Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Before HRT, I only twice in my life had a headache; but now I have slight tension headaches 1-2 times a month; I've often heard GG's talk about those and I think GG's have more migraines. I wondered if it was just because I was more sensible to my body's signals than before I saw this:

-----------------

Cross-sex hormone administration changes pain in transsexual women and men.

Aloisi AM, Bachiocco V, Costantino A, Stefani R, Ceccarelli I, Bertaccini A, Meriggiola MC.

Department of Physiology, Neuroscience and Applied Physiology Section, University of Siena, Via A. Moro, 2, 53100 Siena, Italy.

Chronic pain is gender-related, since there is a clear predominance of one sex with respect to the other in most pain syndromes. Gonadal hormones are known to affect the occurrence and incidence of pain. Transsexuals receive cross-sex hormones to develop and maintain somatic characteristics of the opposite sex: male to female transsexuals (MtF) are administered estrogens and anti-androgens, while female to male transsexuals (FtM) are administered androgens. Hence, these subjects represent a model to study the relationship between sex hormones and pain. Questionnaires dealing with sociodemographic data and pain (occurrence, frequency, duration, intensity, location and associated symptoms) were administered to both MtF and FtM transsexuals under hormone treatment for sex reassignment for at least 1 year. Forty-seven MtF and 26 FtM completed the questionnaires. Fourteen of the 47 MtF (29.8%) reported painful conditions, which in 11 subjects were not present before the beginning of hormone treatment. Pain consisted mainly of headaches and breast and musculoskeletal pain. Five subjects suffered from more than one pain condition. Sixteen of the 26 FtM (61.5%) reported pain. In 11 subjects, the pain was present before the beginning of hormone intake, and in 6 of them it improved after testosterone administration. These data suggest that marked changes in sex hormones affect the occurrence of pain in a high percentage of humans but not in all of them. Whether these effects are due to peripheral or central actions of sex steroids is unknown.

PMID: 17379410 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

--------------------

Has your sensibility to pain changed since HRT?

I grew up with bad migraines and a couple of years ago I was diagnosed with cluster headaches (after they made sure that my brain was tumor free) so I have had to deal with this regardless. Excedrin migraine, a wet cloth, and quiet works well for me. :)

Quote from: Keira on June 21, 2007, 07:13:38 AM
Before HRT, I only twice in my life had a headache; but now I have slight tension headaches 1-2 times a month; I've often heard GG's talk about those and I think GG's have more migraines.

I went the opposite way: I used to get tension headaches like once a week, but since HRT... nada.

I always got ophthalmic migraines though (no/slight pain, just a big blind spot with pretty colours for 30 mins), and they HAVE become much more frequent since HRT, going from once every few months to a couple a month now.

~Kate~

It seems to me that all my senses, the experience of pain included, have become sharper since I started HRT.  I had a pretty good "body awareness" before that too so I don't think it's because I've woken up since I got on the hormones.

No problems with headaches, yet (knock on wood!)

hugs & smiles,
Emelye

I used to occasionally and as far as I know may continue to do so get those blinding eye headaches without pain. As far as my other pain receptors go electro and laser to me hurt, I much prefer the pain of sticking a 90 lbs jackhammer in my foot to those two experiences. Otherwise I still have the same basic pain insensitivity I started out with.
Rashelle

tbh I think I have a higher pain tollerance than I did before.