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Negative symptoms of hrt

4 months ago by Katerina to c/mtf

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I transitioned 9 years ago and these symptoms started to me around 4 years in. Usually they're not talked about in trans spaces despite being documented.

  1. Lower body temp than people who aren't on HRT despite not feeling the cold. Sometimes I even feel hot despite my body being 36.5°C

  2. Terrible blood pressure, my nails on my fingers and toes are always purple-ish and the nails grow thin and weak.

  3. Dry skin.

  4. Extreme dry eyes, they actually cause me vision loss.

  5. Bruising, random bruises appearing on my thighs out of nowhere. One day I fell on my knees and even tho it wasn't a hard fall I got a terrible black bruise on my knee.

  6. Dizziness, people report headaches more often but I don't get those as often as dizziness.

Some people say "wow HRT made me feel so good" and I'm here feeling like a corpse in recent rigor mortis 💀

ACindyDerg 24 points 4 months ago

Some of that sounds like you might have raynauds. Estrogen caused mine to manifest a few months in and now I can't go outside in winter without gloves or my hands hurt like hell. Is fun for screwing with my gf because my hands are always cold, so touching her is always a shock to her

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choihanna 9 points 4 months ago

I do have raynauds and they're going to run a test to check if I have Sjogren disease. They're very sceptical about Sjogren because it's a very rare disorder to develop in people with XY chromosomes but there's still that small chance.

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WalrusDragonOnABike 6 points 4 months ago

They’re very sceptical about Sjogren because it’s a very rare disorder to develop in people with XY chromosomes but there’s still that small chance.

Do the genes involved with sperm production somehow give production against it? Or somehow related to fetal-exclusive epigenetic changes? Or is it just rare enough and transfems aren't well studied enough to know if transfems rates of Sjogren's is significantly different from cis women?

Also, if doctors go with the assumption of "AMAB, therefore we probably won't even test for Sjogren's", lots of people could just be missing diagnoses because of the incompetence of doctors to do even basic trans health care as usual.

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choihanna 5 points 4 months ago

They actually have done studies in trans women an they fall on the same percentage as cis men to be unlikely to develop these autoinmune diseases because it's easier to inherit them when you have two X chromosomes instead of 1. So yeah, trans women have a similar rate of Sjogren as cis men. If I end up having it it'd be a massive coïncidence

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WalrusDragonOnABike 3 points 4 months ago

Was curious if it was just a dominant vs recessive thing and a result of mosaic expression of each X-chromosome, which could be plenty to cause autoimmune issues. Apparently the ratio for women:men is like 9:1. But if it was just dominance related, then XY's would be about half as likely to have such issues if it was just that and if it was a genetics + hormone thing, then trans women would still be just half the risk of cis women (and when they do have it, they'd typically have worse symptoms since all their cells would have the problematic gene, not just half) even if cis men rarely get it.

But I came across this: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9402745/

Which seems to think it may have some connection with skewed or incomplete inactivation of the non-pseudoautosomal regions which would cause excess expression of those genes, which if that was the full explanation, that would seem to suggest you need at least two X's to have problems. Given men still are apparently 10% of cases, that makes me wonder what's going on there. Is it some other problem with transcription regulation leading over production of the same genes with just one copy? Are the products just more potent or more long-lasting?

Sorry for nerding out here.

Best of luck with finding some relief from your medical challenges!

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ada 14 points 4 months ago

For what it's worth, I started around the same time as you, and aside from dry skin, I don't experience these, so it's maybe not be as simple as HRT.

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choihanna 2 points 4 months ago

All the doctors I've talked to said it was because of HRT.

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TechieDamien 17 points 4 months ago

Doctors are notorious for blaming any issue on hormones. You could go in with a broken arm and somehow it is the hormone's fault...

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choihanna 2 points 4 months ago

Even my brother who is a doctor thinks it's because of hormones, so at this point I don't care. If it's something else I'm not going to find anyone who knows what it is, so if I have to die of some condition so be it 😂

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doubtingtammy 1 point 4 months ago

If you were a cis woman on hormonal birth control for years, i don't think a doctor would declare a 1:1 causative link between the hormones and these symptoms. They would recognize the hormones as a factor, but not the only cause.

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MissyBee 4 points 4 months ago

Trans broken arm syndrome. I am nearing 10 years HRT. I am the healthiest I have ever been.

Your doctors are stupid, sorry you had to experience that.

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Berengaria_of_Navarre 3 points 4 months ago

I will say that not all doctors are familiar with trans medicine. And many are transphobic.

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choihanna 1 point 4 months ago

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doubtingtammy 11 points 4 months ago

If the symptoms started around 4 years in... a lot of these just sound like symptoms of aging.

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choihanna 5 points 4 months ago

Aging? I'm 21...

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klankin 3 points 4 months ago

You started hormones at 12?

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SCmSTR 1 point 4 months ago

That's around the time puberty happens

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klankin 1 point 4 months ago

Wow just googled it, youre right thats crazy

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erinmeow 2 points 4 months ago

wtf where u live when get hrt at 12 basically avoiding male puberty at all

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doubtingtammy 1 point 4 months ago

Ok, maybe "maturing" is the better term for a youth like yourself lol. My comment sounded dismissive, but i mean it sounds like the combination of adding a few years and changing hormones (which is more extreme with hrt, but cis people deal with it too)

I hope you're able to adjust hrt or find some other solution for the more annoying symptoms.

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WalrusDragonOnABike 9 points 4 months ago

People mention all the time that HRT will make you biologically more similar to other people with similar hormones since those are the things that cause almost all gender differences (granted some affects are restricted to certain developmental periods). You also are at higher risk of breast cancer and blood clots.

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radish 7 points 4 months ago

If you don't mind me asking, are you taking spironolactone, and if so what dose?

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choihanna 4 points 4 months ago

I'm not on any anti androgen, after many years of being on anti androgens ever since I was 13 my body stopped producing high amounts of testosterone naturally. So I'm on mono therapy with estrogen.

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quantumgenderino 4 points 4 months ago

The dry skin and eyes I very much get. Feeling hot though is basically nonexistant now. Within about a month or so of starting HRT, my comfortable temperature range crept waaaay up, from ~21°C to ~28°C. Everything below the mid to high twenties is cold to me now.

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irotsoma 3 points 4 months ago

Those don't seem too related directly to hormone levels. And most direct effects dont take quite that long based on anyone I've known. I've only been on HRT for a couple of years. Though it is possible they are indirectly related, meaning the hormone changes over the long term triggered some other issues. Have you had your iron levels and/or red blood cell counts checked recently? Every one of these symptoms can be caused by certain types of anemia.

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choihanna 2 points 4 months ago

HRT does change how it works on the body over the years, specially because I stared as a minor. Obviously I get checked every month by my Endo, and I don't have any underlying health problems. All my doctors including Endo, dermatologist and ophtalmologist agree it's because of HRT. They're running a test to see if I have Sjogren but it'd be very rare in someone with XY chromosomes, not impossible but very rare.

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Vibi 3 points 4 months ago

Super interesting and things I'll look out for as I get closer to the 4 year mark (half way there)! It is unfortunate that androgens and testosterone do a lot to regulate most of the things mentioned here- stimulates collagen so thicker more oily skin and stronger nails, and higher tear production so less dryness of the eyes. Estrogen tends to lower blood pressure while testosterone tends to increases it- could account for the dizziness. I think all these things become even more clear as we age and most definitely should be talked about! Much of it feels less about being trans and just more about being a woman 🩷

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choihanna 2 points 4 months ago

Yes, HRT is not exclusive to trans women. People in the comments are trying to tell me this is not caused by HRT but my doctors all said that HRT is well documented of doing all of this on cis women 😂

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idiomaddict 2 points 4 months ago

I’m not a doctor, nor am I trying to dispute anything your doctors say, but cis women rarely take HRT before their mid 50s at the earliest. There could exist normal side effects for HRT that are still causes for concern when experienced by a 21 year old.

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ada 2 points 4 months ago

The truth is, there is virtually no research on the impacts of HRT over that length of time. There is no way for a doctor to be able to tell you anything authorative about your experience, because the best we have is anecdotal experience from folk in the community. Any doctor telling you anything with certainty about the impacts of HRT 10 years in, is coming from a position of bias (whether that bias is positive or negative).

If it is the consequence of HRT, you can experiment with dosages to find out. Reduce your E and/or T blocker and see how it goes. But also, talk to your doctor about possibilities other than HRT that you can explore. If they are absolutely insistent that it's HRT (or if they're absolutely insistent that it's not) then they are passing off personal bias as fact.

The same goes with me. You shouldn't believe me or anyone else when they tell you it's not HRT, because it could be. But it could also be something else entirely, so you need a doctor that is willing to look in to it, because most trans fem folk do not share the experiences you're having.

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