Hi babes, just looking for some input here, maybe some of you have had a similar experience.
I switched to E injections three weeks ago and ever since my mood has been very up and down and I've also felt a bit more tired than usual. I am now trying to figure out if that's just life being life (work is a bit weird rn) or if it's something to do with my estrogen. I took 6mg sublingually before, 2mg thrice daily. Now I inject 3mg every five days, estradiol valerate. I don't see any connection between my mood and my injection schedule.
My E was always quite high on the sublingual dose (200+ pg/ml) and my T is perfectly in cis female range so I don't think it's that. It might be my E now being a bit lower than before so my body might be still adjusting to that?
I'll be getting blood work done in 3-4 weeks so maybe I'll just have to wait for that to come in but until then, maybe some of you have some comments, maybe someone experienced the same after switching? As always, thanks in advance! <3
You're just feeling the cycle. For cis-women it's one month, for those of us on HRT it's time between doses. If those doses are daily, then the fluctuation is less and has little noticeable effect. If the time is weeks, then it is more of a fluctuation and more noticeable. It's totally normal. I was using patches which had very little fluctuation as they were twice weekly and continued to give at least some dosing the whole time, and switched to weekly injections and I started to feel more of a fluctuation. The drug does take a while to dissipate into the blood but it's not an even amount the whole week, it's more like a half-life (though not as precise). And it the speed it absorbs will vary slightly based on how deep the needle penetrated the muscle (assuming IM), diet, weight gain or loss, and lots of other factors. For example if you dont get the needle very deep one week you may find a surge in emotion the following day and a significant drop off by the end of the week or even a slight surge in testosterone rage depending of your other meds and transition choices.
I do blood tests every few months and I try to choose a different day of the week each time to get the average. You'll find that the day after your injection will be higher than the day before and half way between it will be somewhere in the middle. Just average them to get your actual levels.
Hormones fluctuate and with them emotions. I personally have enjoyed the change. I prefer feeling things like love and sadness more fully and anger and frustration less so. It's not that they've totally gone away or suddenly appeared, so it's not new, just more or less than I was used to. You'll get used to it just like you got used to quelling the testosterone rage during your first puberty.
That said, see a therapist if it's affecting you a lot. Although women (and thus we) are definitely more permitted to express emotions, socially, cis-women also often have support systems and coping mechanisms in place to help them that they developed during their puberty. Having a good therapist to help you develop those is a real boon.
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