My current pharmacy only does gel, and recently they switched suppliers. The old gel was great, and dried nicely within five minutes, though it left a bit of a white residue. The new gel is sticky and stays tacky, I can lay there with a fan on it for an hour, and still it stays tacky at least a couple after that. I spent today with my shirt sticking to me like glue. It was terrible.

I'm switching to a compounding pharmacy that does cream. It costs 1/3 as much, and hopefully it won't be as drying to my skin. Is there anything I need to know about cream compared to gel?

Thanks.

I started out with an alcohol-based gel that worked great for me. Unfortunately, too expensive/difficult to keep a consistent supply. I switched to a compounded cream on June 30th. I've had good luck with it so far. It is thicker than the gel and takes a minute to apply, but once it dries, it's completing gone - no residue or sticky feeling.

My levels at last check (July 13) were 770, which is lower than I like, but every other trans guy tells me is fine.

I hope I never have to switch to injectable, but honestly, the community/cultural pressure to do so is pretty high.

I don't like the idea of the big swings in testosterone blood levels, and the needles, just, no. There isn't enough peer pressure in the world to make me switch. It's a silly idea, to pressure someone into injectable instead of gel/cream, we all get the same stuff in the long run.

All the various forms of T will generally produce the same amount of masculinization as long as you're consistent.

I've tried Testim (gel, alcohol based, sticky, weird scent), compounded cream (thicker, lotion-y, reminded me of sunscreen), weekly shots, and biweekly shots. Levels are consistently in the 700 range no matter what I do. I find injections work best for my lifestyle, and I think that above anything else should be what folks are basing their method of T delivery on.

I'm curious where you think you're experiencing peer pressure to switch to shots? Perhaps because I'm post-transition and have largely removed myself from pre and early transition spaces, I don't see this happening ever. If anything, I see lots of guys encouraging the switch to gel or pellets. 

I think with people online, it's because injections are all they've ever known, so of course, that must be the right way to transition. Plus some people seem a little doubtful about whether gels/creams work. In my experience, they are working, albeit kind of slowly. It might also seem more 'macho' to ram a giant needle into one's skin once a week than to rub goop on one's shoulders.

With the one trans guy I've talked to in person, I think his opinion was half cultural knee-jerk reaction and half because of the cost of doing it this way vs injecting. For me, the cost of 90-days of injectable T and syringes costs between $170 and $210 and the cost of 90-days compounded cream costs $100, including shipping. No help from insurance with either. So I'm not really sold on needing to inject to save money. Of course, I'm still on my first pump of cream, so I'm assuming that it will legitimately last 90 days, using it precisely as instructed.

That's interesting. For me, I go through a 10ml vial in somewhere around 5-6 months and it costs me $25. I buy needles in bulk for ~$20 for 2 year's worth. The cost of topicals was why I switched in the first place. The lowest price I could find here between commercially produced or compounded topicals was $150 for a single month's supply. I spent less than half of that annually for injectables and supplies. And that's fairly common from guys I've spoken to in other areas.