Susan's Place Transgender Resources

If you do and if you don't mind sharing, what kind of (i'll call them symptoms for lack of a better word) do you get?

If you mean can I get ratty regularly, then yes  ;)

Caroline

if it's every 28 days or so then yes...also interested if there are any other associated symptoms.

Not any more but then i am in my 50's. It started late grade school or early high school i would go through brief periods of extreme mood swings. I would go from uncontrollable crying,to severe irrability,flying off the bat handle so to speak and severe depression but it would not last very long. After a few days it would pass but it didn't make any sense as there didn't seem to be any reason i should be having these symptoms.  It wasn't until a coworker of mine noticed that i kept having these bouts and she suggested that we keep track of it as i kept going through them. After about 8 months we noticed a very distinct pattern. The first day i would be starting to feel a bit down,the second day i would be starting to be a bit more sensitive to what people were saying and i was having a bit more of a problem keeping my emotions some what in check,by the third day i was getting depressed,starting the uncontrollable crying,getting a bit edgy. Fourth day was the worst everything was so magnified that all i could do was hang on. On the fifth day i was starting to go back the other way. By late on the seventh day i was getting back to normal for me.
The other thing was it was like clock work,it was always within a day or two time frame every month. Up till this time it had driven me crazy as i could not explain it as it did not make sense but after wards it made it a whole lot easier dealing with it. It did take almost 10 years of going through it before i was able to define it. I finally knew it was something that i was going to go through but it was not going to last for more than a week and i would be back to my more normal self :)

Quote from: Helena on February 02, 2011, 06:16:05 AM
If you do and if you don't mind sharing, what kind of (i'll call them symptoms for lack of a better word) do you get?

Only two so far. 30 days and 31 days apart, 10 months about on HRT, ratty seems seem a good adjective. If I my be gross  :embarrassed: I also have some spotting :embarrassed: nasty cramps, but I can't measure nasty from a base line. There is some suspicion that I may be IS, but I totally detest the examination and can't do it. There are reasons from previous  abuse.

I like the feelings in a strange way..
  Cindy

Well as is already well reported the answer is yes, and yes I do have "physical" symptoms.

Even though I now know I am IS I am still not entirely convinced that the two things are necessarily connected, although ironically the cyclic light "spotting" was one of the things which prompted the investigation.

I think sometimes, even in technically non IS people, human anatomy is not as clear cut black and white as some would like to assume.

Cindy, sounds similar to me, this is the third month I've been getting period pains, as well as really bad water retention, incredibly tender boobs (mine are usually quite pain free unless I bump them into something, but yesterday even wearing a bra was painful) as well as really bad PMS. I've also found one blood spot but I don't feel I can take that as conclusive yet. my cycle seems to be around 28/29 days.

I'm starting to think there's something more going on, but just wanted to see what others experiences were like. I've heard people say they get PMS but I've not really heard anyone discuss physical symptoms.

I kind of know what you mean about liking it though, in a strange way, even if I've done nothing but moan for the past three days

Hi Helena

My sister used to swear by hot water bottles when I was in the UK. It,s 40C, I tried one great. :embarrassed: A nice warm hot water bottle on the tummy, I have it wrapped in a towel so not to be so hot and walking around the house at 2 am in the morning thinking this is is what I wanted. Great. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: I'm using night time pads but there is only a little leakage  :embarrassed:

All this  and no boobs. I thought the deal was we got boobs with periods!!!

Cranky bitchy Cindy

Time for a Mod >:-) Whips and chains >:-)

Time for bed, again.
C

I am sorry i did forget to add one thing which is very important. I have not transitioned yet.

Quote from: SarahM777 on February 02, 2011, 09:57:41 AM
I am sorry i did forget to add one thing which is very important. I have not transitioned yet.

Nothing wrong there sorry. I'm not reading stuff  too well going to bed AGAIN

I think I've been PMSing these past few days but no period pain or anything. Its too soon for me to tell if it's me being moody and dysphoric or PMS. I hope it's the latter

Quote from: CindyJames on February 02, 2011, 09:45:08 AM
All this  and no boobs. I thought the deal was we got boobs with periods!!!

I know, right.  I started my own transition experiment back in December, and I've already started getting lots of PMS symptoms as well.  I get headaches, and sometimes I get cramps too.  I get really cranky around the time this stuff is happening.

The universe must hate me.  I'm getting all the worst parts of being female before I can get the best parts.  Life's not fair!

Still, you have to count your blessings.  Feeling like a cranky female is much better than the dysphoria I felt when I was more masculine.

yes I do.  I have for years.

I set up my progesterone to fall on those days.

Being on regular (daily) HRT from my teens onward I didn't think I had a monthly cycle until, in my 30's, my husband informed me otherwise. They were noticeable enough that HE kept track of them on the kitchen calendar!  :o

Apparently, for 3 or 4 days a month, I was more emotionally volatile and "little things" could either set off tears or an angry outburst (which is why  my husband kept track). I hardly noticed my cycle unless I noticed feeling lethargic or "down".

I am no longer married so I don't keep track of my moods but being on "the patch" (twice a week), I notice the effects if I miss changing the patch by a couple  of days. When the E levels drop, I often start feeling blue and notice a lack of energy. If it gets really bad, I start getting weepy and just can't deal with things.

I definitely get more emotional at very specific times, but I didn't think to try and track them.  Perhaps I should.  I had a breakdown two days ago and got some pretty significant cramps yesterday, so yes?

Short answer ... I think so....

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,92382.0.html (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,92382.0.html)

~Sarah

No... Weekly/Bi-weekly as those are my injection times but I don't have a uterus. I've not noticed any change in my emotive state accociated with my "cycles" in the past 3 months or so I presume you get more or less used to it after awhile :/ if you use the patches you might get fluctuation I'm not sure how often you change them. If you want PMS so bad replace your E pills with laxatives for the effect then take a double dose of E on the day you start them again.

You'll notice. if you replace it with a triple dose for that day you will get false pregnancy symptoms too.

Unless your HRT is rigged in such a way as to cause hormonal fluctuation you won't get them sorry it's psychosomatic only. And you can't get period pains without a uterus I hate to be a party pooper but you CAN'T

Perhaps you might get STOMACH And INTESTINAL pains with progesterone cycling as it can effect the Bacterial flora gut balance but no you can't have uterus pains unless you have some serious intersex jazz going on in there.

A stomach ache every 28 days...like clockwork. Great, my body really hates me  :laugh:

Quote from: Helena on February 03, 2011, 04:23:37 AM
A stomach ache every 28 days...like clockwork. Great, my body really hates me  :laugh:

From a life I don't like to think about. The cramps came 2 days after bad constipation and back pain, then blood, then diarrhea for 4 days, then gut back to normal usually and blood went at about 7 to 10 days.  The gut cramping goes with it.

If you say I told you, I'll deny it.  ::)

Yes, I sure do, and today finds me curled up on the couch with lower tummy contractions sometimes more intense then others , , ,  and ,  , , feeling, well,,, I guess meloncolly would fit.

Almost 3 year on HRT and it happens pretty regularly towards the beginning of every month.  My wife is the alpha in the house so usually when she starts I am right there with her.  Oh well I kind of like having one more thing we share, I just don't like the way it makes me feel but I would rather have it then not...

Kyndra
XXOO

Quote from: Helena on February 03, 2011, 04:23:37 AM
A stomach ache every 28 days...like clockwork. Great, my body really hates me  :laugh:

28-30 days for me. It's a bit of a drag, but at least I know that everything's 'working'.

How can we have spotting and cramps when we don't have a uterine wall?

Quote from: Kyndra R. on February 03, 2011, 06:06:18 AM
Yes, I sure do, and today finds me curled up on the couch with lower tummy contractions sometimes more intense then others , , ,  and ,  , , feeling, well,,, I guess meloncolly would fit.

Interesting.  I wasn't aware that genetic males can get those sorts of symptoms from hormones alone.  There must be a lot more cells sensitive to estrogens than previously thought.

Today I got a bit of the melancholy that you describe.  My cramps got more serious, too.  The cramping didn't really effect me much before now, but I got a worse one while lying down earlier.  It was painful enough that if I had been walking around and doing normal activities, I'm sure I would have wanted to stop for a second or two to let it pass.

I'm glad I read this thread.  I didn't know they could get serious enough to leave you curled up on the couch.  Now I have to make plans for that possibility in case mine keep getting worse.

I can see why LordKAT calls periods a nightmare.  But even with melancholy/tiredness/headache/cramping, I still feel much better than I ever did when I was more masculine.  I don't even really care if I end up curled up on the couch, because I'm certain that I will feel better than what I have felt in the past.  The further I get into transition, the better I feel mentally.

My life is so messed up.  You know my dysphoria must be really bad when I'd rather suffer extreme cramping as a female, than a complete lack of cramping as a male.

Quote from: tori319How can we have spotting and cramps when we don't have a uterine wall?

That's a good question.  Unfortunately, I do not have sophisticated scientific equipment to determine what exactly is cramping.  All I know is that something is cramping down there, somewhere.

Quote from: tori319 on February 03, 2011, 10:43:54 AM
How can we have spotting and cramps when we don't have a uterine wall?

Well cyclic spotting suggest very strongly that there may be some sort of IS condition going on, though it's worth investigating other possibilities first. Cramps with out spotting well it could be some kind of IS condition or it could be something else (possibly psychological in origin), I've had panic attacks where i've been shivering like i'd been stood in a walk in freezer for 2 hours before, so I know the mind is perfectly capable of creating physiological effects...I just really don't understand why in this case. Unless some dark corner of my subconscious brain really hates me.

Anyway I was interested it other peoples experiences, i've heard a number of people talk about cyclic mood swings (PMT) but not really heard anyone talk about physical symptoms. I would hesitate to call this thread anything other than anecdata but there's either a lot more trans girls out there with some sort of latent IS condition or something plain weird is going on. hehe

Quote from: Helena on February 03, 2011, 01:01:34 PM
Anyway I was interested it other peoples experiences, i've heard a number of people talk about cyclic mood swings (PMT) but not really heard anyone talk about physical symptoms. I would hesitate to call this thread anything other than anecdata but there's either a lot more trans girls out there with some sort of latent IS condition or something plain weird is going on. hehe

I agree.  According to current scientific understanding, there shouldn't be any large amount of us experiencing these types of physical symptoms.  That means that there are either a lot more of us who are intersexed than is thought, or hormones affect the body to a much greater degree than is previously thought.  (Or, something else which I can't even think of)

In terms of intersexed, I've never had anything like that tested.  I have no way of knowing whether or not I have partial female organs, or some type of unusual genetics or hormones.  What I do know is that I've never been very masculine except for my voice (which used to be very deep).  I was always small in stature, extremely skinny, somewhat lanky, and I was NEVER able to gain any serious amount of muscle.  When I was in college I tried using dietary techniques and physical training to try to gain muscle.  While I got stronger, I didn't really put on much muscle, and my weight didn't change by very much.

It's a pity I never had my T levels checked.  It wouldn't have surprised me if they were unusually low, even before starting my transition experiment.  But I never had mood swings or PMT until I started my transition experiment.  Actually, as a male I had a consistently bad mood.  I just hid it from everybody.  Mood swings are a godsend.  Before, it was like I was in a "mood bottomless pit" as the dysphoria kept getting worse and worse over time.