Hi everyone! I've been on the site reading fro several weeks now and figured it was time to introduce myself. I retired from the Army in 2000 at 37 YOA. Worked in Law enforcement for 10 yrs and now I'm retired and ready to start living as the person I've always deep inside knew I am but could never express her openly for one reason or another. I recently come out to my 22 year old and my two best friends who are my sister and cousin. I have yet to tell my Mom and Dad because  they live in another state and I want to do it in person. It will happen soon. Everyone else will find out on their own.

I am pursuing HRT through both the V.A. and Tri-Care so well see which is the faster of the two. My first appointment with each therapist are coming up soon. Tri-care civilian this week and The V.A. on the 9th of June. Don't worry I will go with whoever comes thru first and cancel the other. We shall see which government bureaucracy has got their act together. More to come on that subject.

 

Hi, danats2!

Coming out to family is a big, hard step.  Congratulations on having done this.  I think we have a few members who are transitioning with VA support or TriCare.  You can introduce yourself to them on the Roll Call thread.

If you have questions on hormone replacement therapy, you will get the best response to your questions by asking them over in our Hormone Replacement Therapy forum for our transitioning members.

I hope you feel welcome here.

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Quote from: danats2 on May 13, 2017, 10:46:35 PM
Hi everyone! I've been on the site reading fro several weeks now and figured it was time to introduce myself. I retired from the Army in 2000 at 37 YOA. Worked in Law enforcement for 10 yrs and now I'm retired and ready to start living as the person I've always deep inside knew I am but could never express her openly for one reason or another. I recently come out to my 22 year old and my two best friends who are my sister and cousin. I have yet to tell my Mom and Dad because  they live in another state and I want to do it in person. It will happen soon. Everyone else will find out on their own.

I am pursuing HRT through both the V.A. and Tri-Care so well see which is the faster of the two. My first appointment with each therapist are coming up soon. Tri-care civilian this week and The V.A. on the 9th of June. Don't worry I will go with whoever comes thru first and cancel the other. We shall see which government bureaucracy has got their act together. More to come on that subject.

Welcome... thank you for your service! Congrats on your upcoming appointments...

One thing I wanted to mention, I'm not a doctor and can't advise obviously, but one thing you might want to pay attention to with both of the medical avenues you have available... you might want to see the nature of the hormone medication you can obtain through either provider/route and do some research on what may be right for you, including discussing such with your doctors/therapists.

I mention this because I've heard some care provider routes, insurance coverage avenues, and so forth, might only offer a pill as an option (as one example), while other avenues might have choices of patches or deep subcutaneous injections (as examples).

Since medications can cost a lot of money, you might what to find out what the best meds are for you and try to ensure you take a route to get them at the best price.  I say this because I started on patches which for me were ineffective and then my doctor switched me to deep subcutaneous injections which have been amazingly effective... so so happy for that switch... and as well it's one of the safer methods because it's more direct, I think bypassing liver processing and all that which I think can be hard on the liver... I think pills (not sure) can be harder on the liver than both injections or patches as an example.

Anyway, I can't say what meds are right but you might want to look at more than what avenue gets them in your hands first. If you go onto HRT, it will optimistically be you starting something that will continue for the rest of your life. Might as well go the best avenue. So rushing based on who can get your hormones faster may shortchange yourself if you have more than one avenue, where the other avenue might have a better set of hormone options.

Not sure if this applies but thought I'd pass it on... maybe all your plans have the same choices... I've just heard this before.

Congrats again on your journey and appointments,
Ashley

Hi Danats 

Welcome to Susan's Place    Glad to have you here, join on in the fun

Hugs

V M

Thanks Ashley3 I'll check on the Med types but I'm pretty sure Tri-Care has what's called a formulary of approved meds and wont deviate. I'm not sure about the V.A. but I do intend to ask both about injections.