My testosterone level was tested on Friday afternoon. It’s now 487 pg/nl.

I feel like I’ve been downgraded against my will from a trans woman to a cross-dresser.

I'm sorry that my suggestions haven't been helpful. Obviously I don't know you outside this board and have no idea about what your exact insurance situation is, but I still think a place like the one I linked to earlier might be able to help you find a willing doctor that your insurance will cover - what is the downside of asking?

I don't know of ANY "safe" DIY way to destroy your testicles, especially a way that would not also damage the scrotum (Judging from your profile, I am guessing that you might be seeking reassignment surgery / vaginoplasty at some point, and from what I've read, they use the scrotum skin for part of the rebuild, so you probably don't want to get rid of it)

I'm also not a mod, and will let them rule on it, but to me it feels like asking how to in effect cut yourself gets very close to the board policy on not allowing seeking cutters http://forums.eunuch.org/showthread.php ... Here-at-EA

As I've said earlier, it is neither "safe", nor guaranteed to work, but there are a lot of reported successes in at least lowering T drastically and shrinking the testicles by injecting them with alcohol and / or calcium chloride and that is probably somewhat lower risk than any sort of DIY surgery.

BTW, Having used the type of clamps you link to above (for woodworking!) I have no doubt that they would cause you a great deal of pain, but almost certainly would not work to crush your balls. They MIGHT work to clamp the cords, but seem a bit awkward for that job (If I had a hardware store fetish, I'd probably go with Vice-Grips ) An elastrator (reportedly very painful, not reliably effective, and decidedly unsafe on people) would do a better job of cord crushing... (but it would also damage the scrotum...)

WheelyFixed

I'd second the part about alcohol or alcohol/calcium chloride injection as sort of safe-ish possibility. There are two threads here on the forums about that.

WheelyFixed wrote: Tue Nov 05, 2024 3:06 pm http://forums.eunuch.org/showthread.php?

23743-Calcium-Chloride-and-Other-Salt-Injections-for-Castration

and

WheelyFixed wrote: Tue Nov 05, 2024 3:06 pm http://forums.eunuch.org/showthread.php?

16839-Ethyl-Alcohol-Teste-Injection

Both have potential to damage your scrotum, if done wrong. But again - both have been effective (if you believe people here on the forum), for at least some people.

On the Calcium chloride thread - there were papers listed on how it works and what/how much is needed. (It was used/tested for sterilization of dogs).

I'm not closing this thread as I believe this individual needs help and encouragement to use LEGITIMATE resources, but this is starting to tread on thin ice.

Shelving any efforts to do it myself for the time being. Lots of talks with my doctors this week and a 72-hour psych ward stay. They’re going to work harder to get me some appropriate treatment: surgery by a urologist, etc.

Thank you for the advice and support to date.

Glad to hear you are shelving the DIY plans! Good luck in finding doctors that will give you the appropriate treatment, hopefully getting your doctors involved in the search will help...

Have you seen this thread

WheelyFixed wrote: Tue Nov 05, 2024 3:06 pm http://forums.eunuch.org/showthread.php?319

25-Best-Practice-%96-Orchiectomy ? The paper that Jesus points at seems like something which would be very relevant as it talks about the benefits of relatively early orchiectomies for M-F trans patients from both a physical and mental health standpoint. It seems to me that if your docs are willing to acknowledge that you want to transition, that the paper might help convince them that surgery is in your best medical interest.

WheelyFixed

WheelyFixed wrote: Sat Nov 09, 2024 8:09 pm Glad to hear you are shelving the DIY plans! Good luck in finding doctors that will give you the appropriate treatment, hopefully getting your doctors involved in the search will help...

Have you seen this thread

WheelyFixed wrote: Tue Nov 05, 2024 3:06 pm http:

WheelyFixed wrote: Sat Nov 09, 2024 8:09 pm //forums.eunuch.org/showthread.php?319

25-Best-Practice-%96-Orchiectomy ? The paper that Jesus points at seems like something which would be very relevant as it talks about the benefits of relatively early orchiectomies for M-F trans patients from both a physical and mental health standpoint. It seems to me that if your docs are willing to acknowledge that you want to transition, that the paper might help convince them that surger

y is in your best medical interest.

WheelyFixed

Perhaps there is some confusion over that, hon. I transitioned over a decade ago. I have a smooth body and breasts grown by hormones. Once I became unable to medically tolerate the various testosterone blockers, instead of immediately giving me an orchiectomy, the doctors have watched me suffer and be forced back through another male puberty.

Do you know what it’s like to have female-looking breasts and watch course hair begin to grow on them?

Sorry about the confusion - your profile said you were trans, but not where you were in the process... I thought from that and your previous posts that you were not very far along the WPATH SOC 8 sequence... My Bad!

I can understand how having unwanted hair growth and other male type stuff can be distressing if you are after a full binary switch (which it sounds to me like is what you are after - again sorry if I'm misinterpreting things.) Since I only wanted to be a eunuch and had no desire / interest in switching to female, I'm not personally worried about hair, and wish my breasts hadn't grown as much as they did (I'm still in "male range" w/ a shirt, but don't think I could go without one) when I went on E... Guess I'm lucky in that regard.

I still think that paper I mentioned might be useful as a thing to wave at doctors in the way of evidence that you would benefit from surgery... Quite aside from their personal prejudices, docs like to wave the whole 'First do no harm' thing as justification.. Papers like this where other doctors from big name medical centers are saying it is beneficial, and NOT doing surgery is harmful takes a lot of the juice out of that argument.

I think it is strategically useful in general when dealing with medical types (and other professionals) to have done your homework enough that you can mention papers and other references of the sort that THEY would be looking at, use at least some of their jargon, and so on... It serves the dual function of telling them that you are well informed about what you are asking them for, and that you will be very hard to 'baffle w/ bullshit'... I'm sure that being in a more open state helped, but I'm sure that when I rolled into the doc's office for my first appointment basically saying "This is the care I want, as described in SOC v8 (then draft), and this is the information I've read about in these papers, etc" it caused the conversation to rapidly shift from "are you sure" to "how will we do it"

I know you mentioned insurance limitations, but I know in the limited experience I've had with different government and private insurance, they want you to use "In network" doctors if possible, but what I've always seen (but fortunately haven't had to use it) is a clause that says that if a given treatment is 'medically necessary' but not available "in network" they have to pay for an "out of network" provider on the same terms as they would have charged you for "in network"... So what would happen if you found a willing provider that was out of network, and demanded that they either come up with an in-network provider or pay for the one you found????

WheelyFixed