[loucal]

I'm sure whoever is prescribing you estrogen has told you that synthetic estrogen is incredibly hard on the liver. The reduced risk of you getting prostate cancer is as far as I understand it FAR outweighed by the likelihood that at some point you will have liver issues to deal with. Also, I am on TRT and this is somewhat anecdotal (although many 'bodybuilder' types that use testosterone support this) I have noticed the effects on skin mood and hair are stongly related to estrogen, prolactin, and progesterone levels (meaning they should be in the normal range for male or female depending on what your goal is wrt testosterone). I also agree with the commenter somewhere on here that mentioned he feels the 'roid-rage' when he is low. Also anecdotal but generally agreed upon by the community is that the mood swings come from actual 'swings' of testosterone (and bad moods are when you are low, they should call it roid-affection instead). FDA approved esthers in the US (for injection) do not allow precise daily control to mimic the natural cycle, so there can be some very minor mood changes throughout the week (my dr is open minded and lets me pin the cypionate twice weekly) but I would honestly suggest that your friend had some placebo effect goin on there. As for his 'back-ne', I would check my prolactin levels if I had bad acne on my back (sometimes I do get it, and the levels are always slightly elevated... what to do about it is another story).

Anyway, all due respect of course and I have much admiration of anyone who goes through such great lengths to 'be themselves' but please do make sure you are educated on the risks and minimizing them (I remember hearing it mentioned that the patches of estrogen are much easier on the liver than injections but that was from a tv show I think so take it with a grain of salt) I do believe that you are correct in saying >A significant portion of the benefits are from the estrogen, I just don't think you realize how much. As someone who lost a fair portion of my natural production almost instantly I can say with confidence that even if one were considering to transition to the fairer sex, losing your test without boosting the estrogen has pretty much NO positives except perhaps the reduced prostate cancer risk.