Do people ever go from prescription to DIY HRT?

I just did after more than two years on prescription HRT and almost 3 years of presenting fem in public, partially because i want to be prepared if trans rights get rolled back in my country, partially because injections are extremely hard to get a prescription for around here and i'm tired of gel and partially because of an ideological commitment to being a gender outlaw. Also ngl there's just something exciting about sticking a needle in my leg and shooting up hormones. Obviously YMMV on this, i have friends who have a pronounced fear of needles and needed a ton of emotional support when they started injecting, but they still pulled it off.

I have a lot of friends who went from prescription to DIY for similar reasons, it actually seems more common in my circle than the other way around. I mean, most trans people i know have at some point DIYed for at least a few days when they couldn't refill a script on time and a friend helped them out with a bottle of gel or a few pills they had left over. I find it very rare that people who are actually part of an IRL trans community and transition hormonally never have some brush with DIY culture. It's almost unavoidable simply as a safety net.

I'm still unsure if i will tell my endo about it, i have no idea if she supports DIY, but so far i'm very happy with the results. I've been on HRT long enough to know what the range of my levels on gel + CPA looked like, gel can vary more than injections and i've been anywhere from 90 to 300 ug/ml on the same dose, interval and test time. So when i get new measurements in a month, it will be easy for me to compare. But i do want that as a control measure. Honestly wish i could DIY the blood testing as well.

I used to get it at a local lgbt health clinic, but that also came with seeing a therapist because I was institutionalized recently at the time.
So I stopped because of that and for years my access to hrt was kind of shaky, sometimes I would have it sometimes I wouldn’t based on if I could pay for DIY which was more expensive.
Idk how expensive the clinic would be without insurance tho as I was using my parents at the time.
Anyway, I’m stabley on DIY now at a pretty high dose that I think is better than anything the clinic would have given me.

The grey market for DIY HRT is just part of how trans healthcare stays resilient in the face of gatekeeping or full obstruction. Feel free to get on it for any reason.

Having it from the medical system is gonna make things more convenient mostly down to how you gotta pay for DIY HRT (it's annoying). Also easier to get a doctor to monitor labs. But having a little DIY stache is nice, plus the actual know how of how to get it vrs the theoretical know how via a guide (experience is a good teacher).

It'd be nice to know where your levels are at now after you've been on this dose, regardless of if you're gonna change route or method or whatever. Everybody bodys is different and metabolized E in its own way, so it'll be nice to have some evidence on how your body deals with E! It'll give you and your doctor an idea of how you responded to the dose you're at now which is nice to know even if you're taking something different later. There are tools online that can give you an idea of your levels after switching, and the WPATH somewhere has recommendations for bumping or down based on E levels across routes (like sublingual, transdermal, SQ, IM) which'll also help you get an idea of what your dose ought to be. I have no idea where it is though

Get your levels checked, if you're switching to DIY then switch and after, check your levels again in like 6 to 12 weeks and adjust as necessary.

Yea I've definitely heard of people doing this. If Planned Parenthood will still do tests/prescribe prog I don't see why not. I'd rather diy then get a script too, and having a stable supply is a big part of that. Having a few months of meds vs years just seems like no contest to me.