I’m an enby and soon to start HRT.
I just had a strange conversation with a friend is saying that estrogen is messing up their dopamine levels.
They said on the pills, they felt ok, but the dose was too low. And then switching to weekly injections, they get a high for 4 days and then they have like a depressive crash on the last 3 days.
It’s started a little bit of a spiral for me as god knows I’ve struggled with brain chemicals all my life. From drepression to anxiety and back and forth, but I’ve been doing much better the past year.
And so I’m kind of freaking out that estrogen will make me spin out.
Has anyone else had issues like this with the injections. I know its very subjective what people feel.
+1 for injecting every 3.5 days for more mood stability.
I will also say that my mood instability was reduced when I was able to lower my dose after an orchiectomy - but that was because testosterone seemed to make me feel miserable (the problem was not low estrogen, but the way low estrogen caused my body to produce T).
Either way, estrogen isn’t going to “mess up your dopamine levels” - I think you are likely to feel better on injections than on pills, pills cause hour-by-hour fluctuations in your hormone levels while injected estradiol valerate has more gradual change in hormone levels compared to oral route, the half life being around 3.5 days.
Also, I struggled with depression and anxiety a lot pre-transition, and estrogen significantly improved my mental health - maybe you will have a similar experience?