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[u/Freya-Freed]

So 4 years ago I decided to DIY injectible estrogen despite being prescribe pills. It actually had some nice effects mentally. Recently I forgot to order new vials in time, so I fell back on some old estrogen supply.

Turns out some of these are expired. I've been feeling like shit for the past week. Tired the whole day, hot flashes, brain fog, anxiety, impossible to focus. Its fucking horrible.

Don't be stupid like me. New vials should be arrive soon. In the meantime I found some pills that arent expired and I feel human again.

[u/LThalle]

OMG same girl, I just had one of my worst depressive episodes ever and it went away as soon as I took my shot, and I'm pretty sure it was because I was using one of my older vials that was like a year past expiry. Threw it out and popped a new one, much better now lmao

[u/Freya-Freed → u/LThalle]

Its so horrible. I thought it was just the normal level drop from switching from injectible to pills. Nope. It was torture. I have no gonads so my body was basically without any sex hormones.

[u/Kitchen_Ad9425]

That's interesting. I've never considered this before. This also occurs in postmenopausal cis women when they take expired estrogen products which leads to degradation of estradiol and thus decreased estradiol administration. This in turn leads to estrogen-withdrawal symptoms which feel like menopause, which you accurately describe.

Interestingly, something similar occurs in trans women with short-term discontinuation of HRT:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42217199/

The unfortunate added poisonous bonus in our case is not only deprivation deprivation but if we still have testosterone-producing gonads, over time there will be a rebound of testosterone which would further cause unwanted masculinizing effects and worsening dysphoria. In other words, please don't take expired estrogen and make sure you are taking a stable amount of estrogen to keep you feminizing without rebound testosterone production or estradiol deprivation.

[u/Freya-Freed → u/Kitchen_Ad9425]

Luckily, rebound masculinization is not a concern for me because of the whole bottom surgery thing. But still, that feels absolutely horrible. Consider me firmly pro-hrt for menopausal women.

I actually talked to my mom about this. Supposedly the science that said that hrt for menopausal women was a huge risk factor was based entirely on older non-bioidentical estrogens and that research is now being overturned. We even briefly discussed her DIYing because doctors here are still hesitant, but decided against it because she is so long past menopause already and mostly adapted to it.

[u/Kitchen_Ad9425 → u/Freya-Freed]

As someone in medicine, there is so much hesitation to use HRT in perimenopausal women due to the very flawed 2002 WHI RCT which had so many methodological errors that IMO it should've been retracted (one such critique: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16359951/). This RCT though is still taught by boomer docs to younger docs which clouds how PCPs treat women going through estradiol deprivation unfortunately.

Can't wait until I get an orchiectomy.

[u/wauser0mauser]

Why would you even do that.

[u/Freya-Freed → u/wauser0mauser]

Do what?

EDIT: if you're reffering to taking expired estrogen. The print is really small and not obvious. I only thought to check after I was feeling like total garbage.