A Weird Effect Of T

[Guest StrandedOutThere]

Okay guys, maybe someone has some info on this. Does anyone know if T screws with your fine motor coordination? It seems like mine is impaired, but I am not sure if it's that I am just tired. I am really tired.

I don't feel like typing the thing out again. Here's a link to my blog:

http://lostboy78.livejournal.com/8188.html

To make a long story short, my Guitar Hero/Rock Band skills seem to be impaired. I have good evidence for this. If it's true, I am kind of both happy that the T is working, but sad that I am not going to be as awesome as usual when Guitar Hero: World Tour comes out. Maybe I should just get Fable 2 instead. I think that's out now. I digress.

Anyway, this wasn't an effect of T that I was looking for. Weird. Too weird.

[Guest Andreas]

I'm not on T yet myself, but a friend of mine started a few months ago, and just yesterday he was telling me how he's become clumsier since he started. He didn't mention fine motor things specifically, but that could fall into the category of general clumsiness.

...if fine motor skills really do go down the tubes with T, I'll hate to see my own handwriting after I've been on hormones for a while. Yikes!

[Guest Evan_J]

Oh wow. I haven't experienced that. (of course I don't want to either....)

How 'bout drums instead of guitar? Lot of good hitting involved in drums?

Pay attention tho- let your doctor know and make sure its not a concern.

The handwritting thing? lol I always wrote like a boy. -just sticks and scratches.

...thought about it.....

When I first had my first T shot I had (on the next day) a craaaaazy episode of high blood pressure, it did it a second time but for shorter period of time the third day. In short, my body went through some adjustments to getting on T. It might be that. Still tell the doc.

[Guest StrandedOutThere]

Blood pressure. Oh no...not good. My roommate and I bought a blood pressure cuff a couple of weeks ago. This probably wasn't the best thing for a couple of hypochondriacs to do. Anyway, my BP has been fine so far...but I'm keeping an eye on it.

Things seem to be better today in the fine motor department. In fact, I think my performance decrement on Guitar Hero may have been, at least partly, attentional in nature. My attention span has been really bad since my shot, not that it was great before. I have ADHD. Anyway, Guitar Hero is as much an attention task as a fine motor task. If your mind wanders, you miss notes. Attention lapses are more noticeable during the difficult passages. This morning I still missed notes more often than usual, but when I went and played only the difficult parts on practice mode, my performance was no worse than usual. I'm a nerd. If you want to start a real dorkfest, ask me about preview effects in Guitar Hero and the hyperspeed cheat.

Man...now I wish I had a better set of baseline measures to compare against.

I should keep an eye on my handwriting. That's a good metric for fine motor coordination. You know what? I hardly ever write anymore. Most of the time I just type things. I lug my laptop to meetings just to avoid having to write. I'm laaaaaaaaaazy. Seriously though, my handwriting has always been pretty awful. Back at my old job, my boss was like..."Your handwriting looks like you have ataxia". He was a neuropsychologist. I don't think my handwriting is as bad as someone who has ataxia, but it's getting there.

ataxia = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ataxia

Maybe he said apraxia. I guess either would fit. Either could have bad handwriting as a symptom.

OMG...I digress. See what I mean about the short attention span? Anyone else have that? I can't tell if mine is worse than usual because it's always been so short.

I also need to be writing a book chapter this morning. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! Very much boring.... Do not want!!

[Guest raydub]

Hey Stranded...

your attention span is wicked short.. i wonder which way itll go on T.. im WAY less patient.. and more ready to get to the point and the next subject. lol. i can only imagine.

oh.. hrm.. what was the topic again.. im sorry.. let me read back... ... ...

fine motors skills, check. dude! youre cool. you were just tired. lol

xo

[Guest StrandedOutThere]

Hey Stranded...

your attention span is wicked short.. i wonder which way itll go on T.. im WAY less patient.. and more ready to get to the point and the next subject. lol. i can only imagine.

oh.. hrm.. what was the topic again.. im sorry.. let me read back... ... ...

fine motors skills, check. dude! youre cool. you were just tired. lol

xo

My attention span IS wicked short. Now it is wickeder shorter on T.

For example, right now I am supposed to be writing stuff for school and doing data analysis. It's funny how I am surfing the net and not doing that.

This picture explains the problem beautifully:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/in...istractions.png

[Guest Evan_J]

You bought a bp cuff? lol you are a hypochondriac. Stop worryin about stuff. Besides I was only sayin that to say your body mighta chose some other way to spazz a little bit because of the new stuff in the works. I think mostly everybody has some sort of adjustment period whether its something you actually peep or not. Then it settles in

Not gonna make this a long post.....you and Ray might forget what I wrote rofl (and no, you can't hit me for that lol)

[Guest StrandedOutThere]

You bought a bp cuff? lol you are a hypochondriac. Stop worryin about stuff. Besides I was only sayin that to say your body mighta chose some other way to spazz a little bit because of the new stuff in the works. I think mostly everybody has some sort of adjustment period whether its something you actually peep or not. Then it settles in

Seriously. We did buy one. High BP runs in my family. My roommate is about to have to start BP meds. In addition to being hypochondriacs, we are both VERY curious about how different things affect our BP. Slam some coffee...take BP. Run around the yard...take BP. What can I say? I don't live in a very interesting city.

Oh...and you can do this with it:

We didn't turn it on...and the cat wasn't upset. He's a pretty chill cat. It was still pretty funny though.

Not gonna make this a long post.....you and Ray might forget what I wrote rofl (and no, you can't hit me for that lol)

Wha?

[Guest Evan_J]

Yeah, you turn that thing on buddy and I'll see to it that you never get another vial of T lol.

....I'll write it down...you'll forget lol

[Guest raydub]

*Hits Evan Anyway* ... *runs*

ha ha! (Nelson style)

dude..im a spazz. lol...

so much so that i didnt even see/remember about the bp cuff.. .../shrug

uum.. yeah.. "wickeder short" ... rofl.. i LOVE it...

...im sorry..was there a point to this post? ...

sigh

Ray

[Guest Evan_J]

*Hits Evan Anyway* ... *runs*

ha ha! (Nelson style)

dude..im a spazz. lol...

Ray

rofl.......ouch , laughing at you and my throat hurts. Is anybody else having that? Sore right where your voice box is? Only truely is sore (ok hurts) when I laugh or drink stuff.

I hope this is an indicator that I'm gonna get a great voice.....

[Guest Jackson]

I'm having a heck of a time (four or six weeks worth) of a sore, scratchy throat. It's gotta really annoying. I've tried life savers, gum, and various liquids but nothing really seems to help. And I sound like a teenager because my voice is cracking so much. Just when I think I'm finally past it, it starts happening again.

At least I now have the bursts of energy. I'm running on four hours of sleep and I worked out an hour and I'm still not ready to call it a day.

By the way, I could really use a BP monitor, but I don't think my dog would appreciate it.

[Guest My_Genesis]

My attention span IS wicked short. Now it is wickeder shorter on T.

For example, right now I am supposed to be writing stuff for school and doing data analysis. It's funny how I am surfing the net and not doing that.

This picture explains the problem beautifully:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/in...istractions.png

I have a short attention span because I'm always thinking about sex..at least subconsciously

it's funny though, i always wonder if handwriting can indicate your "brain gender"...

for some reason, every time i saw a girl's really neat handwriting, i tried to copy it, so my handwriting is always changing depending on my peers lol

since im in college.. and have become obsessively conscientious about whether everything i do is typically (and heterosexually) masculine ...i decided to just write the way i write and see what happens. if "boy's writing" means sloppy...im not so extremely sloppy, although that depends on my mood at the time, how tired and am, and whether im writing for myself or for an assignment or someone else lol. but generally speaking, i dont really know how to describe my writing..it's not girly, but its not insanely sloppy either..its just kinda..there. lol

[Guest StrandedOutThere]

By the way, I could really use a BP monitor, but I don't think my dog would appreciate it.

You never know. My bulldog is likely to be the BP monitor's next victim. You know what my dog really hates? My storm trooper helmet.

it's funny though, i always wonder if handwriting can indicate your "brain gender"...

I don't think handwriting has anything to do with gender...not in any chemically, biologically real sense. Girls are always told to be neat and conscientious, so a lot of the time, they are. Boys are reinforced for different things, and good handwriting isn't one of them. Just by virtue of the fact that you are thinking about this and that I've had those same thoughts (e.g. messy handwriting = boy = good), suggests that the perceived link between messy handwriting and "maleness" is mostly just a social construction. If you really, really look, there are men with good handwriting and women with bad handwriting. It's just when men have bad handwriting people forgive them, women with bad handwriting probably practice or try to hide it. I'm busy today, but I can look up some research articles and back up my wild speculation with empirical evidence.

Now, it is true that men generally have larger hands and therefore have more difficulty with fine motor control, which could lead to a higher incidence of bad handwriting among males. They used to just say "women have better fine motor skills". This was based on findings with a dexterity test called the "grooved pegboard", which is just what it sounds like. There are these pegs and you put them into the pegboard as fast as you can. They have a little groove down the side to make it harder. Women were faster at this than men. However, when they used larger pegs and a larger pegboard, this advantage disappeared.

There is this book about sex differences by Diane Halpern (she used to be president of APA a while back, I'm pretty sure). It's on google books. You'd probably find it interesting. There was also a pretty nifty interview with Dr. Halpern on NPR that you might be able to find. I'll post a link to it once I get done with my work for this morning.

[Guest raydub]

hey evan...

when you say pain where your voicebox is.. you mean you can touch it and it hurts yeah? i had that.. and you can check my voice on my youtube vlog. good stuff i think. sheesh..i actually need to make another vid cause i think i dropped a little again.. im too lazy to keep up...lol

and the scratchy voice that you can never get clear? had that too.. its all good. itll work itself out. nothing you can do about it really..'cept suffer through male puberty. all in all its kinda fun..

less of a spaz today.. need more caffeine...but feelin a little under the weather so i dont want coffee.. just in weird space today i guess. *shrug*

Ray

[Guest Evan_J]

Yeah, it went from sounding "terrible cold heavy" to actually "hurting" friday I think? And hit the high point Sunday through last nite...that sounds about right.....but regardless of however much I winced you best know I was happy as heck. It was like "woot, growth pain". I dunno, I guess we take what we get as long as we know we gettin stuff lol.

I love all the little hairs from chin to where the neck bends too. I was like "when did that happen?" Yeah, I know they'll have to come off but I'm lettin em "take root" for a second lol. I want em to know to come back

And I just will check out that voice.....I saw the arm pics lol remind me to clown you in future c-o-n-c-e-i-t-e-d lol but hey, I am too

[Guest TBForLife]

Ok this is just me maybe but since my fat has redistributed and my muscles are very different I find that things work differently.

My body is different. I walk differently and sleep differently and sit differently and all the rest. I'm used to accommodating for breasts and now that I'm flat I don't have to.

So that being said, the muscles in your hands are attached to the muscles in your arms, take a look at your lower arm and tell me you don't notice that the muscle is thicker and more pronounced. So your hands might feel a bit different. I do write much differently now too and I've got my thumbs hooked under my keyboard for some odd reason. I'm actually going to physio to help me adjust.

You body changes, things change. Just like buying a new car, you can still drive it the same but you'll need to get used to the new viewpoint a little.

Cute cat. Loves it!

[Guest Jackson]

That's so weird. It's interesting to see how T affects each of us differently.

I'm a week ahead of you, Evan, and don't have anything but the changing voice. Although I don't see any other changes someone has told me that my face is changing a little and the working out is now starting to show a little.

[Guest My_Genesis]

My attention span IS wicked short. Now it is wickeder shorter on T.

For example, right now I am supposed to be writing stuff for school and doing data analysis. It's funny how I am surfing the net and not doing that.

This picture explains the problem beautifully:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/in...istractions.png

yeah i just started college and im having the same problem lol