I saw my endocrinologist this morning, in person, for the first time since the pandemic started. We’d been in touch via telemedicine / patient portal messaging, but it’s always nice to have that personal touch occasionally. His location is inconvenient, and he only sees patients on Monday mornings. He is absolutely worth the hassle.
He is friendly, caring, respectful. He wears a “My pronouns are” pin. He works in a Gender Clinic in downtown Atlanta (Grady Hospital). The nurse who took my vitals and updated my information is a trans woman. Yes, really. Dr. J and I chatted for a while, getting caught up, with me telling him my concerns. He listened, offered options, and let me decide what I wanted to do.
As soon as the order arrives from the mail pharmacy, I will be discontinuing Estradiol tablets, and switching to transdermal patches. Initially I will be doing 0.05 mg/day (50 mcg) patches once weekly. We will touch base after the first month, and discuss whether I might need or want to up that to 0.1 mg/day (100 mcg). That could be accomplished by using two patches at the same time, or a single patch designed for that higher dosage. In any case, I won’t end up wasting patches. I’d just use the lower dose ones two at a time until they were gone.
We did discuss injections too. I was candid with him about my CPTSD around needles, and even though I thought I “might” be able to do it, I decided against it. I just don’t need to add that to all that I’ve got going on right now. For those who don’t know, it was sepsis that killed Barbara after twenty-seven months of living on TPN, via a central line. The final episode was her seventh. Thus the PTSD. I watched her go through that for more than two years, and I could do nothing to help.
And the best news of all (well maybe not, but good news nonetheless) is that my out of pocket cost for the patches will be the same as the tablets. $0.00 per delivery. 84 days at a time. I have been really lucky so far with medications. Everything I take is zero copay. I’m on a Medicare Advantage plan, and pay no premium above what is automatically deducted from my monthly Social Security retirement. So far, it seems that MA was, for me, the right decision.
An Aging Trans Woman 
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