Odd situation

[Fivedogs]

Sorry y'all this might get long...

After second child my wife and I decided I needed a vasectomy.  It went horribly wrong and I was in sever pain for a year while the doctor tried to treat/fix the issues.  After a year they removed my epidytamous, both of them. Was told that would fix the pain. The pain changed but didn't lessen. After 6 months the doctor said I would have pain all my life and here are some pain pills.  Another doctor wanted to see if it was nerve pain or something else and gave me gabapenton.  He said 1 month would tell.  Pain was still there so he wanted me to try for 6 months and see. About month 4 I noticed my testicles started to shrink and the pain reduce. I also started to notice itchy nipples and a pinching feel under them. Wife said I was being silly.  At month 5 I had a good a cup of squishy saggy breasts. Went to dr and they ran tests.  My t was 330 and they found I had e around 180.  Directed me to stop the gabapenton as this is rare side effect.  Stopped taking the nerve blocker and chest started to recede.  Yet nipples still itched and pinching still there.  After 3 months my chest was not all saggy and probably didn't measure an a cup.  My aeriolas seemed bigger and darker but I wasn't taking pictures so couldn't tell for sure.  Then my chest started getting larger again but this time it was not saggy fat like, there were cord like structures in them and a large bulb under the nipple.  Again my wife said nothing appeared to change. Two months go by and I have a for real b cup of breasts now.  I have a different body shape too.  I think my breasts are still growing. I had blood drawn yesterday and they said the color was perfect...waiting results. I can tell that I have lost muscle in my arms and legs, but now I am starting to fell in those muscle some....not pain but like the muscle has been stressed by a really rough day of activity.  I am not a transgender but this seems like a group that might know more about what I am going through more than any other group.  I know this sounds strange or odd, I get it. The doctor couldn't say if this was due to high e or not till results come back.  What does it feel like if anything when you lose muscle mass on hormone therapy?

[sarah1972]

I am so sorry to hear about your problems.

What you describe sounds a lot what I have experienced after starting Testosterone blockers and Estrogen. My body shape has changed and I have gotten a waist line. And yes, muscle mass has been reduced. It does not hurt but I notice when trying to carry heavy items around. I also get tired a lot faster and muscles feel like after a heavy day of yard work. Some of this can be counteracted with exercise I should really be doing. Your timeline of changes also matches with what I have experienced.

Your 330 T level is on the lower end of a normal male but still within the range (270 - 1070 with an average of 679). Estrogen should be below 50. Something seems to be wrong and I hope the doctors find quickly what causes this. You may need to get a Endocrinologist to look at your hormone levels. There is a medical condition called gynecomastia which is enlarged breasts in men. While a slow increase in E levels is normal for men as they get older, some of the other symptoms however do not match, especially with such a rapid increase.

I hope you feel better soon, please keep us posted!

Sorry y'all this might get long...

After second child my wife and I decided I needed a vasectomy.  It went horribly wrong and I was in sever pain for a year while the doctor tried to treat/fix the issues.  After a year they removed my epidytamous, both of them. Was told that would fix the pain. The pain changed but didn't lessen. After 6 months the doctor said I would have pain all my life and here are some pain pills.  Another doctor wanted to see if it was nerve pain or something else and gave me gabapenton.  He said 1 month would tell.  Pain was still there so he wanted me to try for 6 months and see. About month 4 I noticed my testicles started to shrink and the pain reduce. I also started to notice itchy nipples and a pinching feel under them. Wife said I was being silly.  At month 5 I had a good a cup of squishy saggy breasts. Went to dr and they ran tests.  My t was 330 and they found I had e around 180.  Directed me to stop the gabapenton as this is rare side effect.  Stopped taking the nerve blocker and chest started to recede.  Yet nipples still itched and pinching still there.  After 3 months my chest was not all saggy and probably didn't measure an a cup.  My aeriolas seemed bigger and darker but I wasn't taking pictures so couldn't tell for sure.  Then my chest started getting larger again but this time it was not saggy fat like, there were cord like structures in them and a large bulb under the nipple.  Again my wife said nothing appeared to change. Two months go by and I have a for real b cup of breasts now.  I have a different body shape too.  I think my breasts are still growing. I had blood drawn yesterday and they said the color was perfect...waiting results. I can tell that I have lost muscle in my arms and legs, but now I am starting to fell in those muscle some....not pain but like the muscle has been stressed by a really rough day of activity.  I am not a transgender but this seems like a group that might know more about what I am going through more than any other group.  I know this sounds strange or odd, I get it. The doctor couldn't say if this was due to high e or not till results come back.  What does it feel like if anything when you lose muscle mass on hormone therapy?

[Dena]

Welcome to Susan's Place. I am including a table that you might find useful in interrupting your doctors results. There are two tests for estrogen that you should pay attention to. Estradiol is the primary number you are interested in as that's the most potent. Total estrogen is the combination of Estradiol and Estradiol and Estradiol is fairly weak and normal Estrone is lower than Estradiol. 

What muscle loss feels like? Normally it's not noticeable but sometimes things like opening up a jar make you aware that you don't have the strength you once had. Today we were doing some cleanup and we needed to push an old car. We had a guy helping us and something I was struggling with he could do with ease.


ESTRADIOL LEVELS
SEX                     pg/ml
Women (> 18 years old)   
      Follicular Phase  30-120
      Ovulatory Peak   130-370
      Luteal Phase      70-250
      Post-Menopausal   15-60
Male                    15-60

TOTAL TESTOSTERONE LEVELS
SEX      ng/dl        ng/ml
Females  6 - 86     0.1 - 1.2
Males  270 - 1100   2.4 - 12
Conversion factor: 1 ng/ml = 3.47 nmol/l

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[Fivedogs]

The gabbapenton caused a pituitary disorder where I was creating allot of aromatese. That is why they had me stop it. They said it normally fixes itself when you stop the med.  everything seemed fine as the breasts were shrinking. Doctor thinks that never really stopped and reason my breasts started shrinking was the fast was building actual ducts and stuff.  Around here endo doctors have 5 month wait list so I am seeing a gp for now while waiting on appointment.  The pain I had in my testidles was rediculous. I was on nausea meds to keep me from being sick all the time.  They now think the e is keeping down excess sperm production which was what they think caused my pain....I fear that them fixing this will bring back my pain.  The concern with not treating this is unregulated hormone surges and thus stroke and such, also bone loss.  I am hoping for some good results in my blood work, what ever that means.  I have had the conversation with my wife and she thinks if the pain does come back we should think about mtf hrt.  Seems like there should be something else they could do, but there are many things that could be worse.  It is hard to not try and figure options, I know till there are results it is hard to figure this stuff out...but this is confusing.  Thank you for your feedback sarah

[Fivedogs]

Thank you Dena,

The dr pulled 17 vials of blood.  The things you mentioned were on the lab sheet as well as fsh and a few other things like vitamin d and blood calcium.

[Dena]

My normal blood test is 3 or 4 vials and that results in about 2 pages of lab results. You doctor is testing far more with that many vials of blood so if there is a chemistry problem, it should show up.

If you aren't transgender, full MTF HRT isn't a good idea. The reason we are the way we are is because before we were born our brain developed a gender identity opposite that of our body. When our body started producing sex hormones at puberty, our dysphoria goes way up. Estrogen at high level could cause you develop dysphoria as your brain appears to be male and incompatible with high levels of estrogen. A modern innovation  is blocker drugs that reduce or eliminate the production of testosterone or estrogen. A blocker might be a possibility if your levels are high but this would be a decision for you doctor after the test results are known. 

[Fivedogs]

Very good points Dena, thank you.

[zirconia]

I've just one addition to Dena's post. Your doctor may already have explained this to you, but put very simply aromatase turns any testosterone you take or produce into estrogens. If that's what is happening, the pituitary problem will need to be addressed to resolve the situation.

[Toni]

I certainly understand your situation, it was a bout of gynecomastia that first got my attention.  I started looking further when there was no apparent drug or medical reason to be found for it.  About 25% of gynecomastia patients have no specific reason for the condition.   Good news is that, for the most part, effects, like breasts, are largely reversible if the condition is remedied within a year.  Pituitary glands can have benign tumors, called prolactinomas, that cause the pituitary gland to put out prolactin.  Normally, in a pregnant female, this is what stimulates milk production, and those parts of the breast that are active in doings so to be stimulated.  Point is that there could be a lot of reasons for what you're experiencing, but if your doctors look hard enough and find a reason and address the issue, the unwanted side effects you're seeing need not be permanent.  As Dana said, adding hormones sounds like a bad idea at this time since it would seem that they are likely the cause of your problem in the first place.  Best of luck to you.  Toni

[Fivedogs]

Thanks for all the responses and awesome advice.

I don't fully understand what it is to have gender dysphoria and I think unless you are experiencing it I am not sure anyone would know the full impact of such an issue.  I am seeing a doctor about what I am going through.  I haven't had the current set of results back yet.

On the aromatase thing there are inhibitors out there that will reduce the conversion by 60-80%. The issue both the doctor and I am worried about is they cause and increase in sperm production and now that that has been proven to have caused my testicle pain, that would be a bad thing.  Of course that path may not be needed if there is something else causing the issue and it is something other than a simple hormone unbalance.

When they first noticed my t was so low they put me on androgel, there was no appreciable change in my level even on that med.  But that could also have been because it was being converted too.  It gave me crazy headaches and I never get headaches.

The testicle pain was so bad before all this that we were to the point of the next step being to cut them both out.  That was the doctors next recommended step if I was still going to refuse pain pills.  On an emotional level I am at peace and very happy right now.  Again, I don't know much about disphoria, but anything is better than that pain.

I have a lot to figure out a lot of things and till the results come back I have nothing to know other than I have to wait.  Of course I will go with what ever my doctor says, I just have to make sure the path it takes covers multiple fascists.

[HappyMoni]

Maybe you do have a clue on the dysphoria thing. When the body has taken you to a place that your mind says it shouldn't be, you have gotten a taste of what it is like. Hope things work out for you.
Moni