Transgender Woman's Anecdotal HRT Changes For The First Month
So, I am a trans woman and looking into transgender HRT (Hormone Replacement Treatment) before getting it, I noticed that the listed changes start from 1 month after starting HRT, however, I started to notice changes literrally 1 hour after I started (vein collapse in hands, felt like slow Pop Rocks). So, since then I have kept a diary of changes over those first 4 weeks, so that I could add to the existent anec-data out there.
I don't feel like going day by day is necessary or useful, so I will just condense my findings into a giant list.
CAVEAT: Hormone Treatment is different for everyone, everyone's body reacts to the treatment differently, so just because I experience something in the first month that you didn't doesn't mean that either of us is wrong.
ALSO: fun fact: you don't have to get Transgender HRT to be a "propper" trans person.
Anyway, list:
Colder hands (due to hair-line veins collapsing in extremities)
Softer hair on my entire body and the hair on my head can take slightly harsher hair products without frizzing as much as before
Potentially started seeing new hair growth at my hair line (which was quite high before)
Slightly reduced hair growth on face and on legs especially
I smell different and scents/deodorant smell different on me
A general sense of being happier that previous
Anger-based emotions such as frustration and rage feel less "complex", "deep" and intense than they did before
Empathy-based emotions such as love and understanding feel more "complex", "deeper" and more intense than they did before
I am more patient and understand with myself, and slightly more with others
Crying starts much more easily and the tears that come feel less viscous than they did before
My eyes often get wet simply by smiling
I get over big emotional moments more easily and quickly than before
Slight breast growth (soreness started after the first month)
Subjectively it kind of feels like puberty (genuinely thought I had homework assigned one day. I am 29 and not in college)
Alcohol affects me more quickly and intensely than before
Potentially more back problems than before HRT (this is an ongoing situation that I have yet to be tested for, I think it could be that my body isn't great at absorbing Oestrogen and so my body's concentration of sex hormones is too low which can lead to complications with back and joints)
I am personally less attracted to men than I was previous (I wasn't Bi, but I did have a man fetish, which seems to have disappeared)
I bruise slightly more easily
Several times I have woken up half an hour before my alarm because I had to go to the bathroom in spite of the fact that I went just before bed
(intimate details, don't read if you don't want to know) my penis is smaller when flaccid, it is more difficult to get erect, it is more difficult to cum, my libido is almost non-existent, and ejaculate lost the white colour after a couple of weeks
Hopefully this can be of some anecdotal use to some people and give at bit of hope that changes are coming, and as soon as you start.
They are slow, but they start from day one.
Update 1: From talking to a nurse today, it seems that my body has had quite a big and immediate reaction to the hormones, more so that what is expected. It may be that my body accept changes more quickly, it may be that my body is good at accepting the oestrogen, or it may be due to something which I as a layperson don't know about. If I get an analysis of test result back which indicates something specific as to why I have had so many affects in my first month, I'll be sure to share it here.
Update 2: Got the test result back, and I have actually had quite a small increase in estradiol in my body, going from 0.05 nmol/L, 1 month before start to 0.10 nmol/L, the day before to 0.17 nmol/L, 1.5 months after start, so who knows how I have had so many changes take place. Since the estradiol level is so low, I have decided to take my estradiol pill sublingually, which means placing it under the tongue and letting it dissolve. So far, I have noticed a difference in the feeling I get when I take it. Despite my body having regulated to the estradiol taken orally, taking the estradiol sublingually has the same feeling as taking the estradiol for the first time did. So, fingers crossed that we're seeing up to a doubling of the estradiol effect.
