Can you go to the gym? Do you have strength?
I had a severe crash with clomid
Canāt go to the gym, canāt get a pump.
My muscles burn like crazy after 3 reps.
Currently 2x Estradot 100mcg patches applied twice weekly.
In the past I used estrodiol valerate vials and injected 10-20mg per week.
Both these taken as monotherapy i.e. with no other hormone.
The suppression of androgens from high doses actually helps a lot with the symptoms.
Thank you for your reply.
I just received my 2% estradiol cream.
Applying one full pump would provide 20mg estradiol, of which probably 2mg would be absorbed.
Would you advise applying that dose daily and see if symptoms improve or shocking the body with a higher dose less frequently ?
I was also planning on applying testosterone simultanously but will try estradiol on its own first.
I think symptoms would likely improve with either way and āshockingā type treatment would likely bring acute effects.
Canāt really recommend tbh, but see it not as a cure and so you want to use what is realistic long term for you.
After a few years on E going back and trying testosterone was pure agony for me. The symptoms were probably just as bad as they were, at least. Itās scary and the downturn happened so fast.
Iām mostly recovered back to my E dominant baseline, but not fully. It has left me feeling a bit down with how dependent I am on hormones to just function as normal and not be in severe pain.
My goal for life right now is survive and to work on building my career, so that if Iām ever cured then Iāll be in an ok situation.
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So you have been using only estrogens without any androgen for a few years ?
Any type of feminization happened ?
Yes Iāve been just on estrogen without androgens for years now.
Not much feminisation at all. My skin looks younger for the most part with some periods where I can look slightly more feminine. The appearance of my face / body can change at times.
If my body was normal Iām sure Iād feminise, so I see the lack of feminisation as just another PFS thing.
During the periods when I do look slightly feminine, I actually feel amazingā¦ I assume estrodiol is able to work to a greater extent during these periods and produce even more neurosteroids.
Libido has changed from pre-PFS being very much straight and dominant, to PFS being asexual with short periods of less dominant libido and then with estrodiol to a significantly more feminine libido and not so straight. Itās very nice to feel something.
There have been many other good cognitive changes but unfortunately I donāt think others would fully understand unless they experienced it or were female. Estrodiol can open up certain feelings that arenāt usually felt by males and it can even seemingly dictate language / gait / way we connect to females / how we smell / behaviour / how we define pleasure etc etc.
If iām ever cured, Iāll look back on my time with estrodiol and take a lot from the experiences. It potentially would be very hard to let go from some of it.
A good way to describe it and someone else with PFS also described it this way was estrodiol feels like one big hug. It at times is very relaxing and comfortable.
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I have been trying an estradiol cream for the past 3 days.
Although I have found some sensations from the past, libido is not one of them.
It makes me feel too mellow for my liking.
I might make the trial last a few days longer and and see if I go back to a more healthy testosterone + progesterone protocole.
Yeah sure sounds like a good idea.
I definitely wouldnāt recommend it if the deciding factors are such things as that. The factors should really be extreme like they are for me.
I miss the go-man extreme energy I used to have before PFS, but what E2 is doing for me is completely treat some issues like disabling brain fog. It enables me to do more than just about put food on the table and thatās the deciding factor for me.
For my case it definitely feels way healthier with the E dominance. My joints arenāt in pain, my cognition is clearer, I look way more rested, no more extreme insomnia, no more slurring words etc etc.
Libido wasnāt really even a consideration when I started because all I wanted was to at least be able to sleep and feel something. I was more than happy with what I got as a result.
ā¦the libido changes as I described took time btw. Iād say about 6-8 months before I was feeling the libido and again itās a different libido
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Youāre making me actually want to try E myself to see what happens but not any time soon. My case is unique even among saw palmetto crashers because I have always been very feminine physically and mentally from early childhood so nothing changed either, I was just always that way. I have a dick and some basic dick wiring with my sex drive and very obnoxious body/facial hair and my hair type/head just looks very awkward, but thatās about it in the male department besides some basic body shape characteristics otherwise. Imagine someone hit a gender randomize button on a Sims character and thatās me, Iāve been asked if I was on HRT before and never even touched it. I currently and always have identified as transgender woman but may actually be whatās called intersex which I didnāt learn was a thing until somewhat recently though all in all I canāt call myself male and only ever had very baseline male characteristics physically/mentally. I was probably bound sooner or later to get stuck in a situation like this because of genetic factors and probably should be on some estrogen tilted hormonal system but I donāt know what that balance would be like and experimentation can get dangerous considering how sensitive my body is in this department to shifts. Iād only do so under strict and frequent medical supervision.
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Thatās very unique and interesting.
I read some of your story and youāve done well so far from such a severe crash. Similar crash I had, but I never really improved until E.
Saw is a very strong 5ARi, so no doubt you have PFS.
Well done!
I clearly have a lot more going on but itās like PFS just broke the camels back. Iām doing pretty well though, Iāve just made dealing with this and finding out what is actually going on my full time job pretty much. One overarching theme I noticed is that when this all happened my body went into over drive and then just shut everything down but the issue is everything stayed down though overriding this is also proving to be a struggle as you can see with my D struggles right now.
Thereās something my body is doing that is self limiting when it comes to energy production. Whatever my body did (this may be entirely individual but no surprise if what this overall is may be an emergency shut down response that has a lot of commonalities in each case from what tends to happen) it appeared to in my case have strictly limited the amount of it I was producing along with other hormones and neurostransmitters. Another big clue this happened was how I was reacting to the compounds in the NAD sphere, like niacinamide I recently tried again gave me a short burst of familiar jittery energy and then crashed me right after for an entire couple days. NAD+ consistently overrides something in this energy problem but doesnāt do anything useful because nothing else naturally is and only serves to make me feel anxious and panicky. Every time I increased b12, the limiter catches up in a day and Iām back to square one with slightly more energy. I tried magnesium with krebs cycle cofactors and same deal. Citrate gives back for a day then just feels terrible. Malate and citruline? same thing, burst of unrestricted energy I need and then CRASH with total neuro-immune chaos. Tyrosine, carntine, and coq10? Literal same wall in their own flavor of side effects.
Then you have a vitamin D for me now which appears to turn everything on without crashing in the long term but when I try to start the engine body freaks out. Iām probably gonna be stuck in this area experimenting for a while since now I know this is the general I need to push. I may need to start with micro doses every week and slowly ramp up. Right now I just donāt know but Iāll keep everyone up to date.
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Your symptoms arenāt themselves unique. They match severe PFS well. I completely relate to your symptoms and also how substances donāt work as they should and how they can lead to crashing.
For me my response to substances including caffeine, alcohol and foods is back whilst on estrogen and I am very resistant to crashes.
My neurosteroids felt extremely low and I had zero energy. Both recovered with E.
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I havenāt tried anything but coffee in a while, I might see what my response to nicotine is soon but honestly besides that I donāt really want to do much else. I donāt drink, smoke weed, or anything else anymore and honestly I feel happier that way keeping the system clean. My diet though could use a good clean up which really slipped over the past months because I been so apathetic to everythingā¦ Iām working on that now as Iām starting to really get better here. This morning I found I can just tolerate 400 iu of lichen D3 so what Iām going to do is up the dose by 200 iu every week till I stably hit 1000 iu without my body freaking out and take things from there based on how Iām feeling. In the future Iāll get a full hormone panel, talk with some doctors that understand this area more, and see where that goes. My main concern is just getting my body fully online again at a baseline over the next month.
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