T update: twelve months
For reference, months eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one. It's taken a bit more than a year, but I've officially gotten a year's worth of T changes. I'd like to write a year-in-review post but don't have time now, so this one will just be about what's happened in the last month, sorry. And it's especially short at that because I'm too busy to write more. /-:
I'm still using one 1.25 g pump of AndroGel 1% daily, applied to my hips and rear.
Body hair:
Woohoo, moar hair! The hair on my inner and outer thighs, backs of my calves, and rear has really filled out in the past few months.
Voice:
In the past month, my voice took another non-trivial drop that my therapist noticed and that I have felt as a more comfortable resonance. It's still highly inconsistent day-to-day, and I have poor control in general, especially when I'm nervous, such as when I meet new people. I feel like I'm always clearing my throat and wish I could stop.
Facial hair:
I've been trimming my sideburns every three weeks for a few months now and think that's probably too long to wait. I've got about a quarter inch of hair by then. I trim it to one sixteenth of an inch because shaving seems to worsen my acne regardless of how I do it. I have to shave around my jaw as well otherwise there's a visible shadow where I stopped shaving. Oh, and the hair is growing in a slightly lighter brown than the hair on my head.
Acne
My acne seems to have calmed down a lot. It's still definitely there, but the amount of my face that's red from acne on an average day is now under 5%, which is about where it was pre-T. I've been more dilligent about my prescription topicals, but considering I've been using sunblock on my face most days, this is remarkable. I haven't been applying anything to my back, nor really washing it more than before, but it's cleared up almost completely.
Downstairs:
I don't understand. My junk is bigger, yet inexplicably more well-behaved in terms of not chafing against everything. I have no idea how, but it's pretty much ideal. Also, by bigger, I mean even my partner's ham hands can give me a hand job that is actually accomplished with the motions of "jerking off." I'm immensely proud of myself.
Emotions:
My anxiety levels have been pretty high in the past month. It's not as bad as it was pre-T, but it's the worst it's been in the past year aside from my break from T. It's probably because my co-workers have been rotten to me since coming out. My frustration is being expressed as tension in my chest that makes it hard to bind without feeling like I'm suffocating. It could be because of the anxiety, but I also feel like my levels are too low. I'm going to go back to applying the gel to my thighs where there's less subcutaneous fat just in case that helps.
Muscles:
I'm pretty sure I've lost everything I gained by the time I took a break. I'm not doing any less exercise now than then, so I take it as another indication that my levels may be too low even for me.
Cycle:
I've had two periods since my last post and am not happy about it. I had cramps that kept me home from work for a day, too. FYI, that brings the total to 16 in the year since I started T, and 18 up to the present time. Not cool.
Everything else:
I have decided to ask my endo to change my dose at my next appointment at the end of the month, because I'm getting more desperate about still having cycles. Periods aren't exactly a hardship, but the PMS is unacceptable (even though it wasn't as bad this month). I didn't get any pre-T, and I think tolerating it for a year is more than enough. I'm mostly deciding between increasing to 1g AndroGel 1.62% or switching to injections so I can fine-tune my dose. Now that I don't have a bleeding disorder, I think I can handle injections as long as it's not more often than once a week and hope the peak levels will be high enough to put my ovaries to sleep through the trough. I think the risk of cyclic mood swings due to fluctuating levels cannot possibly be worse than the mood swings I'm getting from functioning ovaries. The only other possibility I've considered for stopping cycles is estrogen-free birth control that works by shutting down the ovaries, but I just can't accept the risk of breast growth. It's convenient that the remaining options are the only ones out of the five I posted last month that are guaranteed not to land me half-naked in stirrups. Coincidence? Definitely not. Look, a diversion! I found out that my school's speech pathology program works with trans people trying to change their voices and plan to contact them about getting help controlling my voice so it's less all over the place. I've set a deadline of two weeks from now to do that, since I'm pretty overbooked until then.
I'm still using one 1.25 g pump of AndroGel 1% daily, applied to my hips and rear.
Body hair:
Woohoo, moar hair! The hair on my inner and outer thighs, backs of my calves, and rear has really filled out in the past few months.
Voice:
In the past month, my voice took another non-trivial drop that my therapist noticed and that I have felt as a more comfortable resonance. It's still highly inconsistent day-to-day, and I have poor control in general, especially when I'm nervous, such as when I meet new people. I feel like I'm always clearing my throat and wish I could stop.
Facial hair:
I've been trimming my sideburns every three weeks for a few months now and think that's probably too long to wait. I've got about a quarter inch of hair by then. I trim it to one sixteenth of an inch because shaving seems to worsen my acne regardless of how I do it. I have to shave around my jaw as well otherwise there's a visible shadow where I stopped shaving. Oh, and the hair is growing in a slightly lighter brown than the hair on my head.
Acne
My acne seems to have calmed down a lot. It's still definitely there, but the amount of my face that's red from acne on an average day is now under 5%, which is about where it was pre-T. I've been more dilligent about my prescription topicals, but considering I've been using sunblock on my face most days, this is remarkable. I haven't been applying anything to my back, nor really washing it more than before, but it's cleared up almost completely.
Downstairs:
I don't understand. My junk is bigger, yet inexplicably more well-behaved in terms of not chafing against everything. I have no idea how, but it's pretty much ideal. Also, by bigger, I mean even my partner's ham hands can give me a hand job that is actually accomplished with the motions of "jerking off." I'm immensely proud of myself.
Emotions:
My anxiety levels have been pretty high in the past month. It's not as bad as it was pre-T, but it's the worst it's been in the past year aside from my break from T. It's probably because my co-workers have been rotten to me since coming out. My frustration is being expressed as tension in my chest that makes it hard to bind without feeling like I'm suffocating. It could be because of the anxiety, but I also feel like my levels are too low. I'm going to go back to applying the gel to my thighs where there's less subcutaneous fat just in case that helps.
Muscles:
I'm pretty sure I've lost everything I gained by the time I took a break. I'm not doing any less exercise now than then, so I take it as another indication that my levels may be too low even for me.
Cycle:
I've had two periods since my last post and am not happy about it. I had cramps that kept me home from work for a day, too. FYI, that brings the total to 16 in the year since I started T, and 18 up to the present time. Not cool.
Everything else:
I have decided to ask my endo to change my dose at my next appointment at the end of the month, because I'm getting more desperate about still having cycles. Periods aren't exactly a hardship, but the PMS is unacceptable (even though it wasn't as bad this month). I didn't get any pre-T, and I think tolerating it for a year is more than enough. I'm mostly deciding between increasing to 1g AndroGel 1.62% or switching to injections so I can fine-tune my dose. Now that I don't have a bleeding disorder, I think I can handle injections as long as it's not more often than once a week and hope the peak levels will be high enough to put my ovaries to sleep through the trough. I think the risk of cyclic mood swings due to fluctuating levels cannot possibly be worse than the mood swings I'm getting from functioning ovaries. The only other possibility I've considered for stopping cycles is estrogen-free birth control that works by shutting down the ovaries, but I just can't accept the risk of breast growth. It's convenient that the remaining options are the only ones out of the five I posted last month that are guaranteed not to land me half-naked in stirrups. Coincidence? Definitely not. Look, a diversion! I found out that my school's speech pathology program works with trans people trying to change their voices and plan to contact them about getting help controlling my voice so it's less all over the place. I've set a deadline of two weeks from now to do that, since I'm pretty overbooked until then.