Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
Sorry to mince words, but I believe I kept my post pretty free of rhetoric. I gave a true, relevant, and politically neutral description of the situation and why I'm approaching it the way that I am; and I imported two minor pieces of jargon which already breached imgeboard containment and made it into the wider internet lexicon 3 years ago and 13 years ago.
(If your choice of words wasn't meant that specifically, and you actually meant “jargon” or “ideas”, just ignore this; I'm only taking umbrage with the possible implication that I'm at least in part running some kind of scripted dialogue tree or other regurgitation that's been optimized for Persuasion. If you didn't mean “rhetoric” in that way, I apologize for my misunderstanding.)
Started DIY; currently DIY; though I spent a year or so with an MD supervising / writing scripts at one point. That was no value added and I got bad vibes from the doc anyway (in 2018 she had never even heard of bicalutamide despite allegedly being specifically an endocrinologist and prescribing HRT for other MtF patients; she tried to switch me over to spironolactone, which is known to cause long-lasting brain fog and may actually cause problems with breast development).
I may check out one of those trans and queer focused “telehealth” providers (doc-in-a-box / pill mill) now I'm 26 and could use a prescription to foist 80% coinsurance for this cosmetic maintenance medication off on my coworkers and employer via health insurance… thanks, Obama!
While I'm generally pretty skeptical about credentialism, since I've seen even well-regarded doctors make pretty bad mistakes, and especially trans-related stuff you tend to either get vastly over-hesitant (like your mentioned brain fog combo, I've also seen docs prescribe combos that have known cancer risks) or under-cautious, it can definitely be worthwhile to have a second set of eyes for a lot of the endocrinology stuff.
You're far enough along that you're not likely to see the 'whoops I accidentally a whole order of magnitude' level problems that come up in newbies, but even people who have good access to blood testing for things like liver function often find themselves least able to think through the numbers if there's a problem.
Sorry, you've probably already considered these tradeoffs, but the downsides are severe enough that I'm bound to offer it anyway in case you haven't.
Yeah, I did specifically add a hepatic panel during the first few months for the just-in-case on the rare bicalutamide allergy (and I add a metabolic panel to to boot, just ‘cuz).
Perhaps, though at least the specific doctor I did use — who was not marketed as a “pill mill” as far as I could tell — definitely wasn't a value-add.
Shopping around and trying non-“pill-mill” MDs to find one that is a value-add sounds like an untenable and unaffordable hassle while I'm not in range of a known-good(asterisk) option like Dr. Powers, versus my current strategy of just doing (self-serve blood work) + (DIY or pill-mill) + (keeping an ear to the ground on a few major transgender subreddits and the Transmaxxing discord channel).
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Jargon is a better word, I didn't mean anything by rhetoric. And it's not just the terms, I feel like your viewpoint is also very similar to the depressed repressors there, but I guess that has also (tragically) spread outside of the board.
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