[Ernie]

Was looking at Amazon and they have micronized bio identical progesterone cream  and also bio identical estrogen micronized cream. 

Note that creams give far smaller doses than using estrogel

I reached female levels of E2 in my blood with the OTC estrogen cream in question.

If you calculate it, it's 0.02% E2 vs. 0.06% E2 in estrogel.
3x times smaller dose is not "far" for a topical cream.