Useful into for UK trans feminine people
Pharmacies in Portugal (verified) and Spain (unverified) will often sell oestrogen HRT over the counter to tourists without a prescription. If you watch Ryanair prices, you could day trip there for £50 or less.
This will likely be cheaper and potentially safer than using an internet pharmacy.
2mg estradiol is readily available in pill form.
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Ghost of Hope
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Can you get injectables through the NHS equivalent there, if you're resident?
Entirely hypothetically of course...
Sarah Brown
in reply to Ghost of Hope • •like this
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Rachel Greenham
in reply to Ghost of Hope • • •Ghost of Hope
in reply to Rachel Greenham • • •I'm 18 months away from a D7 visa if I need it!
Rachel Greenham
in reply to Ghost of Hope • • •@grayface_ghost i have an irish passport. i think in principle that means i could just go.
the practicalities are likely large though… Only speak English, retired (a bit early, but still…)
Sarah Brown
in reply to Rachel Greenham • •@Rachel Greenham @Ghost of Hope Portuguese people have a very high level of English proficiency. Nordic levels in fact.
Portuguese is a fucker to learn though. Pergunte-me como é que eu sei.
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Ghost of Hope
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •É claro.
My accent's improving though. People could understand my three-word sentences this time around.
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Sarah Brown
in reply to Ghost of Hope • •Ghost of Hope
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Rachel Greenham
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Ghost of Hope
in reply to Rachel Greenham • • •The language requirement for citizenship is only A2. Not an issue with your Irish passport but it would be a factor for me.
Sarah Brown
in reply to Ghost of Hope • •B2)
Ghost of Hope
in reply to Rachel Greenham • • •That passport's going to be worth its weight in gold at some point.
Ghost of Hope
in reply to Ghost of Hope • • •Okay, they're not very heavy but still 😂
Rachel Greenham
in reply to Ghost of Hope • • •@grayface_ghost there's going to be a trans british expat community in portugal before long isn't there...
(she says slightly hopefully, though it would be better not to need it)
Sarah Brown
in reply to Rachel Greenham • •Ghost of Hope
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •@StrangeNoises
Any tips on getting the cheap prices? Do you have to just search daily or are there scrapers etc?
The flights have been half the price of my trips.
Sarah Brown
in reply to Ghost of Hope • •@Ghost of Hope @Rachel Greenham So my needs are a bit different.
But let's say you're doing my shopping commute, but in reverse. Open the Ryanair app on your phone and enter return STN-FAO
Then select some dates in the near future and hit search,
It will show you dates a few weeks around that date with corresponding prices.
So, for example, putting in the 8th of May gives me options in the app from £19.99 upwards for departure. They're all evening flights though. 15th of May has an 06:30 departure from Stansted for £26.25 and returning for £14.35 on the 20:40 departure. That gives you over 10 hours in Faro for £40.60
The app is actually very useful at just letting you scroll through. A week after that it gets obscenely expensive, so I guess there are school holidays or something.
Just got to be flexible, and be happy to take whatever seat they give you and just a handbag or whatever.
Ghost of Hope
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •@StrangeNoises
Thanks, that helps. I don't need it for the meds run as things stand but...
A few days in the Algarve now and then is all that's keeping me above water some days and I could do with cutting the costs a bit.
And it's still cheaper than anything in Britain other than wild camping.
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mei
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Christine 🏴
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •How much would a 80g bottle of estrogel or pack of 28 x 2mg estradiol pills be there?
I'd be quite surprised if the cost of travel and cost of medicine together came to less than getting an equivalent amount from an internet pharmacy.
Especially considering most internet pharmacies are fairly competitive with local British vendors on price.
And then homebrew injectables are almost always significantly better value again, although they're marginally less safe for not having been mixed under pharmaceutical conditions (although vials from major providers are periodically tested by Trans Harm Reduction for consistency and purity)
HRT Source Testing — Trans Harm Reduction
Trans Harm ReductionSarah Brown
in reply to Christine 🏴 • •@Christine 🏴 Inhousepharmacy have an obscene markup on estradiol. A farmácia in Portugal will sell 28x2 for a few euros.
You also don’t end up with obvious international payments to an online pharmacy on your bank records. I feel like this will become increasingly important.
Christine 🏴
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown likes this.
Charlotte Benton
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Joanna Link
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Joanna Link • •Bez
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •@jen
Is estradiol more effective than Progynova?
I was on 30mg Progynova and my E was still low so now I'm on 40mg.
Jen Fizzbuzz
in reply to Bez • • •progynova is a trade name of estradiol valerate. And the 2mg said here will be progynova.
Sure your on 30mg? usual max dosage is 4mg
Bez
in reply to Jen Fizzbuzz • • •@jen
I thought the pills were 10mg but they are 2mg each. So I'm on 8mg which I was told is the recommended legal max in UK. (I just remembered it as the number of pills.)
I was on 4mg but my E levels didn't go high enough, so they suggested going up to 6mg and then after 6 weeks, just before I left Thailand, I got another blood test and my E still wasn't that high so I'm on 4 pills a day until I go back in October.
Jen Fizzbuzz
in reply to Bez • • •Are you using any form of blocker to reduce T?
Bez
in reply to Jen Fizzbuzz • • •Yes, Androcure. 12.5mg/day.
Sarah Brown
in reply to Bez • •Bez
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Bez • •🏳️⚧️ Fiona 🏳️⚧️
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Bez • •@Bez @Jen Fizzbuzz There isn’t a “recommended legal max”. It’s not like there’s a “how much oestrogen are you allowed to have in your blood act, 2008”, or anything.
Doctors prescribe what they prescribe.
I was in the equivalent of 8mg too, early in my transition. It’s less common now, but those sort of doses were quite routine 20 years ago.
Sarah Brown
in reply to Sarah Brown • •@Bez @Jen Fizzbuzz Aaaanyway, as mentioned above, Progynova is estradiol valerate, which is the valeric acid ester of the steroid hormone, 17-beta estradiol. Your liver cleaves the valedictorian acid part off, leaving pure estradiol, which then does the feminising things.
This extra step effectively gives you a bit of a “delayed release”.
In my experience, Portuguese pharmacies sell estradiol hemihydrate. This is just pure estradiol; not in an esterified state. You eat it, it goes straight in. Some find it a bit more potent because of this (whenever I switch from being on UK sourced Progynova to Portugal sourced hemihydrate, my tits ache for a bit, before they settle down), but the doses are the same.
There are also a few people who can’t metablolise estradiol valerate, or struggle, and so need a higher dose. Hemihydrate works for everyone.
... show more@Bez @Jen Fizzbuzz Aaaanyway, as mentioned above, Progynova is estradiol valerate, which is the valeric acid ester of the steroid hormone, 17-beta estradiol. Your liver cleaves the valedictorian acid part off, leaving pure estradiol, which then does the feminising things.
This extra step effectively gives you a bit of a “delayed release”.
In my experience, Portuguese pharmacies sell estradiol hemihydrate. This is just pure estradiol; not in an esterified state. You eat it, it goes straight in. Some find it a bit more potent because of this (whenever I switch from being on UK sourced Progynova to Portugal sourced hemihydrate, my tits ache for a bit, before they settle down), but the doses are the same.
There are also a few people who can’t metablolise estradiol valerate, or struggle, and so need a higher dose. Hemihydrate works for everyone.
Hope that’s useful. Maybe consider taking a few days holiday in the Algarve and just, you know, stock up a bit, just in case. Weather’s nice next week.
And don’t worry about the language barrier; there isn’t one.
Bez
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •@jen
Thank you for all that info.
The “recommended legal max” was mentioned to me by the Thai doctor I visited because I don't have the energy to fill out all the forms in the UK, let alone wait that many years.
There may have been a misunderstanding I dunno.
It sounds like maybe I'm one of those folk who struggles with estradiol valerate as my level was 60-something I think and they said the 'target level' for a trans woman was 100.
I bought 6 months' worth of E before I left Thailand though so I'll stick with that for now.
Do you know if estradiol hemihydrate is available in Thailand? If my levels aren't great in November, maybe I can ask to go on those.
Thank you for all the help.
Jen Fizzbuzz
in reply to Bez • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Bez • •🏳️⚧️ Fiona 🏳️⚧️
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Right, the flight from Eindhoven to Porto really WAS quite cheap when I went there in March…
If I manage to buy enough stock there, this really could be worth it…
Jima :Compromise_bi_flag:
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Jima :Compromise_bi_flag: • •@Jima :Compromise_bi_flag: @Danielle :antiverified: may be supposed to pay import duty. Not sure. Up to the traveller to work out what their responsibilities are.
Although I doubt HMRC give a shit about this sort of thing tbh.
Siguza
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Siguza • •@Siguza Like, I’m frequently named personally by connected TERFs in the UK as the trans woman they hate the most, and I use FAO/STN like it’s a city bus. I’m at the, “oh, you again, hi! Usual in flight meal?” stage with some of the cabin crew and I can confirm that UK Border Force find me wholly and entirely uninteresting. They are looking for some people. They aren’t looking for us.
(As in on Wednesday, I was in my own kitchen in the UK, making tea, exactly 40 minutes after the Ryanair flight I had been on touched its wheels to the ground and engaged its brakes. Barely broke stride for the border).
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Sarah Brown
in reply to Sarah Brown • •Alexandra Lanes likes this.