Over the years, I developed high anxiety. It was so long after I started HRT that I didn't think any part of my regemin was to blame.
So I learned to deal with and cope with a life of anxiety.
Then one day I stumbled upon a post in FB, someone talking about how they had developed anxiety and they were told to stop taking Spiro, and their anxiety went away.
So, being me, I did a lot of research. Turns out, Spiro was never intended to be used long term. It's anti androgenic properties were stumbled upon by accident. Very little research has been done on long term Spiro use.
But after looking into it further, I discovered anxiety, growing belly fat when it should be migrating elsewhere, and a slew of other weird things keep being reported by trans women who have been on healthy doses of Spiro for several years, and the symptoms stopped if they dropped Spiro.
So, what should I take instead?
Whelp, turns out, all you need is more estrogen to suppress your T. Nature has a way of preventing 'roid rage. Excess testosterone in the body turns into estrogen. And in people with testicles, excess estrogen tells the testes to stop producing T.
So, I found myself a doctor who was willing to work with me and see if I couldn't suppress my T with E alone. I dropped the Spiro. And now, a month later, I feel GREAT. Like, better than I have felt since my first few months of HRT. And my T, just like it should be, has been suppressed with E alone.
Here's the thing. At first I was scared sh*tless about this whole thing because I like that Spiro nukes my testosterone. Who wouldn't?
But you know what feels even better? Nuking your T with excess E. you are literally killing your production of guy juice with girl juice. There is little I have experienced that has felt both as empowering and as feminine/femininizing.
Lots of gals on this forum do some variation of this hormone regimen I am now on. I was a bit late to the game. But now I get why they seem a little smug when they talk about their treatments. You don't feel like you need to worry about changing your diet to get the most out of every microgram of E in your system. You feel as relentlessly at the mercy of E as you once felt at the mercy of T... but this feels good instead of terrible.
You asked about salt. I'm not talking about salt. WTF?!? You're thinking. I'll get to it. I promise.
Recently you asked about peanuts and how they effect HRT. Now you are asking about salt.
So, I figure you have diet on the mind and are really trying to get the most out of your HRT with the right foods. That is sound logic.
But...
What I hear is this: You are unsatisfied with the results of HRT so far, you are also on Spiro, and by God with your raw material (I mean, you have been passing since before you even started HRT) you expect some damn results. Right?
Whelp, hormonal transition is puberty. Female puberty. For best results, wouldn't you want your puberty to happen like cis girls, if possible? You know what they don't make or need? Spiro! Anti androgens!
Doctors give us Spiro so they can give us less E because back in the 90's there was a big hormone scare (all synthetics) and labels for ALL pharmaceutical female hormones suddenly had to state that they may cause heart problems. So doctors worry about giving us more E, even though we don't even take the kind of E that was known to have these issues and there is NO evidence bioidentical hormones have these same risks. This is true. Doctors adjusted by giving lower doses of E and experimentally adding Spiro, developed to be an emergency high blood pressure drug, to suppress T instead.
So docs try to transition us on less E than a healthy, fertile, adult female gets for her puberty. And they give us an anti androgen to make up for the fact they are often giving us menopausal, maintenance levels of E... because synthetics are bad for you... even though we don't take synthetics.
We don't take Spiro to suppress our T because E can't. We take Spiro to suppress T because doctors are often too cautious to prescribe enough E to do the work instead. All because of a risk that doesn't really exist in the way it once did.
Meanwhile, Spiro is risky as all get out. It makes you crave salt like a vampire craves blood. Makes you piss like a racehorse (a risk if you don't pass, especially in this day and age). Makes you store unnatural amounts of potassium which can damage and enlarge glands on the border of your brain. And it might be causing some of us to lose our minds the longer we are on it.
I told you before, medicine, not food.
Get the best medicine you can. Study hormones like you are currently studying your diet. Get your HRT to adult, fertile female levels. Drop the stupid pill that makes some foods poison and makes you crave salt...
And then you can focus on having a NORMAL HUMAN FEMALE DIET.
Good hormones. Good diet.
Do BOTH, just don't bend your diet to get the most of your hormones. Bend your hormones so you can just have a normal female diet and get the most out of BOTH.
Wow. This may be the world's longest post. I hope some of it helps. You deserve the best transition available. Good luck.
