Charing Cross Appointment #35943871
I had a fun but very exhausting day in London yesterday. I walked So Much. The only times I sat down were for my appointment, once or twice on the Tube and then for 20 minutes while I had my tea before catching my train. My feet were killing me after all that, even with my Docs on. Personally, I think it's London's streets, they're must be extra hard or something, because spending all day on my feet in other places doesn't hurt quite so much. I took lots of photos and so a Sightseeing Tour of London Post will be coming fairly soon once I've taken them all off my camera, white-balanced them and deleted all the ones where I look like I've escaped from a local institution. However, the main reason for the trip to London was my appointment so I'll update about that now.
Apparently Mondays is post-surgery check-up day so the place was HEAVING. I have never seen so many MTFs in one place at one time. There must have been about 15-20 plus me and one possible other FTM (judging by the beard). It was seriously noisy and chaotic as people were having to stand about due to a serious chair shortage. I was quite glad when Iffy called me in.
There was a quick recap of what had happened at the last appointment and in the year since: basically, she'd advised putting the Testim on my legs which caused an adverse reaction so I'd had to change to Testogel. I'd had bloods done to check that my T level was okay but it was very low so then I was waiting for the go ahead to raise my dose to 1½ packets of gel a day which I never got. Iffy checked my file and apparently two letters had been sent to my GP to say to increase my dose, one in December and another in April. I'd not been copied into either and for some reason, my GP had not done anything about the letters at all. I'd not been contacted so I'd carried on the same dose with the really low T levels. Annoyed does not begin to cover it. I've been feeling tired since switching to the gel (although I don't remember ever getting the huge boost in energy levels that a lot of people starting T report so I could have had low energy for ages) but seeing as I'd started college at the same time, I wasn't sure if it was the low T or being busy with college that was making me tired. Iffy seems to think the T is probably the cause so hopefully getting it up to a normal level will help there. Apparently the general level on gel is 20-25 whereas my current level is 5.7. Yeah, a tiny bit low there.
I also mentioned that I had been suffering a lot with hot flushes and Iffy said that a lot of that would be down to the low T levels too. I'd told my GP about this but all she said was "You've just had a hysto, what do you expect?" When I recounted that to Iffy she was not impressed and said that my GP should really have said, "Well, let's look at your T dose, are you taking the 1½ packets of gel as it says here?"
So the plan is to start on the higher dose - which I did this morning - and then in 8 weeks to have bloods and see what my level is like. If it's still not high enough I can go to 2 packets a day but that's kind of the limit really, 3 packets a day is ridiculous. I have another appointment with Iffy in a year and I'm really hoping that everything will be all sorted by then so that I can be discharged. Although both Iffy and I are not confident in my GP's ability to manage my care at all in the slightest, I can't keep on being seen at Charing Cross indefinitely.
Apparently Mondays is post-surgery check-up day so the place was HEAVING. I have never seen so many MTFs in one place at one time. There must have been about 15-20 plus me and one possible other FTM (judging by the beard). It was seriously noisy and chaotic as people were having to stand about due to a serious chair shortage. I was quite glad when Iffy called me in.
There was a quick recap of what had happened at the last appointment and in the year since: basically, she'd advised putting the Testim on my legs which caused an adverse reaction so I'd had to change to Testogel. I'd had bloods done to check that my T level was okay but it was very low so then I was waiting for the go ahead to raise my dose to 1½ packets of gel a day which I never got. Iffy checked my file and apparently two letters had been sent to my GP to say to increase my dose, one in December and another in April. I'd not been copied into either and for some reason, my GP had not done anything about the letters at all. I'd not been contacted so I'd carried on the same dose with the really low T levels. Annoyed does not begin to cover it. I've been feeling tired since switching to the gel (although I don't remember ever getting the huge boost in energy levels that a lot of people starting T report so I could have had low energy for ages) but seeing as I'd started college at the same time, I wasn't sure if it was the low T or being busy with college that was making me tired. Iffy seems to think the T is probably the cause so hopefully getting it up to a normal level will help there. Apparently the general level on gel is 20-25 whereas my current level is 5.7. Yeah, a tiny bit low there.
I also mentioned that I had been suffering a lot with hot flushes and Iffy said that a lot of that would be down to the low T levels too. I'd told my GP about this but all she said was "You've just had a hysto, what do you expect?" When I recounted that to Iffy she was not impressed and said that my GP should really have said, "Well, let's look at your T dose, are you taking the 1½ packets of gel as it says here?"
So the plan is to start on the higher dose - which I did this morning - and then in 8 weeks to have bloods and see what my level is like. If it's still not high enough I can go to 2 packets a day but that's kind of the limit really, 3 packets a day is ridiculous. I have another appointment with Iffy in a year and I'm really hoping that everything will be all sorted by then so that I can be discharged. Although both Iffy and I are not confident in my GP's ability to manage my care at all in the slightest, I can't keep on being seen at Charing Cross indefinitely.