[WendyA]

So after much indecision I finally settled on hormones rather than herbals as the way forward for me for several reasons, as this would be a lifetime decision the biggest of which were taking a known substance and availability of medical support / monitoring.

I made the same decision for mostly the same reason. I didn't like the thought of not knowing exactly what was in the herbals or what kind of stress it caused my organs.

the emotional transformation has, for me, been dramatic. Within days I was feeling "me" (more so than when taking PM). Although it's really early days, so far that settled feeling has been constant, the need to wear feminine clothes to "feel right" has gone and I can dress each morning in the way that suits.

I too experienced this change almost immediately. It has now been 7 months. I am on 1mg of Estradiol 3 times a day. Since I'm not concerned with transitioning I stopped taking any spironolactone about 6 weeks back. The salt cravings were driving me nuts. I wanted to see if it was needed to get the mental effects I desired. So far so good.

My next appointment is the beginning of November. I anticipate either staying at 3mg E or going up to 4mg E. It is too early to tell. Right now I feel 1mg every 6 hours would be a better fit than 1mg every 8 hours. But that is 5 months away. It is also too early to tell if I will go back on spironolactone in the future, I'll see how things progress.

I lost 100 lbs and kept that off for a year prior to starting HRT. Right now I'm just concentrating on losing the last 15-20lbs and getting down into the 165-170 lb range. At 72.5 inches I think this would be a fair goal to reach and easily maintain.

Good luck and keep us posted.