T update: five months
For reference, months four, three, two, one.
I'm still using one 1.25 g pump of Androgel 1% daily, applied mostly to my hips, sides, and back depending on how bad my bacne is. I have been tempted to skip a day here and there because I'm satisfied with changes and don't feel an urgency to get more but have tried to be consistent just in case my ovaries really might give up on the whole cycle business if only I continue to poison them.
Downstairs:
Oh, Jesus H. Christ, that happened! I suspect this has been going on for some time rather than being a recent development, but I didn't notice until my partner said something. Apparently, I'm so out of touch and good at distracting myself from it that I actually did not notice it happening, but I've been hyper-aware of it ever since. The big problem is that I can feel it rubbing against my underwear sometimes, so I have to rearrange or just deal with feeling it exist. I don't feel any different when I get random erections, etc., and the increased sex drive is responsible for the frequency of such events. I can still tuck everything away when I'm not aroused, and I can for the most part masturbate the same way as always.
Sex drive:
I'm having trouble keeping up with it! I really wish I had enough time to jerk off more often because I've been feeling the urge way more often. It takes me longer to get off, but I feel like I'm aroused a lot of the time. I'm also reminded of being a teenager and masturbating in excess of three times a day, because I would do that if I had the time, no problem.
Body hair:
My legs are hairy like woah. Seeing them every day all summer didn't give me much perspective on change over time. After a couple weeks of unseasonably cold weather during which I wore pants, I was able to wear shorts again, and I'm confident I've got a lot more hair than I did four months ago. The hair on the outside of my knees and the lower part of my thighs is much darker and thicker than it was before, although still not especially dark or thick. The "tree line" on the backs of my calves is about two inches higher than it used to be. And most noticeably, the hair on my lower legs is denser and longer than it was before. When I look down, it's much more obvious that I do have hair on my legs, and I was disturbed when I first noticed it, even though when I look at them up close I like the change (and expected to anyway). For that matter, I'm growing non-invisible hairs on my arms above my elbows, where I never had visible hair before. On an unrelated note, I've been getting a lot of uncomfortable ingrown hairs in with my pubes. I guess that's been going on for about three months, but this last month has really taken the cake. One of them got swollen but calmed down within a week. Anyway, my pubes are also denser than they used to be. Actually, I've been getting ingrown hairs all over my body, especially in the last two months, and it's worsened in the past month. The thing that happened with my facial hair starting a few months ago, where the vellous hairs got longer if not darker, is happening all over the front of my torso. I'm asking Santa for a happy trail for X-Mas and wouldn't mind nipple hair (weird?) but have mixed feelings about hair elsewhere on my chest and belly just because it seems strange to have (desirable) male-pattern body hair on body parts that I perceive as female. That being said, I've got ingrown hairs all over my abdomen, so something's up.
Chest:
It's not about breasticles, but I've been having breathing problems when binding, basically only in the last month. I don't know if it's because of the small increase in the size of my ribcage making my binders too tight, or a psychological thing because I do feel claustrophobic once I have the sensation of not breathing, or if my existing lung problems are worsening because I'm binding too much at the same time as the air quality where I live has dropped. I'm keeping an eye on it but unsure what to do besides spend more time at home where I don't have to bind. That's actually been working pretty well because I feel indignant about it, like I shouldn't have to bind in order to be perceived as male, i.e. I'm the only sane one and everyone else is crazy, a.k.a. crazy talk. The low point was going to work on a weekend and unbinding in my office, desperately hoping my officemates wouldn't show up. I'm still wrestling with whether to have surgery, because one of my big arguments was that binding is easy now that my chesticles are smaller, but that's countered by binding being more difficult due to breathing problems.
Acne:
At this point, I'm certain that the gel does have a local effect, contrary to what the manufacturer claims. I quit applying the gel to my shoulders a couple months ago because my bacne was spreading down my arms and was already out of hand on my upper back. I started applying the gel to my sides and hips. My arms and shoulders started clearing up, and I now have acne on my hips and sides. I'm trying to rotate application sites a bit more now that I know it's not all in my head. I've heard it's okay to apply it to the thighs, so I might do that, but I'd rather not apply it somewhere where the skin is thinner like my forearms because I don't want to improve absorption. I'm still breaking out cyclically with the worst of it on my chin and jawline, including behind my ears. I've also been getting pretty big pimples around where my glasses sit and on my shoulders.
Periods:
I'm still getting periods, pretty darn regularly, too. Pre-T, I never experienced PMS. The worst I ever got was just a little weepy a couple days before bleeding started, as in, it would be easier to trigger me to cry then. On T, it's gotten worse every time; I'm having anxiety attacks 6-7 days beforehand. Two points define a line, but it takes three to get error bars -- in other words, this has been going on for the last three months. That being said, my period is now officially one day late, and I'm sort of crossing my fingers for it to be gone while also being intensely nervous that it's about to start and I'll need to deal with it.
Emotions:
Aside from the PMS, I feel pretty stable. I do struggle with letting go of things that bother me or moving on from being upset, but I'm so, so relaxed so much more of the time. I haven't had fits of rage or anything, but there have been two times when I raised my voice in response to others' escalations, something I haven't done since childhood because of voice dysphoria, ironically. I'm more confident about speaking up for myself and calling out other people on their bullshit, but I worry that sometimes I'm wrong and not able to recognize that. I find myself less preoccupied with how I'm read, though I still get hung up on being treated as a woman by people who already see me as one. I've noticed more and more that I'm treating real life like a game, as if I'm not really invested in it or just being lighthearted about things to make them easier to handle. My mother used to criticize my father for doing this and making it impossible to have any serious conversation. My partner doesn't at all mind me being more laid back.
Muscles:
I am developing some pretty big muscles on my lower abdomen, near my hip bones. (Google tells me it's a part of the transverse abdominus, if that means anything to anyone.) Sexy! Also, I've had a crease on my abdomen at my waist since I hit puberty, because my posture is poor even in my mid-lower back, and it's disappearing, which either means I have more abdominal muscle or less fat there. I assume muscle growth is the only explanation for my shoulders being bigger, but I'm certain that's happening because my shirts are getting tighter across my shoulders.
Fat distribution:
I'm sort of surprised that my waist and hip measurements haven't changed since pre-T, because I look quite different in the mirror. Apparently that's just been an optical illusion caused by my broadening shoulders. I think I might be tending more towards belly fat than hip fat based on how I felt I looked when bloated from some intermittent intestinal issues and how my underwear has not been digging into my hip fat as obviously, but am not yet confident that I've got enough evidence to make the claim.
Voice:
I record my voice at the end of the day by just speaking for 30 seconds about my day and have expressed satisfaction more often than not in the past month. It very much feels like it's done changing, but the recordings indicate otherwise, comparing the first week of last month to the first week of this month. I still have trouble controlling whether I'm in the resonant range or just kind of squeaking along, but the less gritty part of my range is lower and lower. I cannot believe people from work haven't noticed and am concerned about coming out to my mother basically being the first words out of my mouth because she'll notice and immediately ask about it, since a good friend who had heard my voice when I was a few weeks on T didn't even recognize me on the phone last week. Still, I'm so much more confident speaking that I don't know what to do with myself, and I fear I ramble/babble in real life because I'm used to having this filter shut me up prematurely. This is good, even though there may be some challenges ahead.
Metabolism:
I feel like I've been overeating more and eating sweets, when I never had a sweet tooth before. I don't know if I can blame it all on T because I also changed the dosage of my psych. meds a bit last month and am under a lot more stress now because of work and school starting up again. Whatever it is, I haven't put on any weight or outgrown any clothes. I also find that I need less sleep than before; I'm still tired if I get less than 7.5 hours of sleep, but I can function without feeling the effects of sleep deprivation. Again, this could also be because my blood pressure has improved and I'm no longer anemic, or because I'm less depressed than pre-T, but I sort of expected the reverse to hold true for a while longer. And my cold tolerance has greatly improved, without sacrificing the improved heat tolerance I've gotten. I used to not be able to sleep if it was below 55 F in my room, but I can stay asleep down to 50 F pretty reliably. I generally don't need a jacket even when other people do. This is also probably related to my poor circulation improving on T.
Everything else:
This has been a difficult month in T land. I'm feeling very conflicted about continuing. The pace of physical changes now exceeds my rate of mentally processing them, and I'm not comfortable with that. (Changes have actually slowed, but I've been spending more time and mental energy on work than paying attention to my body.) I've also pretty much gotten the permanent changes I most needed (voice) so it's arguably not necessary to continue, and I'm starting to get some that I don't want (genital changes) so I may be doing something detrimental to myself by continuing. The conflict I have arises from the touchy-feely effect of feeling more "right" on T, like the constant stress of my mind being in conflict with my body has been abated in entirely illogical ways. I don't want to quit or lower my dose by taking it inconsistently because it would put this unprecedented mental stability at risk. I'm planning to move my next endo appointment to November from January so I can perhaps further lower my dose during the break between semesters when I'd have time to adjust if necessary.
I'm still using one 1.25 g pump of Androgel 1% daily, applied mostly to my hips, sides, and back depending on how bad my bacne is. I have been tempted to skip a day here and there because I'm satisfied with changes and don't feel an urgency to get more but have tried to be consistent just in case my ovaries really might give up on the whole cycle business if only I continue to poison them.
Downstairs:
Oh, Jesus H. Christ, that happened! I suspect this has been going on for some time rather than being a recent development, but I didn't notice until my partner said something. Apparently, I'm so out of touch and good at distracting myself from it that I actually did not notice it happening, but I've been hyper-aware of it ever since. The big problem is that I can feel it rubbing against my underwear sometimes, so I have to rearrange or just deal with feeling it exist. I don't feel any different when I get random erections, etc., and the increased sex drive is responsible for the frequency of such events. I can still tuck everything away when I'm not aroused, and I can for the most part masturbate the same way as always.
Sex drive:
I'm having trouble keeping up with it! I really wish I had enough time to jerk off more often because I've been feeling the urge way more often. It takes me longer to get off, but I feel like I'm aroused a lot of the time. I'm also reminded of being a teenager and masturbating in excess of three times a day, because I would do that if I had the time, no problem.
Body hair:
My legs are hairy like woah. Seeing them every day all summer didn't give me much perspective on change over time. After a couple weeks of unseasonably cold weather during which I wore pants, I was able to wear shorts again, and I'm confident I've got a lot more hair than I did four months ago. The hair on the outside of my knees and the lower part of my thighs is much darker and thicker than it was before, although still not especially dark or thick. The "tree line" on the backs of my calves is about two inches higher than it used to be. And most noticeably, the hair on my lower legs is denser and longer than it was before. When I look down, it's much more obvious that I do have hair on my legs, and I was disturbed when I first noticed it, even though when I look at them up close I like the change (and expected to anyway). For that matter, I'm growing non-invisible hairs on my arms above my elbows, where I never had visible hair before. On an unrelated note, I've been getting a lot of uncomfortable ingrown hairs in with my pubes. I guess that's been going on for about three months, but this last month has really taken the cake. One of them got swollen but calmed down within a week. Anyway, my pubes are also denser than they used to be. Actually, I've been getting ingrown hairs all over my body, especially in the last two months, and it's worsened in the past month. The thing that happened with my facial hair starting a few months ago, where the vellous hairs got longer if not darker, is happening all over the front of my torso. I'm asking Santa for a happy trail for X-Mas and wouldn't mind nipple hair (weird?) but have mixed feelings about hair elsewhere on my chest and belly just because it seems strange to have (desirable) male-pattern body hair on body parts that I perceive as female. That being said, I've got ingrown hairs all over my abdomen, so something's up.
Chest:
It's not about breasticles, but I've been having breathing problems when binding, basically only in the last month. I don't know if it's because of the small increase in the size of my ribcage making my binders too tight, or a psychological thing because I do feel claustrophobic once I have the sensation of not breathing, or if my existing lung problems are worsening because I'm binding too much at the same time as the air quality where I live has dropped. I'm keeping an eye on it but unsure what to do besides spend more time at home where I don't have to bind. That's actually been working pretty well because I feel indignant about it, like I shouldn't have to bind in order to be perceived as male, i.e. I'm the only sane one and everyone else is crazy, a.k.a. crazy talk. The low point was going to work on a weekend and unbinding in my office, desperately hoping my officemates wouldn't show up. I'm still wrestling with whether to have surgery, because one of my big arguments was that binding is easy now that my chesticles are smaller, but that's countered by binding being more difficult due to breathing problems.
Acne:
At this point, I'm certain that the gel does have a local effect, contrary to what the manufacturer claims. I quit applying the gel to my shoulders a couple months ago because my bacne was spreading down my arms and was already out of hand on my upper back. I started applying the gel to my sides and hips. My arms and shoulders started clearing up, and I now have acne on my hips and sides. I'm trying to rotate application sites a bit more now that I know it's not all in my head. I've heard it's okay to apply it to the thighs, so I might do that, but I'd rather not apply it somewhere where the skin is thinner like my forearms because I don't want to improve absorption. I'm still breaking out cyclically with the worst of it on my chin and jawline, including behind my ears. I've also been getting pretty big pimples around where my glasses sit and on my shoulders.
Periods:
I'm still getting periods, pretty darn regularly, too. Pre-T, I never experienced PMS. The worst I ever got was just a little weepy a couple days before bleeding started, as in, it would be easier to trigger me to cry then. On T, it's gotten worse every time; I'm having anxiety attacks 6-7 days beforehand. Two points define a line, but it takes three to get error bars -- in other words, this has been going on for the last three months. That being said, my period is now officially one day late, and I'm sort of crossing my fingers for it to be gone while also being intensely nervous that it's about to start and I'll need to deal with it.
Emotions:
Aside from the PMS, I feel pretty stable. I do struggle with letting go of things that bother me or moving on from being upset, but I'm so, so relaxed so much more of the time. I haven't had fits of rage or anything, but there have been two times when I raised my voice in response to others' escalations, something I haven't done since childhood because of voice dysphoria, ironically. I'm more confident about speaking up for myself and calling out other people on their bullshit, but I worry that sometimes I'm wrong and not able to recognize that. I find myself less preoccupied with how I'm read, though I still get hung up on being treated as a woman by people who already see me as one. I've noticed more and more that I'm treating real life like a game, as if I'm not really invested in it or just being lighthearted about things to make them easier to handle. My mother used to criticize my father for doing this and making it impossible to have any serious conversation. My partner doesn't at all mind me being more laid back.
Muscles:
I am developing some pretty big muscles on my lower abdomen, near my hip bones. (Google tells me it's a part of the transverse abdominus, if that means anything to anyone.) Sexy! Also, I've had a crease on my abdomen at my waist since I hit puberty, because my posture is poor even in my mid-lower back, and it's disappearing, which either means I have more abdominal muscle or less fat there. I assume muscle growth is the only explanation for my shoulders being bigger, but I'm certain that's happening because my shirts are getting tighter across my shoulders.
Fat distribution:
I'm sort of surprised that my waist and hip measurements haven't changed since pre-T, because I look quite different in the mirror. Apparently that's just been an optical illusion caused by my broadening shoulders. I think I might be tending more towards belly fat than hip fat based on how I felt I looked when bloated from some intermittent intestinal issues and how my underwear has not been digging into my hip fat as obviously, but am not yet confident that I've got enough evidence to make the claim.
Voice:
I record my voice at the end of the day by just speaking for 30 seconds about my day and have expressed satisfaction more often than not in the past month. It very much feels like it's done changing, but the recordings indicate otherwise, comparing the first week of last month to the first week of this month. I still have trouble controlling whether I'm in the resonant range or just kind of squeaking along, but the less gritty part of my range is lower and lower. I cannot believe people from work haven't noticed and am concerned about coming out to my mother basically being the first words out of my mouth because she'll notice and immediately ask about it, since a good friend who had heard my voice when I was a few weeks on T didn't even recognize me on the phone last week. Still, I'm so much more confident speaking that I don't know what to do with myself, and I fear I ramble/babble in real life because I'm used to having this filter shut me up prematurely. This is good, even though there may be some challenges ahead.
Metabolism:
I feel like I've been overeating more and eating sweets, when I never had a sweet tooth before. I don't know if I can blame it all on T because I also changed the dosage of my psych. meds a bit last month and am under a lot more stress now because of work and school starting up again. Whatever it is, I haven't put on any weight or outgrown any clothes. I also find that I need less sleep than before; I'm still tired if I get less than 7.5 hours of sleep, but I can function without feeling the effects of sleep deprivation. Again, this could also be because my blood pressure has improved and I'm no longer anemic, or because I'm less depressed than pre-T, but I sort of expected the reverse to hold true for a while longer. And my cold tolerance has greatly improved, without sacrificing the improved heat tolerance I've gotten. I used to not be able to sleep if it was below 55 F in my room, but I can stay asleep down to 50 F pretty reliably. I generally don't need a jacket even when other people do. This is also probably related to my poor circulation improving on T.
Everything else:
This has been a difficult month in T land. I'm feeling very conflicted about continuing. The pace of physical changes now exceeds my rate of mentally processing them, and I'm not comfortable with that. (Changes have actually slowed, but I've been spending more time and mental energy on work than paying attention to my body.) I've also pretty much gotten the permanent changes I most needed (voice) so it's arguably not necessary to continue, and I'm starting to get some that I don't want (genital changes) so I may be doing something detrimental to myself by continuing. The conflict I have arises from the touchy-feely effect of feeling more "right" on T, like the constant stress of my mind being in conflict with my body has been abated in entirely illogical ways. I don't want to quit or lower my dose by taking it inconsistently because it would put this unprecedented mental stability at risk. I'm planning to move my next endo appointment to November from January so I can perhaps further lower my dose during the break between semesters when I'd have time to adjust if necessary.