So I went to my pharmacy and they are out of my hormones. They won't be getting in a shipment of them until around the 17th of this month, maybe later.
I only have enough left to last me until the fourteenth. 

I can't get to another pharmacy because all the other pharmacies are miles away from my house, and I have to walk to my pharmacy because I don't have a car right now, and that's already like a mile and a half away.

I have been making beyond fast progress on HRT, I'm getting results in only like 25 days that take a lot of girls years to get. I went from WAY beyond ugly to pretty darn gorgeous in less than a month, and I STILL have progress to make. And that's the part that scares me... if I'm making fast progress while on HRT, doesn't that mean that once my hormones are stopped my body will regress and re-masculinize very quickly.?


I'm just so scared.:/ If I'm completely honest with myself, I'm nothing without my hormones. I was so ugly and undesirable and self-loathing before I started hormones. I CAN'T go back to that, for the first time in my life I'm actually happy.

Consider that before surgeries a lot of doctors ask you to pause hormones as well. Many have gone through this and usually that is 2-6 weeks - so 3 days wont hurt you, I am sure of it. But maybe they could give you a replacement, if you are really worried? Where do you live that a pharmacy has delivers times of almost 2 weeks???

Hi Sage,

Two days will not hurt you. Trans woman go off hormones weeks prior and post GCS.

A few days or even a few weeks shouldn't have much effect.

I started HRT at 17 and my GP took me off of HRT at about age 45 because of the 'perceived risks' of long-term HRT. By the time  I was 50 my body had masculinized quite a bit and I had osteoporosis. A new endocrinologist immediately put me back on HRT and I have beat the osteoporosis with calcium and exercise but I will never get back the nice curves I once had. That took 5 years!

You'll be fine.

You'll be fine, there have been a few periods where I have stopped, and upto 3 weeks and had no medical or visible problems.
But it plays on you because of the disturbed routine... That was my only issue...

L Katy 

I actually stopped voluntarily for 6 weeks last year because I switched hormone therapy and wanted to normalize my hormone system before restarting again - In some ways it was actually better than the wrong hormone therapy before (with tablets). I did not become more male looking at all, actually I feminized a bit because I lost some water retention, I had before.

Yes, you should be fine. I also had very fast results (visible breast growth by 5 days in, visible curves within a few weeks) and had to stop for 3 weeks for GRS. Nothing happened except that I was super cranky and had some hot flashes, And everything picked up right where I left off when I resumed.

A few days shouldn't be a issue physically and hopefully with only a month on hrt you won't suffer to much on the emotional side. That's usually the short term problem with stopping.

You will be fine but might start to feel like crap. The results take a while to regress though.

I'm in the same situation where my results have been breakneckingly fast but I had to pause a bit, and nothing happened. A few hot flashes, and feeling down in the dumps, oily skin and it started to get rough again. I have to pause again for surgery in a few weeks. Looking forward to the surgery result but not looking forward to stopping.

Quote from: PsychedelicSage on May 10, 2015, 01:59:19 PM
So I went to my pharmacy and they are out of my hormones. They won't be getting in a shipment of them until around the 17th of this month, maybe later.
I only have enough left to last me until the fourteenth. 

I can't get to another pharmacy because all the other pharmacies are miles away from my house, and I have to walk to my pharmacy because I don't have a car right now, and that's already like a mile and a half away.

I have been making beyond fast progress on HRT, I'm getting results in only like 25 days that take a lot of girls years to get. I went from WAY beyond ugly to pretty darn gorgeous in less than a month, and I STILL have progress to make. And that's the part that scares me... if I'm making fast progress while on HRT, doesn't that mean that once my hormones are stopped my body will regress and re-masculinize very quickly.?


I'm just so scared.:/ If I'm completely honest with myself, I'm nothing without my hormones. I was so ugly and undesirable and self-loathing before I started hormones. I CAN'T go back to that, for the first time in my life I'm actually happy.

We have the exact same waist-hip ratio, except my hips are 38.  That's kinda cool. 

ANYWAY, I went through the exact same thing.  It sucks soooo bad; I definitely feel for you.

But, it might also help to know what specifically is going on with your body during a transition.  That is, a lot of your body's cells have already started accepting estrogen by way of your HRT, and in three days' time, maybe only a few of them will "let go" of that estrogen.  Once you resume HRT, these cells will be very attuned to receiving estrogen again because they will have just let go of it (hope that makes sense).

Additionally, there's this nifty, confusing little mechanism called "half-life", which effectively makes ridding of all medication in your body anything but immediate. 

So, think of it this way: Some post-menopausal women have been without estrogen for quite some time.  But they can potentially turn pretty foxy again after initiating HRT, right?

Personally, in order to combat this problem, I've learned to get to know a lot of trans women in my state, and we definitely give each other "back-up" hormones should someone be faced with such a dilemma.  I also found myself asking an informed consent clinic provider for a second prescription of the same regimen -- sent to another pharmacy -- since it's impossible to rely on one provider around here for something this unorthodox. 

But you seem to live in true BFE.  I wish you luck, and I'm here for you, as I know how tough this must be.

Ally

The half-life of estradiol is 13-17 hours, and for spiro metabolites the half-life is around 11 hours, so there's a sense that the treatment will not even be fully out of your system by the time you pick up the next prescription (as the decay isn't linear).

For such a short period of time, I wouldn't worry about it!

Well to be completely honest with you guys I'm DIY..:/

!!!! I DO NOT CONDONE DIY. IT CAN BE DANGEROUS AND THE ONLY REASON I DO IT IS BECAUSE I HAVE NO OTHER OPTION. IF YOU ARE IN ANY WAY ABLE TO GET HORMONES PRESCRIBED AND HAVE THE FINANCES TO BUY THEM FROM YOUR LOCAL PHARMACY AND BE CHECKED BY DOCTORS AND ENDOS, PLEASE DO THAT INSTEAD OF DIY !!!!

I don't have a choice actually, it's either DIY or no hormones at all for me, and the benefits far, far outweigh the risks in my situation because if I didn't get on hormones when I did, I honestly probably would have attempted suicide, because I was thinking about it. DIY literally saved my life. Before I got my hormones and was trying to be a man when I wasn't, my life was beyond awful. I was miserable. I literally looked disfigured. I had no friends or even acquaintances. Nobody talked to me unless they absolutely had to. I had accounts on dating sites and literally never received one reply from anyone after around two years of using dating sites and messaging countless people. I was unwanted and a reject. In everyone's eyes except for my parents', I did not exist. I was nothing. I hardly had enough confidence to even look at myself in the mirror, I was completely housebound except for work because I hated being where people could see me. I hated taking pictures of myself or even seeing my reflection. I hated my body, it was disgusting and full of muscles and broad shoulders and tiny hips and flat chest and a flat butt.

Now I love myself and can do anything and have tons of friends!<3 I'm beyond confident now. I'm gorgeous now and constantly have people flirting with me for the first time in my life and I actually have a chance of having a decent relationship or even getting married someday. And things will only get better from here, because I've only been on hormones for a little over a month and still have a long way to go and a lot more changes to go through.

Anywho. It isn't possible for me to get hormones prescribed. I have looked at every possible way to get them prescribed and I'm unable to do any of it.

My insurance won't cover any gender therapist in the country no matter what the circumstances. And even if they did there are none anywhere near me and my dad wouldn't drive me. And a gender therapist would make me wait months or even years to even be in the same room as hormones, and would force me to live as a woman before hormones, which was not possible for me before hormones because I looked WAY beyond disgusting and had a ridiculously masculine body and face. If I tried to dress as a woman like that, I would literally have looked like one of those big WWE wrestlers who wear the skimpy spandex tank tops lol. Like if I showed you girls a picture of what I looked like before hormones, probably a lot of you would laugh no matter how sweet you are and say, "That THING could never even begin to look like a woman!" 

My dad won't drive me to the informed consent clinic in the city and none of my friends can drive me that far. A taxi ride just one way to the informed consent clinic from where I live would cost at least $90, so I would be spending like $200 in taxi fare alone, and that's not including tips. About half of a month's salary for me. There are no buses where I live (the nearest buses in the next few towns over don't even go near the city anyway), and the nearest train station is a three to four hour walk away, and I'm not even sure about that. I've actually never even seen a train station in my life, so it's probably even farther away than that. Not to mention I don't even know how to take a bus or train. Or even a taxi, for that matter. I've never even been in or near any of those.

My insurance refuses to cover my hormones. And I have looked to see if they cover hormones for menopausal women, because if they did I was going to report them. But they won't cover those either because they obviously don't care one bit about their customers. All they care about is robbing people of their money when they hardly cover anything. Changing my insurance is not an option because I'm still under my dad's insurance until I'm like 26 and I can't afford my own medical insurance and won't be able to until after I finish college at the very soonest, and that's assuming I get a good paying job immediately after college.

If I got my hormones prescribed and paid for them in full here, they would cost me around $160 for a one month's supply. Which is a big deal, because I only make $400 a month from my job and that would be nearly half of that month's salary. I hardly make enough to support myself right now, which is saying something, because I still live at home. Getting a better paying job is not an option, because in my town, to get ANY job above minimum wage, you have to have a college degree. And since I don't have a car my work has to be within a mile of my house, because I have to walk.

From where I do get my hormones, a one month supply costs me around half that price, and that's including shipping.

Just my hormones did not ship when they were supposed to, that's the truth.
Thankfully they finally arrived in the US a few days ago and just need to go through customs, so they should come soon.

I did run out of estradiol today, but I started cutting my spiro in half and taking half of a dose, so it should last me a couple more days.

I apologize for not being honest from the start, just DIY is looked down upon so much on here. 
I do get my bloodwork done often though.

My experience getting a letter has been different, and perhaps I had unusually fortunate circumstances, but maybe you're a little pessimistic in your outlook.

I didn't go to a gender therapist, just a regular therapist who was sympathetic and wrote me a letter, through which I was able to see an endo and get hormones for gender dysphoria, all covered by insurance.  The psychologist used the new DSM for the diagnosis and letter, which did not require me having lived any time as my intended gender.

Actually, I'm not being pessimistic at all, just realistic.:p I am VERY good at finding loopholes and ways around things, and the only solution I have found is DIY.

Thank you for the tip, but my therapist already knows I'm DIY. I told him that I'm really concerned about my hormones shipping so late and told him why I couldn't get them prescribed, but he didn't really say anything and didn't offer to write me a letter or prescription or anything at all. He has very little experience with transgender patients anyway, I believe that he told me he's only had two in his like ten years of being a psychologist, other than me. So the chance that he would give me a letter is almost zero.

My insurance doesn't see gender dysphoria as a something that needs any medication or medical care either, so they don't cover it. They just don't care about their customers.

My insurance doesn't pay for estradiol either but I just get them from Walmart. $10 is what it costs per refill, 90 pills. 30 pills are $4. It's way less than what I'd pay at an online pharmacy.

Also once I started being monitored properly and dosed correctly my results really took off.  Really see if you can find a way to get to a clinic. Trust me it's worth it. Self medding is an easy way out but all it takes is one hiccup such as a delayed order or customs seizure and you're left without it.

Some of the clinics bill sliding scale for people without adequate insurance.

Quote from: PsychedelicSage on May 10, 2015, 01:59:19 PM


I have been making beyond fast progress on HRT, I'm getting results in only like 25 days that take a lot of girls years to get. I went from WAY beyond ugly to pretty darn gorgeous in less than a month, and I STILL have progress to make.

Wow!! That's powerful stuff you're on!

I really have no way at all of getting to a clinic. 

Ohh I forgot about Walmart ! I didn't know they carried hormones.

The only way there's even a slight chance my dad would drive me that far is if I threatened to kill myself if he refused.
I won't actually try to kill myself now (but my dad doesn't know that). I don't think I'll be suicidal again if my hormones get seized because I bought a hormone supplement on Amazon that apparently has been giving transgender women (and a bisexual man who wanted breasts) surprisingly good results, and it should at least keep me looking how I do now and stop me from regressing and getting ugly again.

Hahaha no actually, I'm just on Progynova and Spiro. xD I won't discuss dosages here because it's against the rules. But I guess I just have a sensitivity to estrogen and testosterone blockers, so the supplement I bought should give me somewhat decent results.

I've been taking a third of my dose of estradiol and a fourth of my dose of spiro for like the past five days to make them last a little longer.

I'm just so sad. I started budding yesterday (my last dose of estrogen) but today since I wasn't able to take my estrogen they're not budding nearly as much.:/

But it looks like that if customs does seize my hormones, I have a backup plan. I posted on a social networking site saying I'll pay someone $150 to drive me to the informed consent clinic if I can't get my hormones anymore  and a girl offered to so I should be good even if my hormones get seized. So I'm okay now lol I'm done freaking out for the most part.  but I still feel absolutely awful with all this testosterone in my system.