I'm now of the opinion, after testing this regimen for a year (by next August), that cycling your estrogen and progesterone (if taking it) to mimic the menstrual cycle of a natal woman is what causes the development to occur. The other thing I did was go sublingual. I have to take in consideration that my stomach is not like the average person, where I do not eat things like the average person does (I am vegan) nor drink much of anything other than water (I haven't done sodas on a regular basis since 1993 - meaning I was told to drink sprite with crackers to keep me from getting sick while in recovery from my orchie, and stopped drinking alcohol for health reasons over a year ago). I have a very clean G.I. tract, and that might be causing it to just destroy the estradiol to a great extent. I'm keeping most of the development even after 8 days of base line levels.
I had reached a point where on the dosage I was on for years, I really didn't maintain my breast growth and in fact regressed. I went through my first cycle last month, and surprise(!), I had itchy breast again, and that continued through the first 3 days of the base line period (up to one or two days into the menses stage). I had breasts that I didn't realize I had lost before. Now I have to handle my arms a bit differently because my breast are now getting in the way!
I'm going to copy and paste from an earlier post I made:
I find that using a standard X mg of estradiol is not really working for me (I have been on hormones for 18 years and went full-time legally 17 years ago), in that I see evidence of estrogen insensitivity after so many years of using the same dosage. I am mostly through my first cycle (where the secondary peak comes after the interim bottom before bottoming out at the end of the cycle), and I see major results already. Not only the enlarged breast development, but just how I feel and think.
Maybe it's not evident yet, but I've already hit the very high peak of the cycle and bottomed out at the interim for a day, and I don't seem to feel a difference towards the negative side, like being moody or crying. I noticed that on a lower, stable dosage, being post-orchie for 10 years, I felt like the masculine side was coming out, like the tendency to read about a certain group of people, its history of conquest, the dangers evident, and what their strategies are for world domination, talking to people about having to arm themselves against this group of people, etc. I thought about doing this, doing that. I also noticed that I was losing breast mass and staying there. I noticed that when I started the menstrual cycling, these male feelings or tendencies started to abate and I felt the tell-tale signs of breast development, sensitive nipples, which I hadn't felt in years. Sure enough, the development started a few days later.
I've thought about the cycling of estrogen... In recent weeks, I've begun to understand what could be happening as one goes through the menstrual cycle. It seems to be that the effect of such a cycle intended for the "cycling" of the uterus lining and the ovulation is that when estrogen levels are low, the body maintains its shape or female fat levels in the body; when it ramps up for a few days towards the peak, the feminization effect steps up and is reached for that cycle; and then the estrogen level drops back down fairly hard before gradually increasing up to a little more than half the peak level for a few days before returning towards the "base line" level near the end of the cycle. That hard drop down seems to give the estrogen receptors a quick break before the level goes back up partially for a second time. I would think that because the receptors are "freshly exposed" from the high peak of a few days before, they are able to respond "anaphylactically" to that second smaller peak before estrogen levels down to the base level for the next 7-10 days for the next cycle, meaning a higher response to a smaller level of estrogen than the peak level. I assume that in a woman's body, the amount of feminization "lost" during the "base line" period would be less than what was gained in the previous cycle, assuming no pregnancy happens. So the amount of feminization increases to its maximum potential for the body through periodic resting and restoration of maximum response to estrogen and layering the results one on top of the other. Your body this cycle is slightly more feminized than it was last cycle (though it takes several cycles for something to become noticeable) until you reach your max potential.
I realized that a reason that drug addicts go for higher dosages is because of insensitivity to the drugs if taken continuously over a period of time, and noticing that if I was on a steady diet of alcohol (2-3 beers per week) and stopping, then noticing sensitivity after picking up again a few months later, and then noticing the effect dropping after a month (I don't drink anymore because I don't want health issues with it). It seems very interesting that the female body was designed with this mode of functioning so that it does two things at once - periodically shed the uterus lining in response to no egg fertilization and the periodic egg release, and to build up the secondary sexual characteristics over time, rapidly through estrogen cycling to maintain estrogen receptor sensitivity.
