Negative effects of T

[Utterly Confused]

Hey all,

I am just wondering if you guys have had any negative effects while on T

Thank you

Dex

[Kylo]

Almost none.

The only negative for me is a bit of mild bacne which isn't much, and I have to spend money on razors and aftershave aside from the T itself.

There's some potential issue like polycythemia which I have but it's not enough to require any blood letting, and I suppose they do have to keep an eye on you physically while on it with the regular blood work etc.

I'm a lot more relaxed on T but if someone's going to be a jackass to me I'm going to get into arguments more easily than I once did. I have to watch myself around baiting idiots, or at least I suspect I do, because I can be riled up very quickly if people push my buttons.

[Dani]

I was making my own Testosterone for over 50 years. Here is my list of negatives:

1. Aggressive behavior
2. Acne
3. Heart disease
4. Overwhelming sex drive. Some my not call this a negative, but when your every waking moment revolves around the next score, I call it a negative.
5. Excessive body hair. Yuck.

I am sure there are many more undesirables, but this is the major problem areas.

[November Fox]

Very few.

@agressive behavior: there has been a lot of discussion about that on the forum, but it is safe to conclude that having the "wrong hormones" (whether it be E or T) can cause issues with emotional regulation.

I have hormonal problems (PMDD) and when I have an excess amount of testosterone in my body sometimes I become unstable and/or agressive. However I suspect this is a consequence of testosterone converting back into estrogen. Overall testosterone has made me more emotionally stable/calm.

Thinning/receding hair (only if you are genetically disposed). Excess body hair (same thing). I am fortunate to have both  You just spend a lot of time trimming and shaving particular areas of the body, unless you don't mind looking like chewbacca.

Oily skin (therefore proneness to acné). Rougher skin, specially the facial hair area, but you can take care of this using skin-friendly products.

Most transmen have such positive effects on testosterone they are willing to face these negatives. It all depends on what you want. I recommend checking out some of the positive effects too.

[SeptagonScars]

Some, yes. But for me the benefits have always outweighed the negative effects. Some of those I learned to like later on, so they're not negative for me anymore, but once I saw them as such.

- Acne. That's always gonna be a negative thing for me (who likes getting acne though?), but it has gone down a lot as of later years for me, and I accept that I get spots sometimes. It's not a big deal anymore.

- Increased anger. I've always had anger issues, and testosteone merely amplified them. But I also can't just blame T for that increase, cause I easily bottle my feelings and that itself made my anger worse over time as well. There's more than one factor to it.

- Increased sex drive. This is what I no longer consider to be negative. I enjoy it now. I used to have very low sex drive and a lot of issues navigating any kind of sex life due to trauma. Now I handle it better, and learned to appreciate having a very high sex drive. But it took some getting used to going from zero to one hundred.

- Vaginal atrophy. TW but I used to really like that kind of sex before starting T but then it got uncomfortable/painful + worse lower dysphoria. Now I'm at a point of not knowing what to even do about my vag, keep or not keep, and the atrophy certainly isn't helping. It's a Hassle with a capital H.

I'd never stop taking T for any of those reasons though. I wouldn't be myself without it. At this point, over 5 years on T, I'm not likely to get much of any more additional changes from T (except from more hair here and there), and keep taking it is merely maintenance. The biggest reason I keep taking it and want to at this point is for the psychological changes/differences compared to not being on T, and hopefully being able to build some muscle later on.