2) How long have you been on HRT? ..and do you self-administer or do you see a professional for it? since summer of '06, always seen a doc
2) After surgery... did you eliminate completely or simply cut down your intake of anti-androgens? I totally cut out all t-blockers (I was on androcur, a synthetic progesterone-like drug that stops t-production by over-stimulating the pituitary gland into thinking I already had too much sex hormones and causing it to cut nearly all LH production... more on that later)
3) After surgery... Did you notice any secondary sex characteristics (breast development, etc.) start to develop more or was progress exactly the same as before? pretty much the same, I was only on HRT for a year prior to surgery, so I was still well in the development phase
Generally speaking, your doc should be looking first and foremost at your LH levels when deciding on how to alter your hormones now that you are post-op. LH (Luteinizing hormone) is one of the main feedback hormones used by the body to regulate testosterone/estrogen production in the body. The way it works is that the pituitary gland detects how much hormones are in the blood already, if there is not enough it spits out more LH which signals the gonads (testes or ovaries) to make more.... if there is too much already, it cuts back on the LH and this causes the bitties to make less. So if your doc checks your LH and it is too low, then he/she will know that you are on too much hormones and can safely cut back... if it is too high, then you need more.
Because every person reacts differently to the same dose, LH is a great way to see exactly what YOUR body wants. Myself, for example, needs quite a high dose of estrogen as I seem to burn through it far faster then average... if he just looked at my dosage he would say "that's too high"... but by looking at my LH it is possible to see that this dose is exactly what my body needs.
Since adrenal testosterone is also stimulated by LH, if your levels get too high (by not having enough estrogen), the adrenal gland will try and take over for the missing testes and produce as much as it can (still a small fraction of what the testes could make. This can often be the cause of what some people see as a resurgence of masculine characteristics after an orchi/srs.
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2) How long have you been on HRT? ..and do you self-administer or do you see a professional for it?
since summer of '06, always seen a doc
2) After surgery... did you eliminate completely or simply cut down your intake of anti-androgens?
I totally cut out all t-blockers (I was on androcur, a synthetic progesterone-like drug that stops t-production by over-stimulating the pituitary gland into thinking I already had too much sex hormones and causing it to cut nearly all LH production... more on that later)
3) After surgery... Did you notice any secondary sex characteristics (breast development, etc.) start to develop more or was progress exactly the same as before?
pretty much the same, I was only on HRT for a year prior to surgery, so I was still well in the development phase
Generally speaking, your doc should be looking first and foremost at your LH levels when deciding on how to alter your hormones now that you are post-op. LH (Luteinizing hormone) is one of the main feedback hormones used by the body to regulate testosterone/estrogen production in the body. The way it works is that the pituitary gland detects how much hormones are in the blood already, if there is not enough it spits out more LH which signals the gonads (testes or ovaries) to make more.... if there is too much already, it cuts back on the LH and this causes the bitties to make less. So if your doc checks your LH and it is too low, then he/she will know that you are on too much hormones and can safely cut back... if it is too high, then you need more.
Because every person reacts differently to the same dose, LH is a great way to see exactly what YOUR body wants. Myself, for example, needs quite a high dose of estrogen as I seem to burn through it far faster then average... if he just looked at my dosage he would say "that's too high"... but by looking at my LH it is possible to see that this dose is exactly what my body needs.
Since adrenal testosterone is also stimulated by LH, if your levels get too high (by not having enough estrogen), the adrenal gland will try and take over for the missing testes and produce as much as it can (still a small fraction of what the testes could make. This can often be the cause of what some people see as a resurgence of masculine characteristics after an orchi/srs.
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