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I have a cis woman friend who’s going through menopause, and often complains about symptoms.
Her: Is there nothing I can do about this?
Other friend (cis woman, on HRT for menopause) + me (trans woman, on HRT for girl): ESTROGEN!
Her: Yeah, but… that’s kind of a big step…It’s not just trans people who are scared to commit, y’all.
Cis women in menopause are a great group to be around. I still struggle with anxiety about being the inexperienced baby trans woman going through puberty in her thirties, but when I find a woman in peri in her late forties at a party we’re both just like “yo hormones are whack”. It’s good common ground.
at a party last night a transmasc person told me I was serving fish … and ok, that’s nice - but I feel like if I were serving fish, he wouldn’t know I was serving fish 😅
A compliment paradox!
absolutely 😵💫 I keep replaying the compliment in my head … hanging out in trans spaces really fucks me up afterwards, I feel like it’s one of the only places where my gender is stripped away now (other than the doctor’s office, when I have to choose between honest disclosure and protecting my gender and humanity; I’ve only told my PCP and obviously my endo for HRT access, but otherwise I just tell doctors I was born without a uterus and don’t disclose trans status and they just assume I’m cis and move on).
Intake / consult at the hormone doctor booked this week. I’m oscillated between feeling excitement and impatience, then total terror.
so exciting! If you’re doing injections, I always recommend people to avoid my mistake and have your syringes and supplies before your appointment - I walked out of the appointment with a prescription and filled it the same day, but the pharmacy was clueless about the needles and syringes I needed, and I ended up having to wait until I managed to get my hands on the right needles and syringes to do my first injection.
Thanks for the advice! I’m a bit freaked out about the injections tbh, but I’m sure I can get over it.
I have moderate to severe needle phobia, so I completely understand that. I recommend doing subcutaneous injections - there are times when, if I do the jab right, I literally feel no pain (not that pain is necessarily the biggest psychological hurdle, but hopefully it’s comforting anyway).
The injection needle I use is 1/2 inch and 27 gauge (the grey ones), and to prevent coring the vial (basically permanently damaging the rubber you puncture and exposing the vial to contamination) I use 21G 1 inch needles (the green ones) to draw with (instead of the typical 18G pink needles).
I have a whole list of strategies to help with needle phobia and starting off with injections, if you want I can add those here!
EDIT: turns out I made a post with the tips a while back, you can find them here:
https://lemmyverse.link/lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/27953271
Let me know if you have any questions!
Hey thank you so much sister. I just realised I had already read your injection guide with great interest and saved it because I knew I would have to come back to it. Thanks for posting, I’m sure it’s helping a bunch of folks.
Have you ever used an auto injector? I’m kindof curious about them but I haven’t heard many women talk about them in here. Maybe I should make a post to ask about it.
I’ve never used an auto-injector. When I first started researching how to do injections and dealing with needle phobia, it didn’t come up. When I learned later about auto-injectors I wasn’t sure if they would actually work.
Personally, having more control over the jab is important to me. Psychologically the idea of the auto-injector freaks me out a little. Though I admit, I do think it would make the hardest part, actually jabbing the needle in, much easier mentally. Pressing a button is easier than actually controlling the jab (and also, it avoids having to finesse learning how to walk that tight-rope between dissociating enough that you can do the jab, and not dissociating so much that you can’t coordinate the jab well; when I chicken out my jab is slower and more painful, so a device could really help).
Searching more, I found this thread on auto-injectors: https://old.reddit.com/r/ask_transgender/comments/e52zbc/for_anyone_with_fear_of_self_injections_this/
Looks like they do exist, but are somewhat expensive. Also looks like my initial skepticism about auto-injectors not being able to plunge the thick oil in is irrelevant because the injector just jabs the needle, but then you have to manually plunge the medication in.
It might be a useful tool for people like us, but since it’s so expensive and they are hard to get, I’ll just assume it’s out of reach for most people. I think this might be why it’s not really talked about - it’s just not common for various reasons.
That said, if you do get your hands on an auto-injector, I would be curious to hear about your experiences!
I really appreciate all the info sharing, i’ll be sure to let you know if i go the auto-injector route.
hormone fluctuation is wacky, i use transdermal estradiol patches
really wanted more plushies yesterday, so just chose to hop on my early seventies bicycle in a quick six minute decision. pedaled until i ended up in the next town over, a bit over two hours/forty km/twenty miles. had to bike back in the rain at night, but so worth it.
here in cascadia i hear “there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing”. sadly i forgot to remember about makeup and rain, which was not so fun. alas cute stuffed animals are much more worthwhile. the awesome cookies my sister baked in obscene quantity helped fuel me immensely. :)
on an definitely unrelated note some “thigh high” (already with my very tall stature barely knee high) stockings i purchased a few months ago slightly before start of h.r.t. no longer fit me at all
a friend did promised to show me how to knit sometime soon so fingers (or knitting needles) crossed i can indulge myself (and others!!) with some nicer cuter comfier socks, for now leggings it is for the warmth.
My week has been as good as it could possibly be with what has been happening lately. I still have extreme dysphoria and disgust whenever I see myself in the mirror, I hate being bald. For everyone here who doesn’t know what happened I had breast cancer and I’ve been on chemo for the past 2 and a half months. I’m currently in remission and it seems like it’s gone (hopefully) but it sucks because I lost all my hair and it makes me sad and dysphoric to see myself like this.
The only good thing that happened is that I found my phone which I lost months ago. Turns out it was put away with my other things in storage at my family’s house. I’ll try to post here more often.
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