Quote from: Kvall on August 28, 2010, 04:04:07 PM
Every supplement is chemical, insideontheoutside.
I don't mean to be criticizing your choice to not take HRT. That's fully your choice to make. But your statements about why seem very unscientific and misleading to those who are also concerned about their health. You're painting a picture of HRT as dangerous and unhealthy and it's simply not true.
Ok well, since I'm being "called out" on the truth factor I'll do this, but just know it wasn't ever my intention to tell other people what they should do with their own bodies. I've done my own research, I've had T injections, and I've made up my own mind.
First there's a difference between the "chemicals" our bodies make on their own and those synthesized in a lab. There's also a difference between "chemicals" that come from plants and natural substances and those synthesized in a lab. Pharmaceutical companies synthesize chemicals so they can patent them. But that's a whole other discussion. The other point is that not everything that says it's "natural" really is or really is good for you. Check FDA warnings on some of the T-enhancing supplements targeted to body builders (ex:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/health/nutrition/29drug.html)
If you'd like some more scientific information, I'll leave you with these links and my comments ...
http://www.drugs.com/pro/testosterone.html http://www.drugs.com/pro/testosterone-enanthate.html (these are just two forms, you can look up the others on that same site) - Note: Clinical studies of T in HRT therapy have been conducted on men (or lab rats!). Obviously, female-bodied people have different body chemistry and different reproductive systems so all the effects can not possibly be known until a scientific study is actually done on FTM bodies. Transmen, are not biomales. I hate to go there because believe me, I wish I could have had the "correct" body from the get-go but even hormones are not going to change that for me. What hormones will do on the outside is make you appear more male to the world, and if that's important to you, if it will increase your confidence, help to combat your dysphoria and help you live more of the life you want to live, then there's few things that will stop you from wanting that. Granted, those are great benefits and I thought at one time, what could possibly not be good about that?
The fact is that T injections are the highest dose of T you can get (higher than the gel, higher than the tablets, higher than the transdermal patch and higher than any of the more natural supplements) - and to maintain male attributes such as body hair and deeper voice, you have to continue those high doses for the rest of your life.
While injections may bring your hormones to a normal level of a bio male (which is roughly about 3-10x that of a female), you don't have the bio male body chemistry naturally. All these studies have been done on bio men and high doses in them can lead to the side effects like in the links above. So with a female-bodied human being taking it, they can relate some of the side effects but there are unknown factors because the studies just have not been done.
"Prolonged use of high doses of orally active 17-alpha-alkyl androgens (e.g., methyltestosterone) has been associated with serious hepatic adverse effects (peliosis hepatis, hepatic neoplasms, cholestatic hepatitis, and jaundice). Peliosis hepatis can be a life-threatening or fatal complication. Long- term therapy with intramuscular testosterone enanthate has produced multiple hepatic adenomas. AndroGel is not known to produce these adverse effects." -
http://www.rxlist.com/androgel-drug.htm Probably safer alternative is the gel. But the most concerning statement there should be "long term" - remember, to keep the effects of T, you will need to take it for the rest of your life.
Testosterone enanthate, testosterone cypionate, testosterone propionate, aqueous testosterone, testosterone phenylpropionate, and Omnadren (which is a combo drug), are all given by injection and are classed as anabolic steroids. If you don't believe in the safety of increased testosterone, at least look into the side effects of each of these separately and anabolic steroids as a whole
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabolic_steroid#Adverse_effectsAlso if you get on T, look into having a hysto at some point because of the effects of testosterone on the female reproductive system. In female bodies, the ovaries and adrenal glands are responsible for producing the natural level of testosterone in the body. When the ovaries produce more androgen (which is converted to T) than necessary on their own, a condition called PCOS can occur. Women with PCOS have higher than normal levels of T, can have masculine attributes (more body hair, etc.) but they are also at increased risk for the following: diabetes, heart attack, high blood pressure, higher levels of LDL cholesterol, and sleep apnea. They also have an increase for endometrial and ovarian cancers. And that's just when a disorder happens to cause an influx of T in a female body. On the flip side, too much estrogen in a body can also lead to problems (
http://www.drhoffman.com/page.cfm/183). The point of it all? Hormone imbalance in a body and what it can do has much documented, scientific information. I'll leave it up to you to relate that information to anabolic steroid injections of T in your own body.
I feel it's also important to have an overall understanding of what hormones actually do in the body. They don't just cause secondary sex characteristics ... read on ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormone_imbalance http://www.hormone.org/public/conditions.cfm Thousands of people out there (non-trans people) have hormone imbalances that cause many things to go wrong in their bodies internally. This is the type of information that changed my viewpoint on things ... by fully understanding what exactly hormones do and what happens when there is a hormone imbalance.
So I don't need to paint the picture, "HRT as dangerous and unhealthy", the information is already out there that hormone imbalance causes many issues and the use of synthetic hormones can be questionable with known side effects. HRT was originally prescribed to correct hormone imbalances in menopausal women or those with specific diseases or genetic conditions where their bodies are not producing the hormones they need to actually be healthy (added: it wasn't until the 1970's that HRT was prescribed on trans individuals - and no long term studies were conducted then either).
Yeah I don't like to label myself but I am transsexual - just like almost everyone else here. I struggle against a great many things but my physical body (even though it doesn't always match my mind) is for the most part, healthy. When I was exposed to hormones (I've had estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone) I experienced side effects every time. I'm not saying that would be the same for everyone but there is the evidence out there of what increased hormones can do, what synthetic hormones can do, what long term hormone use can do and what general hormonal imbalances can do. When I started to experience side effects, that led me to question what I was doing and why. That also led me to seek out more information on effects of the drugs themselves. For the short time I was on T I did not feel like myself. I have an elevated level of T naturally (naturally, in that I don't have any disease and no medical doctor has been able to explain to me why it is the way it is ... about 120-165ng over the course of about 5 years of testing - the highest normal range for females is 85ng, the lowest for males is 300ng). I consider myself very lucky and just from my own experience I do not want to upset whatever balance is going in in my body.
and @Arch thanks for the encouragement for me to do my own thing. I advocate everyone else do their own thing too and I hate to post some long winded "speech" like this in here and my intention is not to scare or sway minds but to simply inform and relay my own experiences. I try to be mindful of what I say because I don't want to step on anyone's toes or have some extreme viewpoint that rubs everyone the wrong way. I don't want to dissuade anyone from perusing their path. I'm just putting the info out there and people can take it or leave it.
