<!DOCTYPE html><htmllang="en"><metacharset="utf-8"><metaname="referrer"content="no-referrer"><linkrel="stylesheet"href="/styles/index.css"><metaproperty="og:site_name"content="zyl's website"><metaname="twitter:card"content="summary_large_image"><metaname="twitter:title"content="estradiol delivery methods"><metaname="twitter:image"content="https://i.zyl.gay/2023/11/syringe.jpeg"><metaname="og:description"content="a comparison of the four forms of estradiol i've taken since starting hrt"><title>zyl's website / estradiol delivery methods</title><headerclass="main-header"><span><aclass="name"href="/">zyl's website</a> | <spanclass="pronouns">it(/she/they)</span></span><spanclass="spacer"></span><ahref="/blog/">blog</a> | <ahref="/images/">images</a> | <ahref="https://github.com/zyllian/zyllian.github.io"rel="noopener noreferrer"target="_blank">source</a></header><mainclass="page"><divclass="blog-post"><h1class="title">estradiol delivery methods</h1><spanclass="timestamp">published Sunday, November 12, 2023</span><divclass="header-image-wrapper"><pclass="short-desc">a comparison of the four forms of estradiol i've taken since starting hrt</p><imgclass="header-image"src="https://i.zyl.gay/2023/11/syringe.jpeg"alt="A photograph of a syringe for instramuscular injection with needle still in its wrapper."style="object-fit: cover; object-position: 50% 50%;"></div><divclass="content"><p>i started estradiol injections a few months ago and felt it might be useful to write out my experiences with each of them for posterity</p><h2>patches</h2><p>my endo started me on estradiol patches. these definitely work, but only if you put them in the right spots and also if they stay on</p><p>i had trouble with both of those and found it pretty annoying</p><p>aside from that, i could feel them starting to wear off 12-24 hours before it was time to replace the patches. definitely not ideal</p><p>additionally, insurance sucks and regularly caused me to be a couple days late on replacing a patch because they wouldn’t cover it in time</p><h2>sublingual pills</h2><p>these are pretty neat. easiest and cheapest of the bunch</p><p>unfortunately, i could feel <em>these</em> wearing off too, at about 5-6 hours after a dose. apparently this isn’t common, but it affected me sooo</p><p>i’ve also had problems with getting accurate estradiol level measurements since it flucuates so much. definitely my preferred method if they worked better for me</p><h2>swallowed pills</h2><p>before switching to injections my endo had me try out swallowing my estradiol pills instead of dissolving them. the results for me were that i couldn’t feel them wearing off anymore, BUT i couldn’t get my levels back up either. not an ideal solution</p><h2>injections</h2><p>these are <em>great</em></p><p>i was super nervous before starting them but turns out it’s actually not that hard to inject yourself if it’s your only option</p><p>cannot feel these wearing off at all between doses <em>and</em> i get good estradiol levels</p><p>my E levels are so consistently good now that i don’t need a testosterone blocker which is <em>very</em> nice</p><p>however!</p><h2>insurance <em>sucks</em></h2><p>my insurance filled my first three-month prescription of estradiol valerate for around $120. this is absurd.</p><p>then they failed to fill my prescription when i was out. when i called to ask for a fill, they told me they couldn’t. doing the math from what they told me i found they expected me to around 16 and half doses out of a vial, which would be an extra 3-4 weeks over what the prescription from my endo actually said</p><p>so instead i went out of pocket and through discount programs get my estradiol for cheaper than with insurance and (importantly) <em>on time</em></p><p>loooooove insurance.</p><h2>conclusions</h2><ul><li>injections rock if you can get insurance to cover them <li>sublingual’s good too and works great for most people but didn’t for me <li>avoid swallowing them <li>
