Susan's Place Transgender Resources

The Standards of Care for Gender Identity Disorders (https://www.susans.org/wiki/Standards_of_Care_for_Gender_Identity_Disorders) discusses the requirements for a letter recommending hormone therapy, but did you personally receive a physical letter?
Maybe you got your own letter and went around to the endocrinologist yourself.
Maybe your therapist sent a letter to an endocrinologist that they know.
Maybe they just called them up on the phone.
What was your experience?
When you moved did you ask for a physical HRT letter?
Did your therapist just contact your new endocrinologist?

I didn't vote because I had contacted my primary care doctor about starting HRT.  She knows that I am TS.  And she put me in touch with my endo.  No letter.  Of course I had already don't the 'No No' and was self medicating.  But my therapist knew I was.  He may have called, I don't know.

Janet

I was handed my HRT letter, which I then took to my doctor personally.

In contrast, although I received drafts of my SRS letters, the "official" letters were mailed directly to my surgeon by my therapist and psych.

~Kate~

My situation is rather unique.  My therapist has a combined specialty in psychiatry and endocrinology; hence, I was never referred to a different endo for HRT.  She did it all herself which certainly made things a lot easier for me.  I just wish she were my gyno too, but unfortunately I have to see someone else for that.

Shucks! we can never have "everything" in life!  ;D

tink :icon_chick:

P.S.  I didn't vote since I didn't see anything that applied to my situation.

I got my letter in hand because I asked for a copy of the one sent to the endo my therapist recommended.

The letter was not that important after the scripts were in hand  :)

hugs & smiles
Emelye

First starting out I did the whole 3 month therapy thing, got my letter in hand, gave it to the doctor. After I tried repressing it again and that didn't work (hmm, I wonder why) I started by just self-medicating (ya ya, I know). By the time I got back with a different therapist I told her I was self-medicating. She didn't give me a letter since she just referred me to an endo that didn't require one, so I went and got the prescriptions without a letter that time.

My letter was FAXed to the clinic.

Didn't see a therapist; just went to my GP and got referred to the local Endo.

I never got a HRT letter, but thats probably because i never had an endo.  Since in UK its common for therapists to also look after HRT, letters don't seem to be needed!

Though my therapist wrote to my gp asking her to prescribe my medication on the nhs, if that counts.

I don't know what a TWIMC thingie is. I went to therapy for like 4 or 5 months, she wrote me a letter to take to my endo. I waited a month then took the letter and started HRT. That was a year a few months ago :) Meghan

TWIMC = To Whom It May Concern

It means any letter intended for an unspecified recipient.
If I get a recommendation from my boss for future unspecified purposes, it would say:

QuoteTo Whom It May Concern: Renate is a fine worker. Signed, the Boss

Ok, maybe I should have broken out physically getting handed a TWIMC HRT letter
and physically getting an HRT letter specifically addressed to a specific endocrinologist.

In any case, what do you do if you move?
Get your old endo to send the records to your new endo?
Will that be sufficient?
Will you have to beat on your therapist for a new HRT letter?

After about three months, mine was physically handed to me (addressed to a specific dr.), only for it to sit around for a month before I actually got to put it to good use... ::)

Back in my day we just went to  Dr Felix Spector in Phila who wanted to grab our boobs as they grew but he sold cheap great meds . Oh he never got mine but he tried many times. I soon had him just mail them to me. I guess the rules changed since 98

Also we just got BAS and an Orchy without letters and waited until everything was done and I was living full time and passable before I would go see a therapist. They were expensive and we wanted our $ to go to something that showed results.

Way back (when Methuselah was a boy), the first helpful doctor I encountered was a gynecologist who wrote me a prescription the first day. I had been living part-time for nearly 10 years and doing DIY off and on for most of that time and he didn't want me doing DIY.

I never even saw a therapist though I did have an 'assessment' by the psychiatry dept. at the same hospital. When SRS became a possibility, they contacted the surgeon directly - I never saw the letter .... maybe it was a phone call? Whatever it was, it was enough.

My therapist gave me a letter after 4 months of seeing her weekly, but i was fairly persistent in asking her for one, since i heard stories from her other clients how she took over a year of therapy just to get a letter for hormones.  After that, It took me almost a half a year after the letter to feel like i was at a point where i was ready to take that "leap" and start better living though chemistry ;-) I'm glad I did.

Quote from: Renate on December 21, 2008, 08:31:37 PM
TWIMC = To Whom It May Concern

Mine was not To Whom It May Concern. It was specifically from my therapist to my OB/Gyn.

They called the endo and gave me a letter just encase.