More doctors
I had an endo appointment today. I finally spoke up about this cyclic mood swings nonsense. I'm ashamed that I can't just rely on stoicism to get through it, and I wish there were another way to solve the problem because I otherwise like the pace of changes on my current dose. My endo thinks switching to shots with an equivalent dose won't make a difference. She said that with compounded cream, the minimum dose necessary to stop periods is twice what I'm currently getting from gel. She wanted to just have me double my current dose of 12.5 mg, which is what she prescribed when we met for the first time, but I talked her into switching me to AndroGel 1.62%, whose smallest metered dose is 20.25 mg, a tad lower. The fact that I can negotiate my prescriptions with my endo is really cool, BTW. She questioned my info about the effective dose being different for the new concentration, so we simultaneously looked it up on our phones. It was pretty funny.
In any case, I hope this is worth it. My insurance covers any AndroGel, so at least it'll be worth it in terms of cost. I don't feel like I really need any more changes, but I'm not willing to add female hormones to my body if they come with a risk of breast growth. I can deal with more masculinization (wouldn't complain about it in most regards), just don't want to get changes fast enough that I feel dissociated from my body. I wonder if I should have advocated more strongly for shots, because then I'd have more of an ability to fine tune my dose instead of taking whatever Abbvie offers me. Gel is pretty fantastically easy though, and this is still lower than what my endo calls a "low dose" for trans guys, so maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing. I think I have enough AndroGel 1% to last until I move, so I'm going to wait a bit to start on the new stuff, at least until I figure out what I'm doing about top surgery. I think my endo would be okay switching me to shots if I called and asked, but then I'd have to learn how to do it on my own when things are pretty crazy anyway.
This appointment had some other notable moments. My blood pressure was totally normal. It was a relief because at Dr. Johnson's office, my blood pressure was actually high. The only other time I've ever had high blood pressure was when I was having an asthma attack in a hospital. So now I know for sure that the culprit was indeed car sickness and I am not in earnest developing high blood pressure.
My endo was really concerned about my lungs though. It was an early morning appointment, and I had a productive cough from when I woke up until a couple hours after the appointment. It's been like that for over a week. I told her I thought it was from binding too much at PTHC, since I've otherwise been cutting down substantially by working from home whenever possible and obviously not being very social outside the house otherwise. She took a listen and kept coming back to the lower part of my right lung. She asked if I was binding and tried putting the stethoscope under my binder in the back because it sounded "muffled." I wasn't even binding very hard, just wearing a sportster. Anyway, after asking me to breathe ten different ways, she concluded that my chest is not truly congested, but she can hear my asthma. It wasn't really on my mind because I use my inhaler once or twice a year just for emergencies, usually triggered by cigarette smoke. She expressed approval over the news that I'm in the process of making top surgery happen but didn't tell me I absolutely needed to do it, something that would have been preferable because it would take the decision out of my hands.
To lighten the mood, I'll end with the fact that my endo said my voice was definitely deeper than it was the last time we met (in February?). alifjiim also said my voice was deeper than he expected when he visited last week. (I have a couple half-written posts about PTHC and meeting super-cool internet people a couple weeks ago, swear I'll finish those up sometime soon.) I also met a few people at PTHC who said my voice was deeper than they would have thought given my low dose. I don't remember if theirearlystuff said anything about it though. Did I ever mention that my father is a contra-alto? My voice might be the deepest of all living males in my family, and it's a bit lower than my cis male partner's voice. I'm pretty satisfied with that. (-:
In any case, I hope this is worth it. My insurance covers any AndroGel, so at least it'll be worth it in terms of cost. I don't feel like I really need any more changes, but I'm not willing to add female hormones to my body if they come with a risk of breast growth. I can deal with more masculinization (wouldn't complain about it in most regards), just don't want to get changes fast enough that I feel dissociated from my body. I wonder if I should have advocated more strongly for shots, because then I'd have more of an ability to fine tune my dose instead of taking whatever Abbvie offers me. Gel is pretty fantastically easy though, and this is still lower than what my endo calls a "low dose" for trans guys, so maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing. I think I have enough AndroGel 1% to last until I move, so I'm going to wait a bit to start on the new stuff, at least until I figure out what I'm doing about top surgery. I think my endo would be okay switching me to shots if I called and asked, but then I'd have to learn how to do it on my own when things are pretty crazy anyway.
This appointment had some other notable moments. My blood pressure was totally normal. It was a relief because at Dr. Johnson's office, my blood pressure was actually high. The only other time I've ever had high blood pressure was when I was having an asthma attack in a hospital. So now I know for sure that the culprit was indeed car sickness and I am not in earnest developing high blood pressure.
My endo was really concerned about my lungs though. It was an early morning appointment, and I had a productive cough from when I woke up until a couple hours after the appointment. It's been like that for over a week. I told her I thought it was from binding too much at PTHC, since I've otherwise been cutting down substantially by working from home whenever possible and obviously not being very social outside the house otherwise. She took a listen and kept coming back to the lower part of my right lung. She asked if I was binding and tried putting the stethoscope under my binder in the back because it sounded "muffled." I wasn't even binding very hard, just wearing a sportster. Anyway, after asking me to breathe ten different ways, she concluded that my chest is not truly congested, but she can hear my asthma. It wasn't really on my mind because I use my inhaler once or twice a year just for emergencies, usually triggered by cigarette smoke. She expressed approval over the news that I'm in the process of making top surgery happen but didn't tell me I absolutely needed to do it, something that would have been preferable because it would take the decision out of my hands.
To lighten the mood, I'll end with the fact that my endo said my voice was definitely deeper than it was the last time we met (in February?). alifjiim also said my voice was deeper than he expected when he visited last week. (I have a couple half-written posts about PTHC and meeting super-cool internet people a couple weeks ago, swear I'll finish those up sometime soon.) I also met a few people at PTHC who said my voice was deeper than they would have thought given my low dose. I don't remember if theirearlystuff said anything about it though. Did I ever mention that my father is a contra-alto? My voice might be the deepest of all living males in my family, and it's a bit lower than my cis male partner's voice. I'm pretty satisfied with that. (-: