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So at the start of the month my therapist prescribed me a months worth of Cyproterone Acetate. I'm not really at the point where I'm thinking about transitioning, because of life circumstances and also because I'm not sure that it would be right for me, so this was basically just a see how I feel sort of thing. I took it for 6 days and mentally felt pretty great. It surprised me how happy I was just knowing that testosterone was getting blocked. But then on the 6th night of taking it I woke up in the night with some really scary symptoms. It felt like I'd stopped breathing and for the next few hours that someone was squeezing my insides ,including my heart and my lungs. My breathing felt really tight. It was the scariest feeling I've ever had. I went into A+E and they checked my heart and basically said I was fine. The same thing happened nearly every day for about a week. I stopped taking the drug as soon as I had these symptoms. They showed no sign of getting any better for a week but then thankfully the scary feelings became less frequent. It was still sometimes happening at night for an hour or two but generally going away during the day. Its now two and a half weeks since I stopped taking it and it has got a lot better but I still don't feel right. I basically now feel like I have a really bad respiratory virus or something which I can handle but still ocassionally getting weird fluttery feelings in my chest or stomach. I'm sure I'll be fine its not actually why I came on here.

Basically before all this I felt really good that I was actively doing something. I have no idea what direction I was going in but it felt good to be taking any step at all instead of the hopelessness. But now there is no way I'm ever going to take that drug again and I'm back to feeling stuck and depressed. I know that the main testosterone blocker prescribed on HRT is Spironolactone. What is the difference between it and Cyproterone Acetate? Is it safe to take Spironolactone for a while by itself? I'm wondering if I can just go back to my therapist and say I still want to move forward in the same way but try using  it instead?  But I'm also scared that whatever reacted in my body to the Cyproterone will happen again with the Spironolactone if they are both anti-androgens? Is that likely? How do the drugs differ in how they work?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

The absolute best advice is to talk to your endocrinologist. Anti-androgens are complex drugs and both CA and Spiro have some significant side effects. They vary greatly between people and the advice of a non-medic is probably useless to be honest.

Both can kill you.

Both can help you.

It varies.

Talk to your Doctor quickly.

Hi Orange,

I had similar symptoms with CA. I spoke to my endo before and lowered down my prescription. As what Cindy have mentioned, please connect with your MD so you can get a professional opinion about it.

Good luck Orange.

April

First, it is not advisable to take an anti-androgen without also taking E as a lack of sex hormones in the body can bring on many side-effects, among them anxiety which could be what you were experiencing as well. Cyproterone acetate is also known to trigger anxiety or depression in some; not all anti-androgens are the same AND estrogen is also anti-androgenic so an anti-androgen is not absolutely necessary.

These things must be discussed with your doctor and you must follow their guidelines though. Best of luck and no reason to despair. There are other options. :) I hope u feel better soon.