Has Hormone Therapy Changed You?

[Guest Rachael92]

My friend cannot get her head around my changes and is having to step back because she says I am like a different person...she says I am talking differently,walking differentley and am not the same person she knew before I started taking hormones...in my head I am still me and none of these changes have been obvious to me yet they are plainly obvious to her...I am aware that I am changing on some levels,my personal interests have certainly changed and what once was really important is not so anymore...Does anyone know what I am saying here?...I need some feedback please on your own personal experiences Thank you

[Sakura]

could be transition i didnt notice any distict changes to my personality till then i noticed things didnt seem as important as they once did and other things came to the for front my family has told me i have changed alot the way i walk talk conduct my self move my hands but i dont think hormones have changed this because i had been on hrt 6 years before i came out all these things started to change after i started playing the role so i dont think it hrt so much as its transition that changes you as it should your becoming fundametaly a diffrent person from what you was

Sakura

[Guest Snow Angel]

I am more honest, open, happy, and self-expressive now. I'm actually happy to socialize and embrace life now. I actually look forward to the future now. It has changed me; for the better.

[Guest Chrissie]

My friend cannot get her head around my changes and is having to step back because she says I am like a different person...she says I am talking differently,walking differentley and am not the same person she knew before I started taking hormones...in my head I am still me and none of these changes have been obvious to me yet they are plainly obvious to her...I am aware that I am changing on some levels,my personal interests have certainly changed and what once was really important is not so anymore...Does anyone know what I am saying here?...I need some feedback please on your own personal experiences Thank you

Hrt does change you... and the way you think. besides the obvious physical results

estrogen and Testosterone and even adrenaline travel along the same routes. Estrogen tends, from what I noticed, to make a person less combative and more mellow. but it takes a while for these effects to build up to a noticed change.

Its like when they do those eye tests ... and they change the lenses on you The Hormones are the Lenses that you see things through and until things build up more you are stuck with the blurry lenses.

I learned from my last trip to my Hrt Doctor that Estrogen can turn to Testosterone if you are overweight. Fat changes it seems... who'd have thought it?

[Guest Keira]

I know what you're saying. I had a follow-up appointment with my hormone doctor last week, and the first thing he said to me was how much I've changed in the 3 or 4 months since I started HRT. He noticed that I'm walking differently, carrying myself differently, speaking differently, and more importantly, that I seem happier and more confident in myself. I guess the changes seem much more gradual from our own perspective, so it can be surprising when others point them out to us like that.

[Guest Rayne]

My friend cannot get her head around my changes and is having to step back because she says I am like a different person...she says I am talking differently,walking differentley and am not the same person she knew before I started taking hormones...in my head I am still me and none of these changes have been obvious to me yet they are plainly obvious to her...I am aware that I am changing on some levels,my personal interests have certainly changed and what once was really important is not so anymore...Does anyone know what I am saying here?...I need some feedback please on your own personal experiences Thank you

Sis, I know EXACTLY what you mean! The hormones have changed me for the better but I have another way of looking at it. I'm simply more amplified than I was. That is, I'm the same person just more obvious about it.

I've always been effeminate, but the hormones have made me even more to. My "desires" have been tapered and I'm now more concerned with romance. But my hand motions are more feminine and more obvious. I'm more communicative, more empathetic and more emotional.

You're the same person, just more amplified.

Rayne

[Guest MelanieAnne]

Estrogen can turn into testosterone if you're overweight? This totally gives me incentive to diet and lose weight then, thanks for the heads up. I am starting HRT in May when I will officially start the "real life test" as per my therapist advising me. How long does it usually take for smaller results to be seen? Did anyone get sick/side effects when they first started? Just curious.

[Guest Rayne]

Estrogen can turn into testosterone if you're overweight? This totally gives me incentive to diet and lose weight then, thanks for the heads up. I am starting HRT in May when I will officially start the "real life test" as per my therapist advising me. How long does it usually take for smaller results to be seen? Did anyone get sick/side effects when they first started? Just curious.

Though it varies a bit from person to person - this is how it went for me.

It takes a couple weeks but your semen turns clear and gradually dwindles to a few drops. It took about a month before my breasts started to come in. The area around the nipples puffed up and kinda kept growing.

To help out the estrogen I started taking spiro to block the testosterone.

I was only on estrogen a few days before I noticed I was losing control of my emotions. A man almost has an on/off switch he can hit when he has an emotion. Women don't. I've been told by the genetics that you never really control them, just manage them.

Be prepared for that.

You cry for no reason, when you get angry you rage, and when you're happy you're on top of the world. It's a much wider range of emotions and they lead you where they want you to go. Enjoy the ride.

Also, the hair on my face came in much slower and much lighter. My skin became softer. Most of this takes a few months to get going but it's really worth the wait.

Also, keep in mind that your body gets rid of waste through your pores, too. If you're taking estrogen you'll give some to everyone you touch. Occasional contact is nothing to worry about, but my wife has noticed she's been really "sappy" lately. Crying for no reason, etc. She's usually not like that.

My personality changed. I'm more communicative, and more empathetic. I also like to snuggle more than I did as a man.

Estrogen tricks you into overeating. You'll think you're still hungry when you're not. That feeling you get that tells you when you're full comes later than it use to. I stopped relying on it and just look at my plate.

Your doctor is probably already ahead of you on this but, get your bloodwork done every 6 months to a year. Check your liver and kidneys to see how they're handling the hormones.

Hormones travel in the blood and the liver and kidneys clean the blood.

You don't want to get to the end where you're ready for SRS and have your liver fail.

[Guest lisa49]

Being Overweight Turns Your Testosterone into Estrogen

This is shocking, like a chemical kidnapping.

First of all, changing testosterone into estrogen is remarkably easy. The chemical change is very small. It takes one step, a single enzyme, and thats it.

Its like changing the fruit topping on a cake a trivial thing for the body:

You can barely tell the chemical difference.

Now, the chemistry may not mean much to you, but the simplicity of this conversion is unsettling.It actually seems like a design flaw to think that the hormone that is the foundation of manhood could so easily lose its character.

Whats astonishing is that a first-rate prized product of the mans system, of his testes, the testosterone itself, ordered by the brain, should allow itself to be changed beyond factory specifications so easily by an unrespectable operator such as fat cells.

Truly, this is identity theft and copyright infringement.

Lets walk through the process. The body lovingly makes all this testosterone for you, this superhormone. And what happens? Your stomach fat turns T into estrogen, the womans hormone. And as stomach fat makes this estrogen, the estrogen tells the fat cells to make more of the converting enzyme. This enzyme, aromatase, gets revved up, and then you get even more estrogen, in a self-reinforcing cycle.

Whats more, your abdominal fat is a storage depot, stockpiling and releasing estrogen as it likes. Yet the body cant store testosterone, anywhere. T cant even be stored in the testes themselves.

And, to add insult to injury, the chemical reaction only goes one way. T turns into estrogen, but estrogen cannot be turned back into T. This is remarkable and rare for the human body. Unlike almost all conversion reac-tions in the body, this is an irreversible reaction, a one-way transaction.

In essence, for a man, having a potbelly is like having ovaries. Thats definitely not what you want. Turning into the enemy.

Usually, chemical reactions in the body can be reversed:

Amino acids form to make proteins. Proteins can be broken down into their constituents, amino acids.

Cholesterol and fatty acids get stored as fat. Fat can be broken down into its constituents, fatty acids and cholesterol.

Calcium and minerals solidify into bone. Bone can be broken down into calcium and minerals.

Simple sugars can be stored as glycogen. Glycogen, the storage form of sugar, can be broken down into simple sugars.

But estrogen cannot be turned back into testosterone.

And remember, this means testosterone is not just neutralized, burned off, degraded, or eaten up in this reaction. It actually turns into estrogen, the female hormone, that opposes T-effects.

It is remarkable that such a miniscule chemical change, which can lead to such massive physical and psychological effects, is allowed. More and more, this molecular change will stall, diminish, oppose, reduce, or make the body ignore a mans T-releases. And slowly it will bring forth, step by step, more of the symptoms highlighted in the questionnaires.

Fat Stores Estrogen

FAT NOT ONLY makes estrogen, it loads up on it, too, storing it away to be released later.

Testosterone cannot be stored anywhere, not in fat, not even in the testes. Nowhere.

Its as if the body thinks T is too powerful, too intense, to be stockpiled anywhere. This is why T is made continuously, and why it responds to current circumstances in real time.

Estrogen Beats Out Testosterone

An overweight man is manufacturing, storing, and releasing enemy estrogen. And when both T and estrogen show up somewhere in the body to exert their respective hormonal effect, estrogen dominates. When estrogen and testosterone compete for receptor sites, estrogen wins. In fact, estrogen actually displaces T.

Their chemical similarity tricks the body.

Because estrogen and T are so chemically similar, almost identical twins, they often act upon the same tissues. They stay at the same hotel rooms, stop-ping in the same guest spots.

If they both present themselves for the same room, for the same recep-tor, testosterone foolishly plays the gentleman, and lets estrogen bind to the receptor site. T lets estrogen take the room.

Testosterone is not allowed to sleep on the couch, or even hang around.

He is just dispatched without ceremony. By getting the room, occupying the receptor site, estrogen exerts its biological effect.

In this competition, all over your body, estrogen overwhelms testosterone.

If a man wants to have female breasts:

Let yourself get obese, a good 40 pounds or more above your ideal weight is preferred.

Then drink too much alcohol, as this speeds up the aromatase enzyme that converts T to estrogen. Alcohol will also damage the liver, so that estrogen is not digested and cleared away so well, which is the livers job.

Slowly but surely, you will actually start getting female-type breasts. You dont just get fat male breasts. The mans breast tis-sues start taking on the density characteristics of womens breasts.

Whats more, this puts men at added risk for breast cancer, usually a womans problem.

Doctors call this feminization of male breasts gynecomastia. Thats estrogenization.

The chemical similarity between T and estrogen tricks the brain too.

Since the chemical structure of T and estrogen are so similar, even the brain is fooled. The brain doesnt check the molecular ID thoroughly enough, mistakes estrogen for T, and sends signals to the testes to slow down manufacturing any more testosterone.

Slowly but surely, T-effects diminish over years. This leads to the estrog-enization of men. The changes are subtle, and thats why men may not rec-ognize these shifts on a day-to-day basis. This is happening right now to varying degrees in more than half the men in North America.

[Guest Snow Angel]

*Points to Lisa49's post*

That was very fascinating to read. I heard on a radio show the other day, that this man suddenly started feminizing, and he didn't know why. He liked being a man and didn't want to change, but his body was heading that direction and his doctors couldn't figure out why.

[Guest]

There are several articles out their describing this kind of sex change in fish, sea creatures, amphibians and even Polarbears. Some of it is from pollution of estrogen bi-products in wastewater. Several water systems this year were found to contain higher estrogen levels in some case is is the result of birth control pills flushed out in women's urine in recycled water. This is going to become more commonplace in all species. A few years ago when fish started changing sex I said it would be happening to us eventually. Turns out I may have been right. What goes around comes around. Or should I say "what goes in must come out".

Laura

[Guest MelanieAnne]

Liver failure too? Is that common or only if you don't stay on the right sort of estrogen? That would be a big fear of mine to take hormones which would eventually kill me.

[Guest MelanieAnne]

Thank you for the information, and I will continue to look into it. I thought with more modern technology I would not be looking at such dangers. Once you get SRS, does it get a bit easier taking hormones? Just curious. Thanks for this information, I do need to be prepared.

[Guest Rayne]

Thank you for the information, and I will continue to look into it. I thought with more modern technology I would not be looking at such dangers. Once you get SRS, does it get a bit easier taking hormones? Just curious. Thanks for this information, I do need to be prepared.

After SRS you take lower doses of estrogen.

[Guest ZoeyOh]

Quoted from iphisol (TrueSelves):

"Effects of hormones:

You forget how to do math, you forget how to drive, you become all submissive (socially and sexually), you start to like other folks' [penises] (if you didn't already) and hate your own (if you didn't already), you learn to cook, you completely lose control of your emotions, um, what else...you start wanting babies, you lose your [cool] whenever you see a cute animal, you paint everything pink, you finally understand Ani Difranco, you start to need a buddy to go to the bathroom, it starts to take you a long time to get ready to leave the house, you start remembering people's birthdays and anniversaries, you start likin to iron clothes, this thing happens where, whenever you have hard alcohol, you take off your clothes (and speaking of hard alcohol beer and scotch stop tasting good, you only like alcopops and cosmopolitans), you stop liking Tom Clancy and Stephen King and start only liking books from Red Dress Ink or by Lauren Weisberger, you become obsessed with shoes, your sexuality stops being real and becomes a function of the sexualities of the men around you, all these stuffed animals show up, you find yourself really and truly fulfilled only when you're making food for someone else, you stop being able to cuss properly, you become very close with your mom, you start likin Oprah, diet books start making sense, you stop being able to have opinions about anything except clothes, you start to want a pony, you start telling everybody that you feel fat all the time, Fight Club stops making any sense, instead of explosions in movies all you get excited about is English people in period costumes from the 1800s, you stop playing D&D and start knitting, you spend all your free time plucking stray hairs with tweezers, you say "if only there were a man around to lift this heavy thing for me" all the time- like, ALL THE TIME...

I think there are others, but those are the main ones I can think of."

Sorry. I had to. This was probably the funniest thing I have EVER read, and I wanted to share.

Seriously, though, the only things I really noticed as far as changes (besides the physical stuff--boobies and the like) were just feeling more comfortable expressing myself as who I am. Yeah, I am still figuring out who I am (I am 22 years old, doing undergrad work, and going through puberty all over again!!), but I can feel so much more confident BEING who I am.

Which, I suppose to those people who only knew me a certain way (when I was TOTALLY uncomfortable)... yeah, they probably think I'm changing.

But I don't care.

Those people who DO realize that I'm changing, and realize that it's my confidence/comfortability levels that are changing... yeah. They Freaking Rule.

I suppose that is it....

~ Zoey

[Guest lauren33]

yeah that will be the test for me. if i start liking Oprah then i KNOW i am changing. she is so annoying. ever notice that when she thinks she says something smart she always says it twice, says it twice

lauren

[Guest RainBird]

The words, 'Enemy' and 'Estrogen' have no relation to me! hehe

Enemy and Testosterone.. YES!!