first of all i must apologise been trawling through the forums for answer but so many post so i dont mean to sound repetadive.

1. How can i add my pic to my profile so you know who your talking to

2. The milestone for me has hit 15 days on hormones. I been told to start on a small dose daily of e, and then in a few months they will add spiro. this has a couple of points i hope someone could clarify, 

why have they told me to wait 2 months?
what good will a small dose of e do?
do or should i request progesterone?
and should i be expecting any signirficant changes until the spiro starts?

i feel happier in my self now , content that i cna be the person i should have been x thanks in advance

alicia

Heya ☺️.  An amin will probably be able to answer your first question,  but I think you need a minimum number of posts before being allowed an avatar.
On the dosage thing,  I think current thinking is to gradually ramp up E to closely mimic a female puberty,  and get best development. In the UK the NHS guidance starts low and steps up at 3 monthly intervals until your E is in a normal female range.

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that was what i thought, i guess i am like many now it has started want the magic wand waved and hey presto..luckily i have all the time in the world now to embrace the new me..i am prob like everyone   i keep looking in the mirror every two hours to see a miracle change but i am a realist and know it will take time, some people it seems do have positive effects for the first three months on e only, hears hoping but any will be a bonus, setting the bar low so i can only be pleasantly suprised   day 15 and nadda

If you look at the post you made in introductions, V M gave you a set of the greeting links. The links will inform you of the rules of the site and provide you with information such as member ranking and when you can post an avatar. The moderation on this site is heaver than most sites so we give the greeting links when possible to help the member avoid issues with the moderator staff.

Quote from: alicia46bulgaria on May 30, 2017, 01:54:53 PM
first of all i must apologise been trawling through the forums for answer but so many post so i dont mean to sound repetadive.

1. How can i add my pic to my profile so you know who your talking to

2. The milestone for me has hit 15 days on hormones. I been told to start on a small dose daily of e, and then in a few months they will add spiro. this has a couple of points i hope someone could clarify, 

why have they told me to wait 2 months?
what good will a small dose of e do?
do or should i request progesterone?
and should i be expecting any signirficant changes until the spiro starts?

i feel happier in my self now , content that i cna be the person i should have been x thanks in advance

alicia

Hi Alicia

You need something like "IMgur" http://imgur.com/ to host your pictures then link to those once your are able. IMgur even provide the actual link code to do it Susan's does not allow the upload of pictures to the site per se as we don't store the pictures. Quite often you will find posts with links to pictures that are broken because the member has taken the picture down. If you host the picture then you have control over it.

It can be frustrating to start on a low dose E...mainly my understanding is to ensure your body reacts OK to the medication and that you personally feel OK whilst taking it. It took me 3 months to get to a full transitional dose. If you went straight to it you may find the side effects a bit overwhelming...I know when I first started my emotions went haywire. Talk to your Dr about further meds but a small dose of E may help improve your Dysphoria(if you have it) for a start.

It seems each Dr has their own way of doing this and taking up to 2-3 months to get to a full dose is well within most of our experiences.

I hope some of that helps

Liz 

When I went to Planned Parenthood to start HRT they put me on a half dose for a month and then started me on my full dose after 30 days.

Every doctor has a different theory of doing things. My endocrinologist asked me what my goals were. He suggested starting slow to see how it affected me. He starts with Spironolactone to reduce testosterone in the blood and low dosage of estradiol. He also gave me finesteride. The idea is finesteride blocks conversion of testosterone to DHT while the spiro lowers T. After three months we talked about how I was doing and where I was wanting to go. He then prescribed 4times my starting dose of E and added medroxyprogesterone. He doesn't want a blood test until another three months. He actually didn't fill out the test order to measure E at all. He said it's just nessecary right now to see if the T is in normal female range.

As stated, every doctor is different. The body is very complex and noone can say for certain exactly how anyone will react to any single medication.  So mine only changes 1 thing at a time and only adds one thing at a time in order to better pinpoint the drug that's causing my issue.  It's like trying to nail jello to a wall.

I started on a low dose in order to see how I was reacting to the Estrogen alone, then added in Spiro 3 months later to see how I would tollerate it.  Then Finasteride 2 months after that, since I was not having any bad reactions to any of the previously introduced medications.  Then they did some blood work and increased my Spiro again.  I had issues after the increase in Spiro, so she played with Estrogen dosages to correct that.  Then added Medroxyprogesterone.  I had issues when it was added, so she played with the Medroxy doses to see if it got any better.  And when it didn't, she then played with the Estrogen doses to see if she could get rid of some of the adverse symptoms.  Then took me off Medroxy and played with my Estrogen levels to find a different level that she and I were comfortable with, then recently added Micronized Progesterone.  All of that is confusing enough when it's only one medication change at a time, change multiple things or having started them all at once, neither one of us would know exactly what is going on.

AH THANKS I DONT FEEL SO BAD JUST BEING ON E NOW X X KNWOING THAT IN JUST OVER 2 MONTHS THEY WILL ADD SPIRO OR INCREASE DOSE .
APOLOGIES I SPILT COFFEE ON MY KEYBOARD  AND THE CAPS LOCK IS STUCK ON LOL
STILL ON A PLUS NOTE DAY 18  AND IN MYSELF THE FOLLOWING CHANGES ARE NOTICABLE

SKIN COMPLEXION HAS GONE SO CLEAR ITS AMAZING EVEN THE ACNE SCARS SEEM TO BE EITHER FADING OR COVERING THEMSELVES?  NOT SURE THIS IS A SIDE EFFECT OR WEATHER THE SUN AND TEMP HERE IN BULGARIA IS DOING ME GOOD.

MY AEROLA GONE FROM 2.1CM TO 2.9 NOW SO WELL HAPPY 
AND MENTALLY I AM JUST CONSTANTLY HAPPY CLEANING THE HOUSE SINGING TO MYSELF

There are a number of different schools of thought on MTF hormone therapy, there aren't enough studies to say what's best, basically in all cases you'll start with a lower dose for safety, some keep a low dose for a while to mimick the early stages of female puberty, others ramp it up more quickly. Use of anti androgens may not be necessary for everyone as estrogen can reduce testosterone as well, so they may be holding off to see if your T level nose dives without AA, for most people though they require a much higher dose of E to do that, which potentially carries more risks.

To quote Monty Python, " And now for something completely different"

My Endocrinologist here in Florida, put me on full dose right away. Since I am 67 years old, he had much experience in treating people my age with hormones.

Florida is the location for the mythical Fountain of Youth, but we do have the next best thing. We have many plastic surgeons here who do amazing work at reversing the ravages of time in our face and body. We have clinics who specialize in restoring youthfulness using hormones, nutrition and exercise.