Exploring The Hormonal Route. Hair=life.

[Ephemeral-Kitten]

One of the things that that really drew me into all of this was I started out on piddling amounts of estrogen. I was on Premarin 0.30 mg starting out and nobody believes me. After six months, we titrated upwards to .625 mg. I was non-binary and still had hopes that my wife might come around, eh but I was trying to not get too big in the breast department so that I could still have deniability. Then I went up to a whopping 1.25 mg and 100 mg of spironolactone at the end of the one year mark. Then 2.50 mg Premarin and 200 mg of spironolactone until May of this year. Plus I had three years of DIY while I was stil married using menopausal creams. Everyone on the MtF boards is saying that is not enough but it was plenty. I had big honking breasts and I swear I didn't mean to. MtFs never grow good ones. Now I know that starting off with tiny amounts of E titrated really gradually is the gold standard for breast growth not that it works for everyone.
The other MtFs are all starting off on 6 mg sublingual and an an AA and it's too much. Pubertal girls have very little estrogen and it appears that the best approach for breast growth was tiny amounts titrated gradually upwards. I swallowed my pills too. I am not a sucker.

I don't think CEE will appear properly on an E2 test, so it's hard to know if your levels of non-human estrogens were low or not. As for swallowing estradiol, I think that is beneficial for breast growth for two reason: 1) there is a high amount of 17b-HSD in the breast tissue to convert estrone and E1S into E2 locally, and 2) estrone has a higher affinity for ER-alpha compared to ER-beta than estradiol does. ER-alpha is a primary factor in breast growth, whereas ER-beta is a primary factor in scalp hair growth. CEEs like premarin also have a higher affinity to ER-alpha, I believe. The same is true for EE in birth control pills.

I need to get this off my chest as well: cis female and cis male are not synonyms for biological female and biological male, cis means same and it is the opposite of trans; so a "cis-male transgender person" is not possible, nor is a "cis-male enby" possible because cis and trans are contradictory terms.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

@JaneyElizabeth Thank you for your productive, thorough, and insightful posts. You are one of the few who understands the hair loss methodology inside out.

Struggling for hair loss for 10 year now has been debilitating. I have more than 400 studies saved on my desktop. Trying to connect all the dots.

My conclusion after suffering from many painstaking trial and errors: without sufficient estrogen, you won't regrow hair!

Probably the most insightful study I came across was https://academic.oup.com/edrv/article/27/6/677/2355194. Just read the title. Hair Follicle as and Estrogen Target And Source. That explains it all.

If you further read the researchers main points you'll find that estrogen is the one primary hormone that upregulates hair growth modulators further proliferating the genes necessary for hair growth to commence.

I am talking about WNT pathway, IGF-1, FGF-7, etc.

Just to give you some perspective of my hair loss story similar to @Itsnoahkennedy, whey protein isolate was the main offender. It took me 6 years to realize this was the case.

I was taking 4 scoops of whey protein isolate for 1.5 years 5 days weekly trying to build muscle mass. It lead to diffuse thinning with major recession,

My hair loss looks like leprosy especially when it is wet. I don't recognize myself anymore in the mirror. A similar type of hair loss pattern happened to @Itsnoahkennedy and he too took whey (noah correct me if I am wrong here, but I remember you telling me this a while back).

So my question Janey is: If one simple "natural" supplement can destroy my hair because of a hormonal turbulence why can't we find a "natural" supplement that can regrow our hairs?

Have you remotely considered soy isoflavones (they have to be a specific kind of supplement not the ordinary soy milk, soy protein, or the a generic soy) with capsaicin? There was a study on this and the results do look promising.

Soy isoflavones are the closest "natural" estrogen remedy. Soy isoflavones consist of genistein and daidzein. Genistein binds to estrogen beta receptors similar to E2 and these receptors are known to influence hair growth. I am not talking about the estrogen alpha since it has no direct impact on hair growth.

Read the study I posted above if not already to better understand estrogen beta. I also have compiled a couple of noteworthy studies on soy and their effects on various receptors.

I don't mind posting those here only if you are interested.

Thanks again. You are a legend and a rockstar. We appreciate your generous and meticulous feedback. Very few people have the cognitive skillset and keen observation to fully grasp the hair anatomy. You happen to be the few.

Someone messaged me yesterday about creatine causing disruption to hair. Is that similar to whey protein?

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

I don't think CEE will appear properly on an E2 test, so it's hard to know if your levels of non-human estrogens were low or not. As for swallowing estradiol, I think that is beneficial for breast growth for two reason: 1) there is a high amount of 17b-HSD in the breast tissue to convert estrone and E1S into E2 locally, and 2) estrone has a higher affinity for ER-alpha compared to ER-beta than estradiol does. ER-alpha is a primary factor in breast growth, whereas ER-beta is a primary factor in scalp hair growth. CEEs like premarin also have a higher affinity to ER-alpha, I believe. The same is true for EE in birth control pills.

I need to get this off my chest as well: cis female and cis male are not synonyms for biological female and biological male, cis means same and it is the opposite of trans; so a "cis-male transgender person" is not possible, nor is a "cis-male enby" possible because cis and trans are contradictory terms.

I am still a skeptic on the estrone thing. But I used pills for two years and I will go back to it because my bottom is full of black adhesive circles that take weeks to come off. I find the alpha and beta stuff with estriol and the others to be a bit hard to categorize in terms of effects. Premain has many different natural estrogens in it although not-necessarily human ones, they often convert. I think that I have read that Premarin is a type of Serm and that many of the metabollites are estrone so maybe people get good results from this med although you don't want to be swallowing lots. I was on pretty small amounts. I am pretty much not interested in cyproterone acetate and spironolactone wasn't for me but I have asked about bicalutamide to my provider. It appears fairly safe and is supposed to be better for hair than the other two and maybe also for breast growth? I have C+'s but for science I am willing to see if they grow any bigger or rounder. I don't even know about P but I have been taking a 100 mg of that orally. I am kind of a hypocrite but I am already mostly done with my body effects just rounding out about the neck and doing some tweaks. I love this!

 

[Derelict]

I am still a skeptic on the estrone thing. But I used pills for two years and I will go back to it because my bottom is full of black adhesive circles that take weeks to come off. I find the alpha and beta stuff with estriol and the others to be a bit hard to categorize in terms of effects. Premain has many different natural estrogens in it although not-necessarily human ones, they often convert. I think that I have read that Premarin is a type of Serm and that many of the metabollites are estrone so maybe people get good results from this med although you don't want to be swallowing lots. I was on pretty small amounts. I am pretty much not interested in cyproterone acetate and spironolactone wasn't for me but I have asked about bicalutamide to my provider. It appears fairly safe and is supposed to be better for hair than the other two and maybe also for breast growth? I have C+'s but for science I am willing to see if they grow any bigger or rounder. I don't even know about P but I have been taking a 100 mg of that orally. I am kind of a hypocrite but I am already mostly done with my body effects just rounding out about the neck and doing some tweaks. I love this!

Sorry to go off topic but do you think bica monotherapy would be better than spironolactone monotherapy or is bica only better when used in conjunction with estradiol? I remember a member on this thread saying he got better results in regards to hair with spironolactone alone than bica, just curious.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

Sorry to go off topic but do you think bica monotherapy would be better than spironolactone monotherapy or is bica only better when used in conjunction with estradiol? I remember a member on this thread saying he got better results in regards to hair with spironolactone alone than bica, just curious.

JaneyElizabeth:

That's actually the question that I asked above about flutamide which is less safe but much more well known with similar therapeutic effects. It is hard to point to any one study or article but people mention bica a lot related to hair growth but maybe less so related to breast growth since E handles that primarily. So bica probably has the best hair effects and overall AA effects but it is much more expensive and harder to get in the U.S. In my opinion, "results" from the three most used AA's are pretty similar and it is often the side effect issues that inform choice as to which one to use.

@bridgeburn ranked them like this in terms of safety although I could have two and three inverted.
1) Bica
2) spironolactone
3) Androcur

Not that I disagree but folks that I respect most on the MtF sites rank them this way safety-wise:
1) spironolactone
2) Bica
3) Androcur

In terms of efficacity, MtFs only care about breast growth, lol but they are all used for feminization as AA's and successfully and all three are safe in the short-term. Cyproterone (Androcur) has the scariest long-term possible side-effects followed by Bica and then disparaged spironolactone is safest of the three. People get confused here related to whether any of this circumvents cis-female-like breast growth--spironolactone and Androcur might but in terms of the protocols of the endrocrine society, all three are indicated as AA's and there is no definitive answer as to whether any of the three interfere with breast development in terms of shape and size.

spironolactone gets its bad reputation due to its prevalent sides which for many, are definitely not placebo in type. Among these are weakness, fatigue and brain fog, which means nothing really but these three are related to a general tired feeling from spironolactone especially for folks using 100 mg and upwards. spironolactone also causes greatly increased urination and you need to monitor NaCl intake because spironolactone is a potassium-sparing diuretic.I was using from 100 mg to 200 mg and spironolactone was not for me. I sweated excessively and while you expect to feel a little weaker on an AA, I felt dramatically weaker and struggled to walk steps and I have always been a real go-getter in terms of taking the stairs.

Now to your specific question and mine and it is of special interest to the avoid gyno folks.... I tend to believe that only marginal hair growth is facilitated by the use of AA's without estrogen. This might include hair that has recently gone out of cycle or that was about to. Halting the rate of hair loss looks a lot like "regrowth". That's why I try to emphasize that in the MtF context, "regrowth" presents more so as improvement instead of lots of new little hairs coming in, especially since everyone's hair lines lag the rest of the scalp. I will keep posting different pics of the entire five year hair growth and feminization process. Below is me after three years of using Amazon menopausal creams and maybe two months into formal HRT using 0.30 mg of Premarin plus Life Flo Biestro care on my scalp so basically, this is me starting on HRT and on still really marginal amounts. My hair had obviously improved from several months before:

 

[Gergely]

JaneyElizabeth:

That's actually the question that I asked above about flutamide which is less safe but much more well known with similar therapeutic effects. It is hard to point to any one study or article but people mention bica a lot related to hair growth but maybe less so related to breast growth since E handles that primarily. So bica probably has the best hair effects and overall AA effects but it is much more expensive and harder to get in the U.S. In my opinion, "results" from the three most used AA's are pretty similar and it is often the side effect issues that inform choice as to which one to use.

@bridgeburn ranked them like this in terms of safety although I could have two and three inverted.
1) Bica
2) spironolactone
3) Androcur

Not that I disagree but folks that I respect most on the MtF sites rank them this way safety-wise:
1) spironolactone
2) Bica
3) Androcur

In terms of efficacity, MtFs only care about breast growth, lol but they are all used for feminization as AA's and successfully and all three are safe in the short-term. Cyproterone (Androcur) has the scariest long-term possible side-effects followed by Bica and then disparaged spironolactone is safest of the three. People get confused here related to whether any of this circumvents cis-female-like breast growth--spironolactone and Androcur might but in terms of the protocols of the endrocrine society, all three are indicated as AA's and there is no definitive answer as to whether any of the three interfere with breast development in terms of shape and size.

spironolactone gets its bad reputation due to its prevalent sides which for many, are definitely not placebo in type. Among these are weakness, fatigue and brain fog, which means nothing really but these three are related to a general tired feeling from spironolactone especially for folks using 100 mg and upwards. spironolactone also causes greatly increased urination and you need to monitor NaCl intake because spironolactone is a potassium-sparing diuretic.I was using from 100 mg to 200 mg and spironolactone was not for me. I sweated excessively and while you expect to feel a little weaker on an AA, I felt dramatically weaker and struggled to walk steps and I have always been a real go-getter in terms of taking the stairs.

Now to your specific question and mine and it is of special interest to the avoid gyno folks.... I tend to believe that only marginal hair growth is facilitated by the use of AA's without estrogen. This might include hair that has recently gone out of cycle or that was about to. Halting the rate of hair loss looks a lot like "regrowth". That's why I try to emphasize that in the MtF context, "regrowth" presents more so as improvement instead of lots of new little hairs coming in, especially since everyone's hair lines lag the rest of the scalp.View attachment 147068

You might find this video interesting,

 

[Derelict]

JaneyElizabeth:

That's actually the question that I asked above about flutamide which is less safe but much more well known with similar therapeutic effects. It is hard to point to any one study or article but people mention bica a lot related to hair growth but maybe less so related to breast growth since E handles that primarily. So bica probably has the best hair effects and overall AA effects but it is much more expensive and harder to get in the U.S. In my opinion, "results" from the three most used AA's are pretty similar and it is often the side effect issues that inform choice as to which one to use.

@bridgeburn ranked them like this in terms of safety although I could have two and three inverted.
1) Bica
2) spironolactone
3) Androcur

Not that I disagree but folks that I respect most on the MtF sites rank them this way safety-wise:
1) spironolactone
2) Bica
3) Androcur

In terms of efficacity, MtFs only care about breast growth, lol but they are all used for feminization as AA's and successfully and all three are safe in the short-term. Cyproterone (Androcur) has the scariest long-term possible side-effects followed by Bica and then disparaged spironolactone is safest of the three. People get confused here related to whether any of this circumvents cis-female-like breast growth--spironolactone and Androcur might but in terms of the protocols of the endrocrine society, all three are indicated as AA's and there is no definitive answer as to whether any of the three interfere with breast development in terms of shape and size.

spironolactone gets its bad reputation due to its prevalent sides which for many, are definitely not placebo in type. Among these are weakness, fatigue and brain fog, which means nothing really but these three are related to a general tired feeling from spironolactone especially for folks using 100 mg and upwards. spironolactone also causes greatly increased urination and you need to monitor NaCl intake because spironolactone is a potassium-sparing diuretic.I was using from 100 mg to 200 mg and spironolactone was not for me. I sweated excessively and while you expect to feel a little weaker on an AA, I felt dramatically weaker and struggled to walk steps and I have always been a real go-getter in terms of taking the stairs.

Now to your specific question and mine and it is of special interest to the avoid gyno folks.... I tend to believe that only marginal hair growth is facilitated by the use of AA's without estrogen. This might include hair that has recently gone out of cycle or that was about to. Halting the rate of hair loss looks a lot like "regrowth". That's why I try to emphasize that in the MtF context, "regrowth" presents more so as improvement instead of lots of new little hairs coming in, especially since everyone's hair lines lag the rest of the scalp. I will keep posting different pics of the entire five year hair growth and feminization process. Below is me after three years of using Amazon menopausal creams and maybe two months into formal HRT using 0.30 mg of Premarin plus Life Flo Biestro care on my scalp so basically, this is me starting on HRT and on still really marginal amounts. My hair had obviously improved from several months before:

View attachment 147068

View attachment 147069

Thanks for the indepth post, do you know of anything about damage done by AI's, letrozole in particular and how to recover from the damage they do to your hair and how to reverse it? i know estradiol is one angle of attack but i would like to keep that as a last ditch attempt to recover my hair. I stopped letrozole in march and still haven't really recovered from the shed it gave me.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

You might find this video interesting,

Thank you. I will take a look at this later today!

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

Thanks for the indepth post, do you know of anything about damage done by AI's, letrozole in particular and how to recover from the damage they do to your hair and how to reverse it? i know estradiol is one angle of attack but i would like to keep that as a last ditch attempt to recover my hair. I stopped letrozole in march and still haven't really recovered from the shed it gave me.

Maybe you can be a bit more specific in terms of damage. Do you mean possible liver damage or are you referring to damage to your follicles and the regrowth process. Someone mentioned whey protein to me and also creatine which I was vaguely aware except the he-men on tresses discuss creatine, which I do know is used as supplement in body building. Were you using letrozole in the context of preventing breast growth like a serm?

 

[Derelict]

Maybe you can be a bit more specific in terms of damage. Do you mean possible liver damage or are you referring to damage to your follicles and the regrowth process. Someone mentioned whey protein to me and also creatine which I was vaguely aware except the he-men on tresses discuss creatine, which I do know is used as supplement in bodyb building.

I meant hair loss due to aromatase inhibition from letrozole, i took 2.5mg for two months to try and help get rid of some gyno. Really silly of me looking back, i really regret it, my hair took a massive hit and i don't know how to recover other than estradiol which i would like to keep as a last resort.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

I also have to wonder about the effectiveness of an oral anti-androgen, especially without estrogen. It seems like the dramatic regrowth some trans women get and that Bridge and Noah got was from the estrogen supplementation. If a topical AA is effective, then there's really no need to take CPA or bica or spironolactone orally and have the side effects. I suppose the question is whether a topical AA like RU is strong enough or if some other topical is needed.

It seems like the main point of an AA is to prevent further loss, whereas estrogen does the real regrowth.

The AA's present a conundrum for us in terms of what we know about estradiol-only. Does Bicalutamide have special hair effects that Androcur and spironolactone lack? We aren't entirely sure why some gals reach targets easily on E2 and others don't. Since I don't test often and I used to never open the files, reading assays is not my thing so much but I think that the numbers are obscured by uses of AA's and someone said that this is true of Premarin also. I think that opinion is mixed on the value of localized estradiol effects on the body, but it seems clear that estrogel has both localized effects and hair effects due to systemic absorption.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

This is for all the HRT haters.
View attachment 146852

I know that I just met you and I think that you are from Texas. But you are an HRT person and I think that you need to relax more about all of this and try not to tinker so much. You can try to convince me but I do not believe in minoxidil-dependent hair. I have used it since 1988 and never regrew and hair only maintained. Same thing with finasteride in 1998 and Dutasteride in 2013. I only maintained. Then with HRT, I experienced substantial thickening and lowering of my hairline. My question is if I stop Duasteride or Minoxidil or HRT and I lose hair, what kind of hair would it be that I lost? There cannot be minoxidil-dependent hair unless were are talking about something like an allergic reaction. This might explain all of the minoxidil shedding which I never ever had.

It would be great to work out a simpler regime for yourself and then stick with it. You would shock your body so much and stress and over brushing can cause increased hair fall in the short run. i worry because some of your pictures are so amazing and then others look like you are just beginning

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

@JaneyElizabeth i have been off estrogen since February that’s why. i just used it to get my hairline pretty much back to normal for the mean time, my temples aren’t holding out so well though. But its fine. When the borders open back up I’m going over seas for a 3500 graft hair transplant. Better to drop $4,000 on that than to spend $1000 a year on drugs.

& the middle finger was for the trolls who come here just to talk sh*t about the people in our thread.

i know that I just came into your posts a couple of days ago so forgive me for not knowing all the details. I don't want you to get a hair transplant. I think you will prefer regrowing and maintaining your own but you are a young lady in the know so I am sure you have your reasons. I really like the pictures of you where you wear it sort of Mia Farrow-like. No, I didn't know that you live in a different country unless you mean Mexico, lol. Oh, you mean Turkey for the transplant. You can defend me from trolls. I already got three dislikes from some guy who said that anyone using hormones to do this should be castrated and taken out of the gene pool or some crap like that.

And you know what? People can ask me almost anything and may request privately or to be posted essentially all aspects of the transition experience over several years. Even the trolls who say "show us your tits" can be accommodated if they ask like a gentleman and rate me fairly.... I mean they are already littered all over the reddit transgender sites under the name JaneyElizabeth so it is liberating and they are legal breasts anyway in my state since they are officially cis-male although I am female.

I don't mind trolls if they are clever. I mind the ones who are hacks .

Goddess Bless.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

You might find this video interesting,

Thank you sir, is it? That video was worthwhile. It subtly has changed my views and made me more insistent on trying bica so I am emailing my provider. It is a bit like switching though while I tell others to avoid but I can justify everything with my person sense of logic.

 

[Catagen]

I deleted it.

You never had a minoxidil shed because you were never a good minoxidil responder. You have low sulfotransferase enzyme activity in the scalp so it cant metabolize in your body, did you ever add tretinoin to your min? You would need to try oral min and then you will see minoxidil dependant hairs are real.

 

[Ephemeral-Kitten]

I get it but I type at a 100 words a minute. Guy Gay Gal It is easy to hit the wrong letter and I often have to go back and look at all of the cis-words. People know that I am non-binary so people call me anything although my DL says Female. Good to see you here. You are very knowledgeable. That's why I had been considering your posts at the MtF sites.

I do think it's a bit hyper-technical but not wrong to say cis-female transgender person because they might be non-binary or transfeminine. I think transwoman and transman sound yuck but many still use them. Transsexual seems done as a term. You'll see that I refer to myself as all three genders and I use both of my names and I love both of my alter-egos and want both of their names on my epitaph. I don't cotton to group-think or to the pronoun police. But I think that in terms of decorum, you folks should avoid the term tranny even if just used as an abbreviation not for me but out of consideration for others. Also we should always refer to folks by their expressed wishes in terms of name and gender if we know. I think the extension of the term they, which I use is unfair to expect of others. I struggle with this sentence every time. Everybody has his (their) book. His is right traditionally. I don't mind changes but they is way too imprecise when used with "are" instead of "is" and half the time I have to read sentences again and again to figure out who "they are". For instance, they is my mother. That is logical and precise. Yes, it is wrong in terms of conjugation but as mentioned, using they in the third person plural for third person singular is incorrect.

Peace and Harmony.

Goddess bless.

Thanks, you too. I don't intend to be mean, but "cis-female transgender person" is not technical, but it is wrong; cis in this context is short for cisgender, cisgender is the opposite of transgender. A non-binary person is not cisgender by definition because non-binary is on a gender spectrum somewhere in the middle, whereas "cis" is on the opposite side from trans. Sometimes people use "trans" as an umbrella term and include non-binary people, but cis is never used in such a way.

Also, "cis-female transgender person" would definitely not be a non-binary AMAB person or transfeminine person, because someone who is cis female is AFAB and her gender is the same as her AGAB, hence "cis" (it means "same").

This is not policing out of politics or pronouns or feelings, it's just correcting something which is factually incorrect.

Again, cis does not mean "biological" or "natal", it means "on the same side as" (i.e., the same gender as sex). That's why cis and trans are antonyms.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

You never had a minoxidil shed because you were never a good minoxidil responder. You have low sulfotransferase enzyme activity in the scalp so it cant metabolize in your body, did you ever add tretinoin to your min? You would need to try oral min and then you will see minoxidil dependant hairs are real.

I use retin-a plus minoxidiil foam plus estrogel plus latisse.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

You never had a minoxidil shed because you were never a good minoxidil responder. You have low sulfotransferase enzyme activity in the scalp so it cant metabolize in your body, did you ever add tretinoin to your min? You would need to try oral min and then you will see minoxidil dependant hairs are real.

You would have no reason to know this but I wrote a bit about my concerns regarding oral minoxidil above. If I stagnate, I might try it but the estrogel seems about 100 times more important to my incipient results. I also say that minoxidil is the one that I drop temporarily if I use too much between my auto-orders which can happen if I derma roll a lot a certain month. But anything else you can add about loniten for the board especially in the transgender extra cocktail regard would be great to hear. One problem with stacking meds is to discern which med causes what. That's why E2-only is so profound in HRT but even E2 plus an AA is simple to explain and understand. Goddess Bless.

 

[pegasus2]

@JaneyElizabeth i have been off estrogen since February that’s why. i just used it to get my hairline pretty much back to normal for the mean time, my temples aren’t holding out so well though. But its fine. When the borders open back up I’m going over seas for a 3500 graft hair transplant. Better to drop $4,000 on that than to spend $1000 a year on drugs.

& the middle finger was for the trolls who come here just to talk sh*t about the people in our thread.

If you're referring to me I didn't talk sh*t about anyone. I appreciate the experience Janey brings to the thread

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

If you're referring to me I didn't talk sh*t about anyone. I appreciate the experience Janey brings to the thread

I don't think you did. I think she was referring to the fellow referring to "trannies" above which just happened to be the moment when my screen name was confirmed and I first "popped" in her after lurking for weeks.