This stuff comes in waves. I have been on hrt for close to five years at this point and I remember the first year, almost no breast growth. Year two, bit of a boom. Then very little growth but year 4 has been like 2-3 cups. Everyone's body is different. I would definitely make sure your doc is checking on your blood work cause I know for me, my T didn't get to an appropriate level till I hit the year and a half mark. And that T level can really slow down your progress.
this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
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oof, your T suppression should not have taken a year and a half to occur. With sufficient estrogen levels it should happen rather rapidly. My testosterone and estrogen were both in cis-female levels by the time I did my next blood work two months later.
I wonder what your E levels were as your T failed to reduce (I'm going to guess they were too low) ๐ค Were you on spiro?
My T levels started really high (my T levels were higher than that of a teenager while I was 26), by the time I got my T levels to a proper level I was up to 300mg of Spiro (and on estrogen patches) and went into a sodium deficiency. After that I actually got to switch to Lupron which was great. Now I'm back on Spiro but only 50mg and my T levels are still at an appropriate level. I am also on injectable estrogen which I have found to be much better than patches. My doctors didn't want to put me on pill form estrogen due to concerns for liver health.
I just hit week 7. I'm not on the same dosing as you (4mg estradiol tablets, no prog, 50mg spiro) but have had no physical changes. Emotional for sure, and my spouse claims I no longer smell like a man, but that's all. I begged my doctor to put me on bica and injections, but they are all too cautious about adverse effects. I already had an episode of incredibly high heart rates this weekend that impacted activities, but that's apparently not enough to go to injections until month 3 for them. I started taking the tablets sublingual (dissolve them under the tongue) but that has had very little effect. I have had no soreness or sensitivity at all, and everything still looks like it did before. I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but I'm considering finding a new doctor. I don't want to switch to DIY and have them decline to provide referrals. It was enough of a chore to find this clinic in the first place!
I had breast soreness pretty quickly. Increased sensitivity could be right (that's how it was for me at first), but at some point it did become painful enough that I had to change how I slept, etc.
My advice: switch to injections (I recommend subcutaneous as you can use very small needles that can be painless).
As others have said, oral is a poor way to get estrogen - 80+% is eliminated by the liver, and the rest spikes blood levels and eliminates relatively quickly, creating vicious ups and downs without providing sufficient and consistent estrogen blood levels to estrogenize the body by. Anecdotally the people I know IRL who do pills have slower and less feminization than those who inject.
(I actually started hormones at the same time as an IRL friend, and a year later my friend still passes as a boy and boymodes full-time, and I ... wouldn't be able to pass as a boy anymore. The main difference is that they take oral and I inject.)
Highly recommend reading: https://transfemscience.org/articles/transfem-intro/
How about spray/gel?
still better than oral, and if you're on an anti-androgen or post-op it could work really well.
Not as effective as injections at getting your estrogen blood levels up consistently though, so it's not practical for monotherapy, for example.