I have recently learned that you can get hrt medicine off the counter in my country. I am an 18 year old and I am at the last year of high school. My plan since I learbed this was to wait till my finiahing exams are done (May) and start after that which puts half a year between that and till I can move out aboard for university. What worries me is having to hide the effects especially with the summer in between and swimming that comes with it. How much does it take for breast growth to become noticable and what would you do in my place?
You might want to start taking testosterone blockers (spironolactone for example) asap to avoid any unwanted changes. The T-blockers themselves won’t have a huge effect on your body, it might very slightly change your body hair growth and it might make your skin a bit softer but that’s about it.
Then once you’re ready you can start taking estrogen – usually in the form of estradiol pills, although there are other options.
Also, if you’re from Canada – Ontario or Alberta specifically, there’s a very good service called Foria https://www.foriaclinic.com/
It’s not covered through provincial healthcare unfortunately, but it is a not-for-profit service so they keep it as cheap as they can. It winds up being about $200 a year for most patients.
IIRC, the primary thing to cause breast-growth is in fact blocking T and doing so can definitely cause it.
For immediate mitigation of hair-loss, which is the most pressing thing if you already went through full puberty you can use finasteride/dustasteride, which are DHT-blockers. In rare cases they can act like weak T-blockers, but that is an exceptional side-effect; after that waiting for half a year will just make you miserable for an additional six month, which may be worth it, depending on your risk-assessment.
OTOH: You won’t see most of your school mates afterwards and if you already have six months of effects and arrive as visibly trans at uni, it can make getting into communities at uni easier.
I just want to hide it from my parents for safety, my mates at school are supportive and I am out to them and luckily have no hairloss yet. I have decided to start androcur immediatly and add estrofem into that mix after summer.
Then get that estrofem ready to use anyways, since adult human bodies are not made to have no sex hormone. If you get depressions or feel bad in general, add E to the mix anyways.
Also: Cypro (Cyproterone Acetate, Androcur is a marketing name for it) requires much higher doses if you do mono-therapy than if you use it to support E: With E the general wisdom is to not exceed 12.5mg/daily and rather increase E-intake if T isn’t properly suppressed, whereas without you may need 50 to 100mg per day, with a massively increased risk of bad side effects.
There is a reason why pretty much no one who has the choice does it that way, but it’s of course up to you!
my plan is to go 12.5mg once every two days till after summer. I mean what other choice do I even have when testerone is actively changing my body. I can maybe start estrofem very low dose.
It’s up to you of course, but don’t expect this to do all that much. I’m on 12.5mg daily and before my last blood-test I took ≈4mg E transdermal and even at that I was still very much on the upper end of the female range for T.
thanks, I have decuded on androcur as it’s what’s availible in my country
Be careful, androcur is considered as one of the worst blockers because of how many side effects there are. Inform yourself abiut them just in case