Strange Changes Before T

[Guest Crossroads]

So, just a few weeks ago, I committed myself to getting a sex change, that I feel that I want to live my life as a male. And all of a sudden, strange things started happening.

I've gotten more energetic.

My hair is changing to a more male-patterned hair. It's starting to creep up from below, back and front. I've never had this before.

I've gained about 10 pounds, something I've been trying to do for two years, and I think a lot of it is muscle!!!

My muscle is growing way faster than I've ever had it.

My breasts are shrinking.

And I'm here thinking, oh gosh, what's happening to me? Am I emitting my own testosterone? I do think about it a lot, I concentrate on thinking more on actually building muscle tone while doing my regular exercise instead of just doing the exercise without thinking. I don't do much, I do about 20 pushups a day, DDR once or twice a week for a half-hour, a few situps here and there when I'm bored. And I've also been doing a mantra every night before sleep "More Testosterone, More Muscle".

But that's not the point. I got to thinking about it. I recently changed my vitamin! I'm taking GNC's Men's Mega Men Sport every day, on days when I'll be doing a lot, I take 2. I've also been drinking 8 oz of Muscle Milk a day, 3 days a week.

Who knew that just a few changes could really push along my progress. I haven't even gone to a therapist yet, much less gotten a T letter.

I was wondering if anyone else had drastic changes with any vitamins or drinks or diet changes or mental mantras or anything Pre-T. Any tips out there, not for passing, but just for building muscle tone and getting rid of extra fat?

[Guest Evan_J]

Hmmm. Did a quick google on this Mega vitamin.....I dunno that I like what it says. Besides the fact that its saying there are 7 pills you take at a time? the fact that some of the ingredients are the same as in viagra? sounds like an alarm goin off for me..... Sounds too similar to the testosterone by pill which is highly dangerous and could damage the liver. Which would clearly explain "getting testosterone like results". Truthfully, I probably wouldn't take them (but then I'm not one for over the counter/ non-supervised ANYthing) or at least talk to a qualified medical doctor first. "Vitamins" don't need to be taken by handfuls. Thats a dangerous supplement. Rule number one is always personal health.

Muscle milk (yay google again) is billed as a protein drink. Lots of people do add those before and after working out. Still (cuz I'm hyper cautious with me) get the opinion of a doc.

I dunno, I hate to be a killjoy folks, but for me monitored prescribed T, working out and a change in diet has been all thats needed. You do the regular script you get and you won't need any of that other stuff. Its been like 14 weeks and my entire body shape is changing. If you want more protein eat it; red meats, eggs, black beans... just choose high protein foods. Even if you wanted to encourage your natural production of testosterone just cut soys, eat more citrus, red grapes, garlic....a milliion things to ingest besides a dangerous compound.

I really do hate "bein a killjoy" but I would REALLY hate hearing that anything happened to any of you.

[Guest Cody_T]

umm idk if I found the right one because it doesn't seem to say you take 7... but if it is the GNC Mega Men® Sport 173422

that I found on the GNC website, then don't take more than two doses in one day, and don't do it too often, since that hits your upper limit of selenium right there, providing you don't get any from other sources. If you start noticing garlic odor on the breath, gastrointestinal disorders, hair loss, sloughing of nails, fatigue, irritability and neurological damage, then you could have selenosis which can lead to cirrhosis of the liver, pulmonary edema, and death .

I don't know anything about viagra's ingredients, but might I add that if you or your loved one (or even someone you don't care for so much) is having a heart attack, it is very important to be truthful about the use of viagra within the previous 24 or even 48 hours due to the risk of life threatening hypotension from the interaction between viagra and nitroglycerin. Also if you self medicate with nitro I would be cautious to do so while taking viagra.

so yeah now that I've dispensed all of my medical wisdom (I swear, someday I'll be a doctor and know what I'm talking about!) I'm gonna go on conjecture and say that mens' vitamins are probably geared toward building up muscle and all that stuff that women wouldn't want, so it's very possible to see a difference just by taking vitamins (and by the way that thing is giving you 3333% DV of things, it's gonna be intense), although it's also geared toward a genetically male body (and possibly unhealthily at that) so it might be good to proceed with caution. Maybe just get a doctor's opinion or something, because they'll know better how things interact with your body. And like Evan said you can do it with just T, so it's not worth screwing that up.

And putting all sense of responsibility aside, that's so cool!! I wish I could take something like that instead of my mom's "womens' one a day multivitamin!!!!" crap

[Guest My_Genesis]

i was drinking muscle milk every day the first week of college...then i ran out and never bothered replacing it. lol. pretty good stuff!

i've had a lot of that muscularity stuff but i really don't know why, i've had muscular arms for probably a few years now, dont really know how they got that way, dont work out...

i wrote about this already in another thread, your descriptions sound similar, although I'm not exercising, doing mantras, or taking men's vitamins or any of that. lol

[Guest Evan_J]

umm idk if I found the right one because it doesn't seem to say you take 7... but if it is the GNC Mega Men® Sport 173422

that I found on the GNC website, then don't take more than two doses in one day, and don't do it too often, since that hits your upper limit of selenium right there, providing you don't get any from other sources. If you start noticing garlic odor on the breath, gastrointestinal disorders, hair loss, sloughing of nails, fatigue, irritability and neurological damage, then you could have selenosis which can lead to cirrhosis of the liver, pulmonary edema, and death .

Pulmonary edema? Pulmonary as in lung? and edema as in "the taking on of fluid"? Man quit taking that stuff. Let the record show that to drown in your own lung fluid is not a pretty dreath and it sounds like the odds of that would be increased for anyone with asthma.

Just because something gets sold does not mean its good for anyone including genetic males.

And there's nothing wrong with knowing some main/basic parts in medical terms so that you can read those warning labels easier:

cardio or cardiac -always refers to the heart

pulmonary- lung

neuro- of or having to do with the brain

hyper -indicates an abormally high level of a thing typically ie hyperglycemia, hypertension.

hypo -indicates an abnormally low level of a thing typically ie hypoglycemia or hypotension.

And for anyone who missed it, neurological damage was in Cody's list too. That would be brain damage.

And definately go to medschool if you wanna Cody

God knows if I thought I stood a chance of bein able to stand school that long I would lol

[Guest Cody_T]

lol well that's just an effect of getting too much selenium, which will only happen if you take too many of the pills in one day evan... otherwise there are actually some good things in there that are proven to help with eyesight and mental acuity, which can't be too bad.

and I've always had more muscles too... like, nothing to compare to the guys, but I owned all the girls in my PE class at weightlifting, without really doing anything. I did play sports, but I'm pretty sure I was superior to my teams as well in that department (now if only I could run faster...)

[Guest Crossroads]

This is the vitamin Cody T has talked about. I've been eating more meat, although I only eat organic and all natural foods, so I can't store large amounts for as long and therefore can't eat as much. I never take other medicines, my partner was raised to use herbal medicine (not that I ever take that either). And we're pretty careful about it. I only take 2 in a day when I need it, like today, Black Friday, one of the worst days of the year to work in retail. Maybe once a month, once every two months I take two.

And I never take other vitamins with it, for fear of overdosing on some critical vitamins that can seriously harm you if you take too much (I stopped taking Geritol because of that). As for doctors, they messed me up horribly for 6 years, putting me from one medication to another and pretty much ruining my key development years, which seems to be why I have trouble with many social things (I'm getting better though!!! Yay!). Because of that, I'm terrified to even see a therapist, much less a nutritionist or even regular practitioner. I've even been refusing to go to the OB/GYN, even though I know it's important. But I'm sure one of you can realize when someone messes you up, you can't trust them. Not only that, but the vitamins are balancing out the mess ups that the doctors did to my body, too. Without them, I can barely do anything. At one point, I couldn't walk ten feet without huffing and puffing, I was wasting away at 100 lbs with a BMI that automatically had me labeled as anorexic when I wasn't. I can't say enough about the horrible experiences that I had with doctors, not just one, but many. Mark it as paranoia, but like I said, when someone messes you up that way, it's hard to learn to trust them.

Paranoia aside, I think the key to vitamins is not taking anything you don't know. My partner looks up every ingredient in the vitamins I take. If there's something she isn't sure about, she doesn't let me take it. I switched from Women's UltraMega to Men's because it had extras of certain things that instead of regulating my horrible period, it encourages muscle growth.

Not that it's the healthiest thing in the world, but vitamins are a popular and great option. However, nothing synthetic is ever as good as the real thing. Therefore change in diet is necessary. My partner changed my diet over two years ago, adding much more protein and other stuff to encourage muscle growth. No offense, but I'm an idiot here. She's the brains in all this, so sorry if I sound stupid. But I didn't get any change until I started my meditation and vitamins. Then again, I deeply believe that meditation can affect my physical changes just as much as my vitamin can. I guess you could call it part of my "religion", using the word loosely.

Thanks, Evan, for your concern!!! I do like hearing these things because I believe we should all carefully think about decisions before we make them. I hope I've eased your mind at least a little about my situation.

Thank you Cody, for the information! Information is the best antidote to stupidity! We all need more of that antidote!

[Guest Keane]

Yeah i've kind of noticed as well that since I've "officially" identified as transgender, my body has changed a little bit too. More hair, more muscle, more acne, higher libido........... Kinda strange, but I haven't done anything different so oh well

[Guest Jackson]

Even though I'm a pharmacist, I don't like to take anything over-the-counter if I don't have to. I'm a very noncompliant person in terms of medication. I really don't like taking medication period.

Now, over-the-counter supplements. Here's the low-down on them. The FDA back in the early 1990's tried to get regulation passed through Congress so that over-the-counter supplements would be tested so that they proved that they did what they claimed to do and tested for safety. Lobbyists for the supplement companies then started doing massive campaigning to the general public (and we all know how smart the general public is) that if this regulation passed, then people would have to have a prescription for supplements which was not true. So the legislation never passed.

What this really means is that a company that makes supplements can say that their products can do anything. They are not required to make sure the stuff in the products are safe or that the stuff works or that there is actually the real stuff in their products. So if they say that, as an example, ephedrine will make you lose weight, well it might. But what they don't have to say, by law, is that people have died from it too because it can mess with the rate of a person's heart.

I will say that I wouldn't have a problem taking anything like a regular multivitamin. But I wouldn't take anything else. If a label says anything like cirrhosis of the liver, neurological damage, or anything, I'd stay away from it. I realize that it's probably just from the selenium, but you can even overdose on some vitamins.

I realize that this is probably way more than anyone ever would want to know, but I don't want anything bad happening to anyone because they believed what some of these so-called health products claim. This is something that really bugs me about companies who claim that their pills can do miracles. Someone can say anything, but just because they say it doesn't mean it's true.

[Guest Evan_J]

I realize that this is probably way more than anyone ever would want to know,

Are you kidding? lol that is EXACTLY what I want to know lol. I'm startin a short list of all you pharmo, chemical, medical, types on board lol. No prescribing or ok-ing cuz we've all read the rules (IF ANYONE HASN'T, READ EM) and yet even for the non-suppliment stuff -like this muscle milk- we wanna know what to look for on ANY label.

And crossroads I am glad you are hypercautious with your health. I like you dudes I want ya all here, kickin, and raisin hell in the world. ......ok, maybe not hell..... I guess.

[Guest Crossroads]

Jackson, I completely agree with Evan. It's important to know all we can about all we can!

Keane, really? I truly think that the mental change of, "I accept what I am" can change a person drastically. I tried muscle milk last year, and didn't notice a huge difference. As soon as I accepted to change, I start changing. Sure, some of it could be the vitamins or the drink, but I think all that is doing is giving me the energy I need to function. I really do think that the mental strength going with the body's natural urges. When you finally decide that you want something, your body will back you up in that if you let it!

Thanks again, Evan!!!