Question on low dose HRT to relieve anxiety and for better mental health

[mbmeen12]

Do you know anyone who has done something similar?
Ans; Yes myself....

What were the results?
Ans; My therapist agreed I met in the spectrum of transgender but not full blown transgender and the therapist even sat with my wife to explain.

What physical changes occurred?
Ans; None.....I have NOT taken synthetic HRT after meeting a transgender gurl friend for dinner and she explain personally the real commitment. Mytherapist said it might be possible to take a minimalist approach for treatment. I have thought/sought another way to approach the conundrum that you and I seem to have.

[LeaP]

Paula,

When I started HRT, I did so on low dosages of both estradiol and spironolactone as is the norm with my doctor, with every intention of ramping them up after 2-3 months. I did not for 2 years, because the low dosages worked well, producing good, steady feminization effects. You can't count on "low dose" being low with hormones. This is regardless of serum levels of hormones, by the way. The change from *your* normal levels may be sufficient, as opposed to hitting some theoretical target levels.

Depression? You will almost certainly get short-term relief, which will be largely psychological. Longer-term, the jury is out. If your depression really requires anti-depressants, it's a good bet that it still may.

And dysphoria? What heppens in some cases is the distress lessens, but the gender pressure does not. You may trade one issue for another.

[PaulaQ]

Depression? You will almost certainly get short-term relief, which will be largely psychological. Longer-term, the jury is out. If your depression really requires anti-depressants, it's a good bet that it still may.

It's very difficult to tell depression and anxiety that seem to stem from GD from chemical imbalances that require anti-depressants. My doc loaded me up on anti-anxiety and anti-depressant meds. They did *nothing*. The only medication he gave me that worked to alleviate my anxiety was Xanax - and I dared not take that often, because it is so very dangerous to a recovering person like me. (I threw away the bulk of the pills, I only used a few when I was at a point where I could barely keep my hand steady enough to hold the glass of water to take it with.)

Starting HRT really seemed to turn the tide for me. My symptoms were not subtle. (I was fortunate to be having a breakdown during a visit to my doctor's office - he saw it.) And within 2-4 months, I felt really normal. I'd been on anti-depressants about 6 months before starting HRT. They really had no effect on my symptoms. None. The first dosages of HRT my doc prescribed for me knocked out most of my symptoms, although the dosage cycles over a 28 day cycle, and I noticed that I was frequently mildly depressed / anxious during the low dosages in the cycle. So he bumped up my dosage a little - and I felt great all the time. That's not to say that I don't cry, or have other hormonal emotional episodes. I do - but these feel very different from the anxiety and depression I felt before. The stuff I felt before was crushing, oppressive, and felt as if it was going to tear my head open from the inside. I really couldn't have taken much more from it - it was agony.

I know not everyone experiences this - and it's entirely possible to be clinically depressed AND suffer from GD at the same time. All I can say is that if you didn't have this experience, you are quite lucky. (Or perhaps me and others who've experienced this are simply unlucky.)

[kimdl93]

To follow on Paula's point, when you are talking about what is clinical depression, ranging from mild to moderate, antidepressants are effective about 76% of the time! about 1.5% more than a placebo. It is a statistically significant improvement over sugar pills, but comes at a rather high cost given the minimal gains. And cognitive therapy, without medication, shows equal results.

So, what do we make of this? Depression is a western affliction. People living in abject poverty inAfrica and Asia are not depressed. People living Stone Age existences...the Masai and the most remote villages of Pau Pau New Guinea are not depressed.. This is an affliction of thinking, susceptible to suggestion...in e form of antidepressants and low dose HRT.

If this works, fine. But one needs to get to the root of depressive thinking and I guess we all know what our cause can be.

[sandra-leigh]

So, what do we make of this? Depression is a western affliction. People living in abject poverty inAfrica and Asia are not depressed. People living Stone Age existences...the Masai and the most remote villages of Pau Pau New Guinea are not depressed

Low depression rates: Japan 531 (lowest), Spain 620, Greece 632, Côte d'Ivoire 714, Portugal 721
High depression rates: USA 1454 (highest), Nepal 1424, East Timor 1404, Bangladesh 1401, India 1400

Papua New Guinea, 909, is middle of the list.

The Maasai people live in Kenya (723) and Tanzania (724). Those rates are certainly lower than USA (roughly half as much), but still higher than Japan, Spain, Greece, Portugal. Or are those countries not "Western" countries? Or is there abject poverty in those countries that is not known to the researchers who put together poverty tables?

I am not easily finding studies of depression in the Maasai, but I do see ethnological studies of what they use plants for.

Apart from dental hygiene and malaria treatment, only few plant species were employed for treatment of other health conditions. [...] and "Low spirit / depression", which was treated with a Morning Glory (Evolvulus alsinoides).

I don't know about you, but I find it very odd that a people who "are not depressed" include treatment for depression as one of the few things they use plants for medicinally.

I'm going to have to ask you to provide sources, Kim, as your sources have irreconcilable disagreements with the ones I can find.