Hormone Levels

On Fedi I talk quite a bit about struggling to dial in my hormone levels. Part of that involves getting tested and such. So this page is going to be where I catalog everything so its easier for me to share more clearly whats going on.

The Problem

I switched to injections from pills to injections in April of 2023. After a few weeks of injections I start to notice that over the weekend I am just wrecked. My emotions are all off, I feel like I did pre-HRT and I start getting depressed. This has been happening every weekend since starting injections.

My dosages

I currently (as of August 04, 2023) on 0.15mL of 20mg/mL Estradiol Valerate injecting weekly on Monday mornings.

My original dosage was 0.1mL of 40mg/mL of EV.

The trials

So my doctor tested my levels on a Thursday a week after my initial message (due to my own error missing a call to get the next day locked in). Since I wouldn’t be testing for a week she asked me to do 0.15mL of the 40mg. I tested. And then tested again 1 week later. Both results were in the mid 900s pg/mL which is insanely high. I was averaging in the high 200-300 range on pills.

So she had me immediately return to 0.1mL and then actually dropped me to 0.75mL of the 40mg and prescribed 20mg EV so I could take 0.15mL of that instead.

Thus began a 6 week waiting period while I adjusted to the lesser dosage. And the feelings only got worse.

Where I am now

I got my bloodwork done on the afternoon of Friday August 4th to conclude the 6 week trial and am awaiting results.

Update: The results came back as 253pg/mL. Awaiting call from provider.

Update: On August 9th I followed up with my doctor about the levels and she recommended moving to a .1mL of the 20mg EV (down from .15mL of the 20mg EV) and inject every 5 days.

So I am going to follow-up again in 3 weeks and report how I feel.

What Fedi has helped with

Some possible things to note are:

  1. What day are you testing? Ideally I should’ve been testing the day before or morning of.
  2. I am doing weekly dosages. Some girls do every 5 days.
  3. I am generally stressed and anxious. But I can feel the hormonal difference on the weekends. Especially on Sat/Sun.
  4. I could switch to Friday injections since rarely do you test the day after. So that would allow for any day at the latter half of my injection cycle.

But I suspect there is the possibility I am feeling the dip and not the actual level itself. So I feel amazing on the peak but the end of the cycle ramp down is so sever I just get depressed from it. In which case increasing frequency or other medical intervention (maybe anti-depressants) could combat this.