Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Hey everyone! I just started my E yesterday afternoon! So a friend I mine says the I should start seeing some changes within a few days. I did notice I was a little bit more mellow at work even though it was very stressful (because apparently everyone and their brother needed some Taco Bell at 1:45am 😡), which would normally give me a mild anxiety attack, coupled with some bad language. I didn't have a single attack or cuss angrily. That can't be the hormones can it? I just find it kinda hard to believe they could kick in that quickly. And if so, what should I expect in the next couple days to a week?

The initial observed effects are all mental. E replaces T and your brain is finally bathed in E. You will probably feel more relaxed, happier and less dysphoric.

Gradual physical changes occur, your skin may feel softer, taste and smell may change, your body odour may change. Then gradually other changes, fat starts to move around and breast buds develop, erections may disappear. Some of these changes take months.

Just enjoy your changes and maybe write a journal that you can keep?

Quote from: Cindy on December 23, 2016, 05:15:59 AM
The initial observed effects are all mental. E replaces T and your brain is finally bathed in E. You will probably feel more relaxed, happier and less dysphoric.

Gradual physical changes occur, your skin may feel softer, taste and smell may change, your body odour may change. Then gradually other changes, fat starts to move around and breast buds develop, erections may disappear. Some of these changes take months.

Just enjoy your changes and maybe write a journal that you can keep?

I've already started my journal :3

Quote from: Blackwaters427 on December 23, 2016, 05:21:53 AM

Quote from: Cindy on December 23, 2016, 05:15:59 AM
The initial observed effects are all mental. E replaces T and your brain is finally bathed in E. You will probably feel more relaxed, happier and less dysphoric.

Gradual physical changes occur, your skin may feel softer, taste and smell may change, your body odour may change. Then gradually other changes, fat starts to move around and breast buds develop, erections may disappear. Some of these changes take months.

Just enjoy your changes and maybe write a journal that you can keep?

I've already started my journal :3

Good girl!

I included pictures, feelings, medical things, dreams and wishes in mine. It is quite amazing to look back. To be honest I have to look back to try and remember who 'he' was!

Enjoy :-*

I agree with Cindy. The effects for me were mental. It made me feel calmer right away. I loved it.

Good luck!


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Quote from: Cindy on December 23, 2016, 05:15:59 AM
erections may disappear.

Archives of Sexual Behavior, VoL 15, No. 2, 1986

"Suppression of spontaneous erections has been reported in many patients, but
not all, and erections usually continue to occur during periods of sexual excitement.
Incomplete suppression of sexually induced erection is not surprising
since erections still occur in men with a concentration of testosterone below
100 ng/dl (Walker et al., 1984)."

Also interesting,

TEXTBOOK OF MEDICAL PHYSIOLOGY ISBN: 978-1-4160-4574-8
International Edition: 978-0-8089-2400-5
Copyright © 2011, 2006, 2000, 1996, 1991, 1986, 1981, 1976, 1966,
1961, 1956 by Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier Inc.

Hall, John E. (John Edward), 1946-
Guyton and Hall textbook of medical physiology / John Hall. – 12th ed.

"Located around the introitus and extending into the clitoris is erectile tissue almost identical to the erectile tissue of the penis. This erectile tissue, like that of the penis, is controlled by the parasympathetic nerves that pass through the nervi erigentes from the sacral plexus to the external genitalia. In the early phases of sexual stimulation, parasympathetic signals dilate the arteries of the erectile tissue, probably resulting from release of acetylcholine, nitric oxide, and vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) at the nerve endings. This allows rapid accumulation of blood in the erectile tissue so that the introitus tightens around the penis; this aids the male greatly in his attainment of sufficient
sexual stimulation for ejaculation to occur."

Earlier, in that chapter, it is also stated,

"Thinking sexual thoughts can lead to female sexual desire, and this aids greatly in the performance of the female sexual act. Such desire is based on psychological and physiological drive, although sexual desire does increase in proportion to the level of sex hormones secreted. Desire also changes during the monthly sexual cycle, reaching a peak near the time of ovulation, probably because of the high levels of estrogen secretion during the preovulatory period."

I am post-op, very low T, plenty of E. Sexual arousal is perhaps less frequent in nature now, but just as strong and certainly not rare. I will experience "erections" when aroused, where all the blood rushes to my genitals and it gets engorged in that one area. This can even be quite painful.

Quote from: Blackwaters427 on December 23, 2016, 05:06:34 AM
Hey everyone! I just started my E yesterday afternoon! So a friend I mine says the I should start seeing some changes within a few days. I did notice I was a little bit more mellow at work even though it was very stressful (because apparently everyone and their brother needed some Taco Bell at 1:45am 😡), which would normally give me a mild anxiety attack, coupled with some bad language. I didn't have a single attack or cuss angrily. That can't be the hormones can it? I just find it kinda hard to believe they could kick in that quickly. And if so, what should I expect in the next couple days to a week?

In my male persona I was angry, opinionated, hard to get along with because I'm always right. Luckily my family forgave me for those outbursts as they suspected something was wrong. In the four months since starting HRT I am beginning to reengage. I had locked myself in my room because I didn't want to expose this nasty side of me. The initial  jolt of female hormones presented as a long lost exposure to what made me, me. Massive doses of female hormones in utero. Within days my anger dissipated. My view of the world brightened and then Trump was elected but that is another story. After the first month my breasts already growing because of taking spiro for heart problems for 25 years, began to get rounder more full. My face started getting smoother, the pores shrinking. I can feel my butt getting more shapely as my old jeans are getting tight. I can see the beginnings of a female waist. My genitals are shrinking which is a real revelation at I didn't think it could get much smaller. :-) I have a renewed sense of well being, I did not have a few months ago. I am excited to learn more about what for me has been a long lifetime of self pity and self doubt. I am not a perv. I am a viable, full featured human being and I am beginning to love myself for the first time in 65 years.  Good luck with your challenges. YMMV.

<3  Dawn

It is a wonderful ride that you are starting. For me it began slowly, probably a placebo effect for the first month (that does not mean it is not to be enjoyed and treasured, just intangible). Then the skin softness changes as well as smells and tastes changing that Cindy mentioned. The emotions rolled in at the two to three month mark along with sensitivity of my breasts. For me the emotions, feelings, ability to cry have been the best parts while the physical changes have been icing on the cake. As always, your mileage may vary. Enjoy the ride! - Anne

I felt 100% better right away.  That was the psychological effect of denying myself needed therapy for so many years.  The "should I or shouldn't I" dilemma was gone. Solved.

After about 10 days I noticed the first physical effects.  Morning wood was completely gone. For good.

Shortly after I started noticing breast changes.  It's very powerful medicine. You'll see.

At first, I felt a placebo effect including a better positive mood. In fact, I'm still more positive, although it's unknown whether seasonal mood cycles are to account for this, especially as someone's being a lot less abusive.

You see, there are "effects". But, every effect can be explained by something else, as I coincidentally started when some people were being really, really, really unpleasant, so any improvement could be blamed on that.

And now, I'm feeling more dysphoria (it's a train which is always getting faster no matter what I do, apparently) and constantly worrying over it having no effect.
No physical effects, etc. so far. When the thing moves like it constantly does like crazy, I feel like pummelling it, yay.

To tell the truth, I'm not sure if my pills *do* have an effect. Or it's all in my head.
Or maybe the oestrogen is being suppressed so badly that you might as-well say it has no effect.

Not sure about E in a T-filled body, but for me T started affecting me almost immediately. Got rid of my anxiety, and even some of my anger problems. Had probably the most restful sleep of my life 2 days on T.

E is a powerful hormone too, and it does get to work fast.

It's been two months and nothing has happened.
No physical changes. Any mental changes are too negligible to discount against other factors.

It's possible the mental changes are partly just from the relief of finally knowing things are going in the right direction, but that's still *real.* I definitely felt much calmer and more content within a few hours of putting the first patch on.

(And I had breast budding, noticeable growth, and soreness within the first week.)

At about a week, my entire attitude seemed to have changed for the better.  Placebo or physiological...enough people have described the same thing that there must be something really happening there.  It took a few months and then customers started noticing that I had really soft skin.  Each of us is different.  Enjoy the rush of being early in to HRT!

I started HRT in two phases, first an antiandrogen, then after a few weeks, estradiol via patches, one biweekly patch per week.  I noticed the effect of spironolactone, the antiandrogen, after about 10 days, with increased calm and an reduction in mental 'noise', a sort of distracting mental flicker of half-formed thoughts of alarm that was present and hard to ignore most of my adult life, and worse in recent years.  I had several spans of many hours where I felt calm and happy.

When estradiol was added, my old diary notes show an improvement in my state of mind, more days where I was happy.  I did have some days were I was pretty irritable and cranky, which looking back were mostly on the 6th and 7th day wearing the biweekly patch, when estradiol delivery would have been almost gone.

The effect from estradiol was relatively subtle compared to the change from the antiandrogen.  Note that the antiandrogen had knocked testosterone serum levels down to the bottom of the male range within a month, and to normal female levels within 3 months.  After 6 months my estradiol serum level was still somewhere below 50 pg/mL, in spite of moving to two biweekly patches per week (one at a time, of course).  We just kicked it up another notch, and I'll see what happens in February.


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