Smoking while on HRT?

[MissHayleyKat]

I'm a fairly average smoker, I smoke around 12-14 a day.
I've been wondering for a while if smoking will negatively affect me when I start HRT?
I'm sure that my GP will try and convince me to quit anyway, but I don't really want to quit unless it will cause serious problems with my transition later down the road.

[Devlyn]

Dying of lung cancer will ruin anyone's transition, hon. Quit smoking. Hugs, Devlyn

[KayCeeDee]

Smoking and alcohol are big no-no's on HRT. Let the E take the place of the nicotine.

[Hideyoshi]

I wouldn't worry about lung cancer if you smoke while on hrt. The highly increased risk for blood clots I would worry about. Just quit.

[big kim]

Some(not all) Doctors may not prescribe HRT while smoking,I have heard of this in the UK.Quit smoking,you will feel better and be better off.

[Ms. OBrien CVT]

As a smoker, I know how hard it is to quit.  I have tried many times.  Not just for HRT, but for my health in general.  Blood clots are your major problem.  Both Estrogen and smoking can cause those clots.

Quitting now is your best better.   I am on day 5 without a cigarette.  I am using those e-cigarettes.  Yes I still get nicotine, but all the rest of the bad stuff Is no longer entering my body.

[Keira]

As a smoker, I know how hard it is to quit.  I have tried many times.  Not just for HRT, but for my health in general.  Blood clots are your major problem.  Both Estrogen and smoking can cause those clots.

Quitting now is your best better.   I am on day 5 without a cigarette.  I am using those e-cigarettes.  Yes I still get nicotine, but all the rest of the bad stuff Is no longer entering my body.

Be careful with the e-cigarettes, you may actually be smoking the same amount as you would with real cigarettes. The reason I say this is because you can't really measure how much nicotine you are taking in with an e cigarette. In effect it would be ALMOST the same as what you used to smoke.

Personally if I ever became addicted to cigarettes I would try cutting down how many you smoke by one a day. That way quitting is gradual instead of an absolute shock to your body.

Disclaimer- I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life; I just thought I would share what I know. I smoke off and on, but not much (a cigarette every day or every three days).

[Heather]

Smoking and estrogen don't mix. I really suggest you quit I use to smoke I quit 4 years ago. It was the best thing I did for myself beside transitioning and losing a whole lot of weight nether of which would have been possible if I had not quit smoking. I could list all the bad things smoking does to you. But you probably have all ready heard all that before. But I will say since quitting my life has never been better. 

[MissHayleyKat]

Quitting now is your best better.   I am on day 5 without a cigarette.  I am using those e-cigarettes.  Yes I still get nicotine, but all the rest of the bad stuff Is no longer entering my body.

I tried E-cigarettes for a while, but I didn't enjoy them as much as normal cigarettes. The taste wasn't quite the same, and it never felt the same as smoke, also, I got fed up of running out of power and having to wait a while for it to recharge.

[Embrace]

Thanks for starting this thread.

I also smoke.  I am not happy about that fact and I've been putting off quitting for far too long.

I'm still researching HRT and was not aware of how significantly the risk of clotting would be increased, although I did note it as a risk and knew I'd be needing to quit at some point.

And while the thought of going through the process of quitting is not particularly pleasant, I'm actually kind of glad to see this.  I've been smoking too much for too long and I needed that little extra push to motivate me to do something about it.

[KayCeeDee]

Another reason to quit: smoking will seriously mess up healing from any surgery.

[kelly_aus]

My therapist was unwilling to refer me for hormones until I quit.. My gyno was clear that she would not prescribe hormones unless I had quit..

The way it was put to me, is that E will increase your clotting risk.. Smoking increases you clotting risk - combine the 2 and you are looking at a level of risk that is too high for any sane person..

[luna nyan]

I'm going to quote what I said in May last year in another similar thread:

My 2 cents:
Smoking:
1.  As far as affecting the effectiveness on HRT, I would agree that it is unlikely to really affect HRT effects.
2.  As far as affecting the chances of success with any GRS surgery - the general statistic on post operative infection rates on smokers is about 7-8 times greater than normal.  The main reason is that smoking decreases the oxygenation levels in the blood stream.  Less oxygenated blood, less healing, higher rate of graft failure, higher rates of infection.  I was told that in dental surgery - smoking on the day or within 24 hours of having a tooth out, you would increase the chances of a dry socket by a factor of at least 3.

Marijuana:
I'm not so sure about the effects of marijuana - I haven't really read any proper studies on its effects.

I'm glad you're showing concern about the effects of these habits on your health - I would suggest trying to work out the triggers that make you want to smoke and find a way to counter them.  Good support is going to help you as well.  I know a few people who have quit over the years, and say to me that they could pick up a cigarette and not think twice about puffing but because they have good support around them they don't.

The other thing is, if you are disciplined enough to save the cash you don't spend on smoking, think about all the transition costs that money can go towards. =)

[Henna]

Don't know about smoking and if it affects or not to HRT, but here at least you _have to_ stop, before GRS. That's mandatory. The doctors wont let you allow ruin their perfect operation record with smoking and thus destroying the blood flow on skin. I would really presume, that smoking does affect on some levels to HRT results, as smoking affects to your skin.

I stopped smoking Christmas Eve 2012. Easiest thing that I've done in my life really. The only thing that made me to stop, was that I realized that much of my dysphoria is related to the skin of this body and smoking definitely is not going to fix the skin, just making it worse.

[Cindy]

A comment. Modified for privacy reasons, but it was from an eminent endocrinologist whose advice was sort for a transwoman who smokes and was having E dosage problems.

If you prescribe oestrogen to a transwoman who smokes cigarettes you may be legally regarded as being implicit in her deathwish.

You should consider linking a refusal to give scripts to the smoking habit.


Pretty basic!

[Asfsd4214]

Be careful with the e-cigarettes, you may actually be smoking the same amount as you would with real cigarettes. The reason I say this is because you can't really measure how much nicotine you are taking in with an e cigarette. In effect it would be ALMOST the same as what you used to smoke.

Personally if I ever became addicted to cigarettes I would try cutting down how many you smoke by one a day. That way quitting is gradual instead of an absolute shock to your body.

Disclaimer- I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life; I just thought I would share what I know. I smoke off and on, but not much (a cigarette every day or every three days).

You know on the whole the actual nicotine in the cigarettes are only what makes them so wonderfully addictive, it's not what makes them so wonderfully deadly. And I don't know about other parts of the world, but here in Australia the tobacco companies aren't legally allowed to give a nicotine estimate in smokes anyway.

A comment. Modified for privacy reasons, but it was from an eminent endocrinologist whose advice was sort for a transwoman who smokes and was having E dosage problems.

If you prescribe oestrogen to a transwoman who smokes cigarettes you may be legally regarded as being implicit in her deathwish.

You should consider linking a refusal to give scripts to the smoking habit.


Pretty basic!

What a wonderful world we live in. So you would be ok with doctors denying me the right to live as who I am because I smoke because they're too spineless to accept that I'm an adult and have the right to take the risk if I want too.

This is why I so rarely post here anymore, every time I do I see some infuriating "we need to baby people because there are no adults, just the qualified who make the decisions for the unqualified" comment.

[Keira]

Nicotine forces the body into overdrive, essentially making the entire nervous system flip to 100%. Almost all of what you hear from the government about smoking is propaganda; the only real truth is that you are more likely to die of a heart  related disease than cancer. Imagine your heart having to spontaneously start beating very fast 20-40 times a day (depending on how much you smoke), it's not much different from being shocked in the chest.

Check out the anti smoking propaganda articles on sites like forces.org and smokingoutthetruth. Or just google, "Anti smoking propaganda".

I don't claim that smoking isn't bad, it's just not as bad as they make it out to be when it's done in small quantities.

[Teela Renee]

I have tried quitting, cant do it. My Endo gave me my scripts if I promised to cut back alot.  So I kept my word and have been keeping it to one in the morning, one at lunch, and one at dinner.  If I feel the need to cheat. He gave me a box of nicotine gum. been 6 1/2 months and I  im on full doses. at the end of the month, ill be dropping the meal cigs  month by month, till im a non smoker.  quitting over time works better for me.

but yeah, E+smoking = not good.   throw spiro on top of it, and you might as well start digging.

[Cindy]

You know on the whole the actual nicotine in the cigarettes are only what makes them so wonderfully addictive, it's not what makes them so wonderfully deadly. And I don't know about other parts of the world, but here in Australia the tobacco companies aren't legally allowed to give a nicotine estimate in smokes anyway.

What a wonderful world we live in. So you would be ok with doctors denying me the right to live as who I am because I smoke because they're too spineless to accept that I'm an adult and have the right to take the risk if I want too.

This is why I so rarely post here anymore, every time I do I see some infuriating "we need to baby people because there are no adults, just the qualified who make the decisions for the unqualified" comment.

You mistake me. I really don't care what you do, if you wish to smoke, do so, it isn't against the law. But legally a medic should not prescribe a drug regime that will lead to harm and increase the chance of death unless there are circumstances to allow it (chemo in cancer etc). Otherwise they may be legally implicit in your deathwish.

I suppose one could have a view that if you are too spineless to give up smoking to live as the person you wish to be, then that is your problem to deal with.

[Keira]

I suppose one could have a view that if you are too spineless to give up smoking to live as the person you wish to be, then that is your problem to deal with.

Perhaps you could clarify your intent a bit because your hypothetical (if it is one) comes off as a bit rude and possibly triggering a response.