DISCLAIMER: This is not medical advice, engage in DIY HRT at your own risk; the intent of this post is harm reduction. This information is not intended for minors; by reading further you agree you are over the age of 21.
DISCLAIMER 2: This is not rigorous scientific research. I conducted this experiment over the course of a work day, carrying out my actual work while trying to not arouse suspicion. That being said, I am using these results to inform my own DIY HRT.
Earlier this year, I bought estradiol enanthate (EEn) from Dragon Ordnance ( dragonordnance.io or dragonordnance.com ; .io seems to be down but they’re run by the same people). Shipping was expensive ($50 I think) because they are located in China, but the prices are low ($5 for a gram that will last over 2 years). You have to email them for information on how to send payment, either sending cryptocurrency or a cash transfer via the Wise app. The people are really nice too; the person processing orders had COVID when I ordered and my order was delayed a week or two so they sent me double my order. I’m sitting on a 25 year supply now so I’m going to be giving away a lot of E to friends.
I also bought MCT oil as a solvent for the injectable solution and benzyl alcohol as a preservative from Dragon Ordnance. I used a volumetric flask to make a 50 mg/mL EEn solution with 2% v/v benzyl alcohol, but if you don’t have access to volumetric flasks you can make a vial with 500 mg EEn, 0.2 mL benzyl alcohol, and 9.35 mL MCT oil. This wiki is a good resource for DIY MtF HRT, but the owner of the group is an outspoken anti-communist. I plan on injecting 0.3 mL (15 mg EEn) every 14 days, but this wiki recommends 0.22 mL (11 mg EEn) every 7 or 10 days. Use distilled water to determine which liquid is MCT oil and which is benzyl alcohol. The MCT oil will float on distilled water, while the benzyl alcohol sinks. Also, 1 mL of benzyl alcohol will dissolve in 25 mL of water if you mix it thoroughly, while MCT oil will not dissolve in water.
I happen to be a chemist who has access to a variety of analytical instruments so I ran UPLC to test for purity and GC-MS to verify that the chemical is actually estradiol.
The UPLC chromatogram indicates very high purity (>99%), as only one peak was visible.
The extracted UV-Vis spectrum of the UPLC at 8.429 minutes (the sole peak above) was consistent with the expected UV absorption of estradiol esters.
The GC-MS chromatogram similarly indicated the presence of just one compound at 26.628 minutes (the first peak is the solvent I used, and the following two peaks are solvents commonly used in our lab and are likely only present in this chromatogram due to residue on the sample injection needle). The small peak between 14 and 15 minutes is likely a breakdown product formed in the harsh GC conditions.
The mass spectrum at 26.628 minutes indicates the compound is estradiol enanthate. The NIST library we use indicated a >90% chance that the compound is some estradiol derivative based on the fragmentation. The base peak at 384.3 m/z is sufficient evidence to identify the compound as estradiol enanthate, which has a molar mass of 384.56 g/mol.
I am confident that the powder sent by Dragon Ordnance is high purity estradiol enanthate and would highly recommend this vendor for their low price, quality product, and good service.
This wiki is a good resource for DIY MtF HRT, but the owner of the group is an outspoken anti-communist
how can you be like this as a trans person handling DIY shittruly, like, have some self-respect, at least be an anarchist.
Great work! You think you could try submitting this to resources like https://transharmreduction.org/hrt-testing that have more visibility?
This is a really good post, thank you. I was wondering how you're planning to sterilize your injectables? I know Lena says you can boil them, but is that actually a reasonable thing to do? Or do you have access to an autoclave?
Thanks! I don’t have access to an autoclave but tbh you don’t really need to even boil them. The benzyl alcohol will kill anything in the solution except the endospores. The autoclave kills bacterial spores IIRC from my microbiology course, but the risk is very low for IM injections (not an expert on this so look into it further if you’re worried). Boiling will NOT kill endospores, so IMO, there’s no difference between boiling and just using benzyl alcohol.
For my own comfort, please make sure that anyone else using your stuff is made aware of the possibility. You mentioned giving away some of the excess.
you can use an oven that goes up to 200C -- estradiol won't break down at this temperature. to be safe, I recommend lowering the temp to 180C and doubling the time -- i.e. 1h instead of 30m -- in the oven as oven temps aren't always the most precise. you can get a small oven for this purpose on Amazon for fairly cheap.
saving this post. i already dabble with gray market research chems and you're telling me i can apply my amateur chemistry nerdism to trans myself??!?
You can accomplish a lot with chemistry and determination! Unfortunately to do all this testing you have to have access to some pricey instruments. The UPLC was around $50,000 and the GC-MS was well over $100,000. But I’m willing to risk my job to make sure I know what I’m injecting into my butt
Thanks for using instrumentation to get real results, and reporting them scientifically. Lack of equiptment to verify purity is one of the big sticking points for diy hrt injectibles. Unfortunately this doesn't guarantee that the supplier will be pure in the future.
How many samples did you run to verify homogeneity? How do you plan on storing it? Does estradiol decompose at this time scale?
Just one sample haha. Was trying to do it quick to not to get fired. I’m not too worried about problems with homogeneity since the powder appeared to be that of a pure compound (fine, white powder).
Fair enough, I get nervous with injectables. Any thoughts on storage and decomposition?
Once in solution you can store in a cool, dry, dark place and it should be good for 3 years. Powder should be stable for a lot longer though
Like, how long are we talking before it's below some standard threshold of potency? Can you take it as a powder?
I would trust the potency to not be a problem for the duration of the typical manufacturer recommendation of 3 years. That is if you follow storage instructions (cool, dark, and dry). Light and heat will especially be problems for decomposing estradiol esters. You can take the powder sublingually but you have to measure out 2 mg daily and make sure to get this extremely small amount under your tongue. If injections are a problem, you could get 17-beta-estradiol and make a gel that you just apply to your skin once or twice daily. Here’s a guide for that https://groups.io/g/MTFHRT/wiki/30843
Anything here that would come back to you at work if Dragon Ordnance saw this and it potentially got attention? It's not unusual for brands to track mentions of themselves online, especially the small ones.
I don’t see anything identifiable. Thanks for looking out though!
Yeah just thought I'd mention there's a non-zero chance someone sees this at some point, even on hexbear. Smaller companies that get less mentions are actually much more likely to see their mentions compared to the well known ones too.
Honestly,
I just didn't expect the use of a gcms in this context and for this purpose.Love this post, saved and TY VM !
Glad you liked it! Yeah, most labs don’t use GC-MS for quality assurance because they know what they’re making, but it’s such a good instrument for identifying unknown compounds!
Oh yeah, I clearly agree.
When I see this, I can't avoid to think, that should be normalized for a producer to provide this kind of information,
this wiki recommends 0.22 mL (11 mg EEn) every 7 or 10 days
I inject like 2-3mg every 7 days. 11mg sounds so high
good post i support appropriating lab equipment for this purpose
yeah that would make my tits explode, mine swell painfully (and temporarily) on a too high dose, did that for years with little permanent gain in breast growth. i think the wiki is probably too assertive, a lot of things are ymmv and you really need blood tests done to determine blood estradiol levels. i tried bica and got some nasty side effects, spiro is the easiest ive tried
what issues did you face on bica, if you don't mind me asking?
Very bad migraines iirc, I tried everything to see if it helped with breast growth. Most things like prog and high estradiol are like a temporary 1 increase in cup size for me but made my tits hurt a lot. Not permanent, once you stop the pain goes away and so does the swelling.
Prog was a good T blocker tho
Spiro makes me a little lightheaded but I think its probably the best for me
slow and steady wins the race, ive been on hrt for 10+ years at this point, still get some permanent growth every now and again. bodies are weird
Yeah, I didn’t like the attitude of the wiki writer either but there’s some good info there. I’ve heard you don’t need an AA when you’re doing injections, what is your experience with this?
generally its my recommendation to do spiro for 3-6 months to shrink the testes and then do mono if thats what you want to do. i low dose spiro and take estradiol pills these days for specific effects (spiro got rid of boners for me, big fan, had issues with that on mono). i did injections but it would leave scars and irritated skin, and residue from patches was annoying (i have sensitive skin). spiro really nukes testicles from orbit, mvp, shocking how much mass they lose and how much it reigns the T in
spiro is the most common antiandrogen for trans stuff by far in the USA. usually theyll start you out on 100-200mg depending on how high your T is, then usually estrogen is 2-8mg each day under the tongue
I was considering bica but the cost of AAs is a limiting factor for me. For me, maintaining a functioning penis is important, so I don’t think spiro is ideal. I figured the injections will give high enough E levels to naturally lower T. Is the 3-6 months spiro recommended for someone in my situation— wanting to maintain penis size and function?
it might be hard to get high enough estradiol to lower the T without an anti-androgen at first. i recall a number of people with monotherapy having issues with that, youd need a very high dose i think to get it to push down. if you know your T levels and its on the lower end of normal i think itd be pretty reasonable to try monotherapy out of the gate. in the USA 100mg of spiro for 3 months is like 15 USD.
again this is all YMMV, people have wildly different reactions to HRT, blood tests are very important. to highlight this, i know someone where spiro did almost nothing at 200mg and another who had extreme amounts of T and it nuked it to 0 with 50mg. if you need help with payments or finding a place to get blood tested at lmk i can look into that for you.
Maybe I’ll cut my dose down then. This is my first time doing HRT so i don’t have any personal experience. I’ve seen studies for 10 mg every 14 days returning peak E2 levels of 300+
https://transfemscience.org/misc/injectable-e2-simulator/ I've had a good experience after playing around with this it predicted my levels quite closely
