Here is more from Reddit related to my acquaintance having used levels of estradiol similar to mine for at least six years. I have no axe to grind and of course, no one is to emulate me. We are all free agents in charge of our own destinies. I note also that on this thread people understand the idea that some times taking on more risk, even of breast growth, results often in far better results than playing things safer and waiting seven years like I did before:
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u/Brady761250
2 days ago
my bloodwork - please comment not happy with progress
nsfw
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NaomiYves
2 days ago · edited 2 days ago
Others will know more than me, and to start your estradiol and SHBG are way too high. There’s some debate about what’s the highest level estradiol can be beneficial at. I’ve seen 200, 500, and 700 talked about. SHBG over 125 is too high. Your body is trying to cope with the excess hormones you’re injecting and that may be messing up your progress.
Edit: I’m assuming you had your blood work done at trough, right before your next injection. Otherwise the information is meaningless and you should have it redone.
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level 2
JaneyElizabeth
14 hours ago
My vote is for over 700 pg/ml. Unless somebody plumbs the heights, how will we ever learn?
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level 3
NaomiYves
13 hours ago
See the link in my second comment about the woman who was regularly over 1000 and ended up in the ER with three blood clots in her calf...
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level 4
JaneyElizabeth
16 minutes ago
I thought that it was even more than that. But yes, those stories give me pause and I wonder whether the ingestion method made a difference.
You pays your money and you takes your chances as they say. My hair has almost completely been restored so I am going to start titrating downward. The other thing is that oral minoxidil is a game changer and it might work as well as HRT does to regrow hair. I am testing today so it will be interesting because I ran out of patches and Estrogel and all I have left are spironolactone, premarin, provera, progesterone and dutasteride which probably would require at least 4 mg of Premarin to normally get me to say, 200pg/ml but I am not sure how quickly a person drifts downward.
I had to chance it because nothing else was working after four years of DIY and then two-years of low dose premarin. I was unable to tolerate spironolactone at 200 mg although I gave it a year. spironolactone induced a massive shed to baldness and before I at least had enough to comb without it looking fradulent. Sheds are good though believe it or not. I went to two patches and that seemed to finally kick-start my hair restoration but I also have used extreme amounts of Estrogel the past year.
I had been fighting baldness for 35 years and now I have almost a completely full head of hair and it has extended well below my ears. Before it would just stop growing and look mullety like a hobo if I wore it long.
And yes, stay safe. I do have a provider and a thought-out plan based upon pregnancy lasting ten months so I assume those levels of estrogen and I am only at first trimester, are tolerable for a term of pregnancy without DVT. Before this past year, I never came close to hitting levels and had fantastic breast growth so I have lucked into a couple of things and I just pass it on as knowledge. Some doctors will work with folks to maybe hit 300 pg/ml and so I have requested that of my provider. I can't afford Estrogel anymore because it isn't covered. This was my one year push more or less to see restoration was possible or was I spinning my wheels.
I will say that I came on here and asked advice about testing at ~2,600 and I probably got a few answers and the consensus seemed to be that it would be relatively innocuous to hit such high sustained targets so I do continue to question whether the needles had a deleterious effect on our poor friend who posts and helps others so frequently as a volunteer. We can all get in over our heads and especially us Reddit gals because there is such a strong DIY influence on here and a concomitant feeling of control. Most MtF's probably just take their meds without tinkering. But on here, even the folks with doctors are always conceiving of potential ways to make feminization more pervasive, like quitting an AA after two month solely based upon perceived lack of results.
Anyone else who thinks that they have had deleterious outcomes or sides because of using too much estradiol, please provide your experiences because we are all only one data point. I posted all of this including my own posts pursuant thereto on my own hormonal hair loss threat and the other main one on hairlesstalk as soon as you sent me the link. I try to adhere to the science as closely as the empirical data lets us whether it is in conflict with any personal theory or not. Plus, 2,600pg/ml is obviously overkill but I don't think that 700 pg/ml would be but I frankly don't know and I am not sure anyone does. I firmly continue to believe that post-breast growth levels of estradiol are much too low but maybe there is something else hindering so many MtF's from hair restoration that is genetic.
Janey