you ought to know that.

A great many of us have our blood work done using the target gender reference ranges, it's really not that big a deal.  ::)

Body masses vary tremendously from person to person and we don't suddenly flip someones reference ranges to F when they're M just because the male happens to be a relatively small person.  ::)

It is not an EXACT science but there is absolutely no good reason not to, and in fact some good rational to using the gender of identification reference ranges

EDIT: Oh and to the original poster, it's lacking a big in information but from a glance I don't think the estradiol and testosterone levels are something to worry about following female ranges.... the estrone seems rather high but I'm much less familiar with the estrone reference ranges, I haven't seen it tested for very frequently.