I just started estrogen therapy

Cielingcat · Post by **Cielingcat** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 3:31 am

So for the last 3 years I've known, and my family has known, and my psychiatrists have known, that I'm transgendered. As of yesterday I finally, after a (seemingly) long wait to get my lab results back, got my doctor to prescribe me the full regiment of hormone replacement therapy.

All I can really say about it is that it was incredibly anticlimactic. I literally took the first pill in the car while my friend was going inside his house to pick up his character sheet. Even the doctor's appointment was anticlimactic; I waited in a waiting room, then I was forgotten for days (actually 30 minutes) in the exam room, and then I spoke with a nurse practitioner who wrote the script. Admittedly, when I left the office I was practically jumping for joy, but the whole event really didn't seem to have much weight to it.

So now I pay like $20 a month for hormones, and like $2 a month for anti-androgens. It's the happiest day of my life and it felt just like any other.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 3:32 am

Just 20 dollars a month?! Where the hell are you getting your medicine? Daddy Lago wants in on that!

Cielingcat · Post by **Cielingcat** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 3:38 am

Apparently one of my health insurances (I have Keystone Mercy and Health Partners, one of which has something to do with medicaid disability) pays for it so that it's only $10 a month. The rest of my medicine is free or $1 for as long as I'm on my parent's plan.

I'm one of the lucky Americans with good health insurance, which is why I think everyone deserves to have the same.

Morzas · Post by **Morzas** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 4:29 am

M-to-F? Do your friends know about this?

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 4:44 am

Anticlimatic? were you expecting something exciting to happen while you were going to pick up some pills?

Cielingcat · Post by **Cielingcat** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 4:54 am

MGuy wrote:Anticlimatic? were you expecting something exciting to happen while you were going to pick up some pills?

I wasn't expecting so, but I felt like something should happen.

And yes, my friends know.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 6:04 am

Congratulations, Cat! I hope you end up being much happier as a result of this.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 6:46 am

Cool, I hope its everything you wish for.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 12:33 pm

Good luck with the therapy.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 1:44 pm

Yeah, important things tend to be anticlimactic like that. Sounds like one of those 'awesome, but about fucking time' moments. Anyway, good luck and have fun.

Lago, some drugs are just cheap. My wife, with no medical insurance whatsoever, was paying $7 for two months of Citalopram.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sun Aug 23, 2009 4:20 pm

Funny, they charged me $80 for citalopram when I was on it.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 4:29 pm

Count_Arioch_the_28th wrote:Funny, they charged me $80 for citalopram when I was on it.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you weren't on the generic. Either that or generic costs had an extreme drop.
Hopefully that will happen with the other brain drugs soon. A month of generic Bupropion for me is about $250 (about $230 in covered by Blue Cross/Blue Shield), which is more than I pay for a month of health insurance...

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 12:18 am

Pills are cheap. Estradiol and progesterone was developed for birth control about fifty years ago.

If you don't mind some advice, your price suggests you're not using premarin, which is awesome. But it also suggests you're not using progesterone, which is a rarer pharmaceutical. It has been suggested to enhance breast growth when used with estradiol to simulate puberty; it's usually skipped with doctors unfamiliar with the process.

Anyhow, best of luck on assimilating your new life. It's a grand thing that our society has grown again to allow people to be true to themselves, and not locked into sexist preconceptions.

-Crissa

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 12:22 am

citalopram's patent expired in 2003.

-Crissa

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 2:02 am

Crissa wrote: Anyhow, best of luck on assimilating your new life. It's a grand thing that our society has grown again to allow people to be true to themselves, and not locked into sexist preconceptions.

-Crissa

It has?

Cielingcat · Post by **Cielingcat** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 2:05 am

Crissa wrote:Pills are cheap. Estradiol and progesterone was developed for birth control about fifty years ago.

If you don't mind some advice, your price suggests you're not using premarin, which is awesome. But it also suggests you're not using progesterone, which is a rarer pharmaceutical. It has been suggested to enhance breast growth when used with estradiol to simulate puberty; it's usually skipped with doctors unfamiliar with the process.

Anyhow, best of luck on assimilating your new life. It's a grand thing that our society has grown again to allow people to be true to themselves, and not locked into sexist preconceptions.

-Crissa

I'm on esradiol 2 mg twice a day, and spironolactone 100 mg twice a day for anti-androgen properties. I am not on progesterone, probably because I forgot to ask the doctor about it.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 6:36 am

Congrats! I admire your determination, and I sort of envy you having supportive family and friends. Cat, you're awesome.

Cielingcat · Post by **Cielingcat** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 6:44 am

I have supportive friends, but not supportive family. Every time it's mentioned my dad calls me insane.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 7:49 am

My sympathies on the family, but at least your friends understand, at least. Try to arrange for an incredibly girly girl to visit your house one day, while you're our, and claim to be you. Lulz might ensue.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 8:37 am

Sorry to hear about the family. Perhaps, when you complete the therapy, they'll get over it and will be accustomed to the idea that they have a daughter now.

I want to have kids one day, which rules out any possibility of getting a sex change: "pervs" can't adopt, I can have my own children be taken away as a "bad mother parent", and I feel I should provide decent standards of living for my future kids, which requires a decent job, and even shitty jobs like custserv do background checks ("we don't need any hysterical lesbians around here"). Also, I'm in the closet, my parents still expect me to get married, and the prospect of me being "saddled with a kid" will cause a massive shitstorm in about a year. Though I hope their desire to have real grandchildren now will outweigh their desire to have a slim-and-getting-slimmer chance to marry me off to a rich husband who'll build them a house "real soon".

Kobajagrande · Post by **Kobajagrande** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 9:37 am

Cielingcat wrote: I wasn't expecting so, but I felt like something should happen.

Like huge neon sign lighting up in the sky and every streetlamp turning into a speaker playing "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon"?

Would be awesome.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 10:03 am

first and foremost, 'grats, Cat. Sounds like a good day in your life.

I'm kind of surprised that these drugs are covered by an insurance plan. Not that they shouldn't but I automatically assumed that the insurance companies would have deemed an unnecessary treatment as the same is done for a lot of medical treatments that aren't so controversial.

But it's good to hear that it's supported.

Cielingcat · Post by **Cielingcat** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 12:11 pm

Starmaker's post has made me wonder something.

Is every genetic female on this board a lesbian?

But now that I have the whole gender thing worked out, I can solve my next problem: figuring out how to be more long winded on the internet so that I can post here without feeling that I've contributed nothing.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 12:28 pm

Cielingcat wrote: Is every genetic female on this board a lesbian?

You forgot Maj.

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Aug 24, 2009 12:36 pm

Cielingcat wrote:I have supportive friends, but not supportive family. Every time it's mentioned my dad calls me insane.

That's truly lame. I hope he works out his issues soon.

I don't mind though. I feel that if your body is not to your liking, alter it.