(i ripped this off wikipedia real fast so sorry if it's lib)
In October 1776, the Public Universal Friend contracted an epidemic disease and was bedridden and near death with a high fever. Their family summoned a doctor from Attleboro, six miles away, and neighbors kept up a death-watch at night. The fever broke after several days. The Friend later reported that [deadname redacted] had died, receiving revelations from God through two archangels who proclaimed there was "Room, Room, Room, in the many Mansions of eternal glory for Thee and for everyone". The Friend further said that [deadname redacted]'s soul had ascended to heaven and the body had been reanimated with a new spirit charged by God with preaching his word, that of the "Publick Universal Friend", describing that name in the words of Isaiah 62:2 as "a new name which the mouth of the Lord hath named".
From that time on, the Friend refused to answer to their deadname, ignoring or chastising those who insisted on using it. When visitors asked if it was the name of the person they were addressing, the Friend simply quoted Luke 23:3 ("thou sayest it"). Identifying as neither male nor female, the Friend asked not to be referred to with gendered pronouns. Followers respected these wishes; they referred only to "the Public Universal Friend" or short forms such as "the Friend" or "P.U.F.", and many avoided gender-specific pronouns even in private diaries. When someone asked if the Friend was male or female, the preacher replied "I am that I am", saying the same thing to a man who criticized the Friend's manner of dress (adding, in the latter case, "there is nothing indecent or improper in my dress or appearance; I am not accountable to mortals").
editorial note: I think this is a very cool story and I really love hearing it. We've been around forever and we've been doing variations of this forever. It's really beautiful
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So like... How safe is DIY, really?
Pretty sure I can get my hands on the goods, but I see people here going to get blood work done to check their levels and change dosages, and I just don't see how that would be possible for me.
Like, going in to get blood work, and they're like, "your E levels are super high, we gotta get to the root of this" and I'm like "erm... Yeah"
Just saying I don't think I can have medical support.
It's pretty safe!
I know you've already mentioned it, but generally doctors as a rule are okay with you disclosing that you're taking medications/drugs not as perscribed (as in telling them you have cocaine in your system or in your case estrogen lol). They will as a general rule help make sure you're safe rather than snitch. There's supposed to be doctor-patient confidentiality or medical privacy as a rule in any western medical system (inlcuding, like, Turkey this is a very broad west lol), they wre very disincentivized from snitching just from the personality type that becomes a doctor rather than say, a lawyer or CEO, and they could get in trouble with their licensing board or the law for snitching. Knowing the very little I do about your situation I do, I'd say you should disclose to a doctor that you're doing this and get them on to monitoring your blood labs even if they won't just get your on to pharmacy HRT.
If you're NOT going that route, you should still get your blood work tested (the diy cafe has a page of labs you'd need). I don't know the specifics of your country so you're going to have to research how to get it done without a doctor. You can always just bug walk-ins until someone signs a lab req. If you're not testing at all, the advice would probably be start low, go slow. Start at the bottom and slowly increase. Blood work will help you massively in determining the appropriate dose for you otherwise you're just guessing and basing it on clinical signs and you're, presumably, not an MD.
It’s quite safe. It’s a lot better if you can get bloodwork done to see what your levels actually are, so you should find a way to do that if possible, but if it’s a little high it’s not gonna kill you or anything and if it’s a little low it’s not useless or completely ineffective. I would follow TerminalEncounter’s advice and start low and slowly go up if you don’t have any problems or until you hit a dose that feels right
I've been doing DIY (injections) since mid June at a relatively high dose and it's been great so far.
I don't know how it works and I haven't gotten my blood levels checked, but it hasn't killed me yet
And you're seeing results?
DIY is safe, safer than doctors 3/4 of the time if you know what you are doing (its very basic)
doctors dont know shit about trans healthcare and constantly prescribe downright dangerous regimes. despite popular belief doctors aren't all knowing. (we have strong opinions on this :3)
we do DIY, its easy :p
its pretty safe, ive known people doing it from a variety of reputable vendors for nearly 20 years. obviously its preferable if you could get it from a pharmacy. hrtcafe.net has the current homebrew vendors that have passed various third party harm reduction reviews. should be noted that some vendors do sell pharmaceutical grade hrt as DIY, but those arent the cheap ones.
You can get bloodwork through places like labcorp/questhealth where there is no doctor to talk to. But probably a lot harder to get insurance to cover that and its probably like $200 OOP. They'll just upload your results. I get my HRT via PP virtual appointments, so that's how I get my blood tested anyways (but insurance covers most of the cost). The nurses there have never brought attention to the fact that I'm getting tested for E (and I think the provider requesting the test has their name obscured, so its not obvious its planned parenthood).
if your doctor doesn't totally suck and cares about duty of care at all this shouldn't be an issue, you can just tell them the truth. realistically they will put 2 and 2 together anyway. i think you're envisioning a worst case scenario that's pretty unlikely. wait until after getting the bloods if you do think they're sus. they can't force "treatment" on you that you don't want. mind you I have had one nightmare GP deny me care because of it but I really feel like that's not the norm at all. docs aren't dumb they know people do this stuff and most of them don't take it on themselves to become cops about it. I'm no big fan of doctors at all but honestly I think most of them are above that. you're entitled to medical care regardless of what drugs you're putting in your body and I'd urge you to try see it that way and build confidence to exercise that right.
Not gonna do that. Can't do that
I'm not gonna interrogate you on why that is, but overcoming that fear or whatever it is standing in your way is what I would strongly urge. that is what will benefit you most in the long term. if you really can't for whatever reason you can still get bloods you'll just have to hand wave any questions that come up around your levels... (like I said most docs are just gonna put 2 and 2 together) it will make it more awkward of a process but not impossible. doctors aren't cops. all you need to do is get your hands on your bloods numbers, you can do the research yourself to know if they're within goal levels. not trying to sound harsh or make assumptions but it seems like the barrier is more of a mental one for you than any concrete aspect of the medical process standing in your way. no judgement of course but that's my 2c. depending on where you are there may be specialized bloods services that are a bit more anonymous than a regular GP visit/are just for you to get those numbers with no expectation of followup treatment so that could be worth a look. you're definitely overthinking how invasively they're likely gonna act about the whole thing tho. not saying it never happens but most docs are a bit more normal than that
I think you're assuming that I live in a particular part of the world and the medical system I'm dealing with is the same as yours
you are on this website speaking english so I did assume you're in a western anglo country yeah. i tend to assume most folks on here are in the US. sorry if that was wrong and you do live somewhere with a much more hostile medical system to people like us. if that's the case I'm obviously not qualified to be giving this advice. but even if you're in a red state in the US or whatever it's my impression things aren't so bad yet that a doctor will report you for being on diy or refuse care or something like that. patient confidentiality and duty of care is still a thing.
Tbh in the US things seem to be moving towards the point where it is that bad. Maybe thats just my shit take tho. But people can be charged for helping people transition, for helping people get abortions, etc.
But like, even in "good" countries, someones personal situation can create very real dangers. If someone is an immigrant, for example, then importing a gray market drug for personal use can be fraught, even if the drug itself isnt strictly illegal (as estrogen often isnt). Some places limit the amount you can import before you need to register as a farmacy. One 10ml vial of 40mg/ml estradiol is a lot of dosages, and it may fall above that line.
Personally I haven't had any issues yet. I've only interactive with PP and a couple of nurses I've mentioned being on E to though. OTOH, my state's AG has already attempted to make a database of trans people from medical establishments IIRC and has instructed Department of Transportation to forward any gender-change marker request to make database, so it seems there are some attempting to make it very unsafe....