Hello Jessica, I'll try to give some answers accodring to my experience. I think currently I'm the one on the forum who has been on BO & other glandulars for longest (Thirthy three months without breaks currently.) and has dug into it the most. Which hasn't been easy as there's very little science done on it, Lotus just a while ago found out about the BO & estradiol connection which lifted the veil a bit. To your questions...
- How long did it take you to notice the first effects and what were they like?
It took about two to three weeks when the changes were already visually detectable. Mental change happened right away. Note that I had been nine and half months on conventional HRT by then. Mental change was a feeling of balance, that BO (+uterine) did something conventional HRT alone could not. I'm not sure what exactly did it, but it felt like it balanced everything, I felt great. I was already on EV injection, T blocker and progesterone by then. Within weeks I pushed from Tanner stage 3 to early Tanner4 and my breast development skyrocketed in coming months.
- How long did it take for erection problems to appear?
I don't know as I was already on HRT, but erection while on female hormone balance is largely about practice, use it or lose it and of cource there's pills to help if you need it. I'm fine without much function because I've became almost entirely asexual, or ace/demi in a way that I don't have the T dominance insanity any more. Its like being one tenth horny compared to before and its liberating.
- How long can I expect infertility to occur?
I don't know what BO does on fertility, other than it likely will do damage as it too, just like conventional HRT will cause testicle athropy. Meaning that you junk wont take much space which can be lovely. I do not know really, other than if fertility is important to you, you shouldn't be playing with your hormone balance like this in first place. I don't think NBE program alone would cause you to get entirely infertile though if you've had normal function before. Not unless its very extensive and you're on it for a long time. But this is such YMMV situation, there is no obvious answer other than either stay as fertile as you are, or don't play with fire. Then again, you're so young your function likely wont be wrecked very easily for a long time to time. For me this wasn't much of an issue, I started transitioning at thirty seven, I'm almost forty one right now, I never had kids and at this age, I'm fine without. Also possibly due to an intersex condition and having already damaged goods from fifteen years back, I was likely infertile all my life anyway.
- If something suddenly changes in my head, can I stop at any time without consequences?
Yes you can stop at any time. People talk about magical "point of no return" with BO, and there might be something to it. A good friend of mine did digging on studies on glandulars and found something very peculiar, one talked about how Uterine glandular probably mimics relaxin and or E4 and thus can open my pelvis as if during pregnancy. Other very interesting thing was that Bovine Ovary somehow could "switch" cells to only react to estrogens, I'm quoting from memory so don't take this as any absolute fact, I don't have the study stating that saved. Anyway, the point being that BO does something to how sex hormone receptors work which pointed towards it possibly "flipping the switch" permanently like some people talk about. Almost as if causing a situation similar to complete androgen insensitivbity syndrome.
But this is all speculation, anecdotes and a study I have never read myself. Likely the "point of no return" is a myth. Even if it isn't, you're planning on dramatically changing your hormone balance to that of a woman to achieve body feminisation which can become very much visible and obvious. You're already swimming with the sharks with this. What I see repeating on the forum a lot is men who do this for the wrong reasons, then they do everything either wrong or pick up stuff that doesn't really do much anything because they're too scared to get ACTUAL changes. For me and other trans women here its so much easier, just do everything and never slow down as all changes are welcome.
You're better off knowing what you're going into.
Your program seems ok, as a simple addition that has health benefits and also makes boobs grow would be MSM, vitamin D3 and Calcium citrate taken together. Another huge huge deal is the topical cream protocol which Lotus came up with and I expanded, while back we started to cooperate on testing it and bringing in new ideas, that thread has been very active and helpful if you're interested. The core of this program is very simple and it can be expanded upon quite a lot with room to mix and match things. Lastest has been topical Bovine Ovary added on top of the existing program.
