Hello comrades, thought I’d ask here cause my other fellow trans people are the most informed about HRT and I admittedly don’t know that much

So a person dear to me, is a cis woman at menopause, and she also had to get one of her ovaries removed. She’s now dealing with a lot of bone issues, as is expected from what I know, to people without adequate hormones. The doctor isnt prescribing her hormones because “it can cause cancer” and instead is basically doing nothing about it, and is just fearmongering. I know about the “increased rate of heart attacks” crap TERFs like to rave about about feminizing HRT, when it’s just the normal cis woman levels afaik, but I’ve never heard of this particular statement. She respects this doctor a lot, and now believes she’s basically doomed to have increasingly fucked bones or get cancer on hormone treatement. Is there any reading I can do regarding this, or better, link to her, regarding this? She’s supportive of trans people, so that’s not an issue if the source mentions that. From what i know transfem HRT and menopausal cis women HRT is closely related so thought it would help. Thanks a lot!

  • EatMoreMacroplastics [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    14·
    2 days ago

    From what i know transfem HRT and menopausal cis women HRT is closely related

    It’s the exact same. Any industrially produced form of estradiole HRT is made for menopausal cis women and then prescribed to us off-label. All the stuff that is produced specifically for trans women and transfem nonbinary people is from DIY sources. Back when i got my first prescription for gynokadin gel, i noticed that the package notes do not even mention trans healthcare, it exclusively talks about menopause. But whether we’re talking gels and patches produced for menopausal cis women or injections produced for trans women, it’s the same active ingredient.

  • bobs_guns@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    5·
    1 day ago

    Hormones are only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to maintaining bone density. You also need to get minerals in your diet and do exercises that can impact and strain your bones without breaking or fracturing them. For example, you can microwave half a block of tofu with some frozen vegetables and have some toast or tortilla on the side for an easy but not that tasty breakfast that will help improve bone density, and you can go on walks and do strength training to demand more density from your bones. HRT will also help, of course

  • peanutbuttercupola [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    8·
    1 day ago

    Your friend should get a second opinion from another doctor. While you have correctly ascertained that the risks of HRT are exaggerated, someone who trusts doctors will probably be more willing to hear that from another doctor than from an informal source.

    As the drugs involved are essentially the same for trans and cis women, your friend could diy her hrt, although that is not the vibe I get from this post. She would just need estradiol and a form of prog.

  • StillNoLeftLeft [none/use name, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    10·
    2 days ago

    I am a sort of cis woman supposedly, so not sure if I can comment on this, but been on HRT for little over a year for perimenopause and it has made me realize I’ve probably always had undiagnosed PMOS as I have a lot of those androgen type features and also insulin resistance. I don’t and never really have been able to know what gender I am supposed to be and I probably should have been on HRT for at least a decade, probably longer. The HRT has made a world of difference to my wellbeing, the list of positive changes is very long. It has also made me realize that a lot of what gets diagnosed as mental health issues in cis women is probably hormone related (anxiety, depression, sleep issues in particular).

    The so called hot flashes do not necessarily show up as just being hot. For me they were a sudden sense of doom and panic, heart pounding or palpitations. All have cleared from adequate HRT. Join pains and other joint/muscle issues also went away. I developed severe plantar fasciitis years ago that in hindsight was one of the first joys of perimeno. All of those issues are now gone.

    Here is a wiki I very much recommend that goes into a lot of the relevant stuff. The cancer worry is nuanced but overblown, there are some genuine worries, but not as severe as it has been framed as. Same as the heart attack risk. My doctor framed the risk as being worth it compared to how much HRT can increase quality of life. They were right.

    I also don’t often recommend reddit-logo subs, but both the menopause and perimenopause subs have a lot of good information in them and can be read via lurking mode.