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So I’m on 8 mg of subcutaneous estradiol valerate and recently got my levels tested. Estrogen was about 1200 pg/mL at peak which is too high, so I injected 6 mg last week. However, my endocrinologist wants me to stop entirely for one week (with the understanding that I don’t produce any significant amount of endogenous sex hormones) to “normalize” and then resume at 6 mg. Honestly this sounds a bit pseudoscientific, but I was curious what others think.
It’ll level out eventually regardless, stopping for a week would get it down faster. E being that high isn’t really an emergency issue though so I’d just keep doing the new dose and let levels go down slower. Hormone levels dropping quickly might make you feel like shit or something but I also don’t think it’s a big deal.
It sounds reasonable to me at least. Since E takes time to decay in your blood stream, you will still have elevated levels while switching to 6 mg. If you skip a week, your levels will reach the new steady state of 6 mg faster.
And maybe there are some second order effects at play with hormone receptors that the endocrinologist knows but I don’t.
Honestly, I wouldn’t skip the dose as that would result in a drastic drop in hormones (the half-life of valerate is so shit anyway that you are going to quickly drop way down with your hormone levels), which may affect your mood, and would instead “gradually” reduce it by just starting to inject the new dose within the normal schedule, just with the lower dose (as @BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net also suggested): https://estrannai.se/#it0_cu,10,0,1-8,7,1-8,7,1-8,7,1-6,7,1-6,7,1-6,7,1-6,7,1-6,7,1_,8,7,1-c,6,7,1_1.887 (you can see on this chart that with valerate you’ll likely quickly reach the point of equilibrium in a very short amount of time, making a waiting period pointless. This one shows what the curve would probably look like if you skipped a week: https://estrannai.se/#it0_cu,10,0,1-8,7,1-8,7,1-8,7,1-6,14,1-6,7,1-6,7,1-6,7,1-6,7,1_,8,7,1-c,6,7,1_1.887)
Even if you were doing enanthate (which has a much better half life and thus would need a longer time to reach the new point of equilbrium), I would still go for the gradual drop, rather than the quick drop, because while doctors may portray it as an issue that requires immediate fixing, those levels are only harmful if held over a very long time.
Also, I hate how doctors measure mid-cyle. Trough IMO is more important, but I imagine if you got 1200 pg/ml peak, your trough will also be quite high.
Disclaimer: I used estrannai.se in my post, but I should clarify that it should not be used to predict the exact levels of hormones and more as a useful tool to visualize E2 curves.
I’m going to second both the trough measurement recommendation and not skipping doses with EV (estradiol valerate) because of the short half life.
Trough was like 200 pg/mL at 10 mg iirc
My primary care doctor recommended skipping a week when my levels were around 600 pg/mL, they said my levels should be roughly between 150 and 200. I didn’t feel any effects from it, but obvs YMMV
For anyone who’s unfamiliar with this, you don’t want your (trough) estradiol levels to be below the 150-200pg/mL range, both for the sake of feminization and also because that range is enough to suppress testosterone production in most people. It can also affect your mood, although that varies from person to person.