Hello everyone!
So I have been on hormones coming up on 4 months now, and am very happy so far. My dysphoria has reduced, I am starting to see some physical signs that I like, and my emotions are awesome!
There are a couple of things I wonder about though. My body hair growth has slowed down lots. And my head hair is going gangbusters. But I feel cold. Let me explain.
I used to be a hot blooded person. I would wear shorts in the dead of winter, and only wore Ickes when I was forced. Now I am cold a lot. Since winter has hit here, I am always either wearing a sweater or fleece, have taken to wearing socks and slippers, have started wearing a night shirt to bed, and have a nice collection of arm warmers.
Has anyone else experienced this? Is it something I should bring up with my doc?
Also, my fingernails are brittle as all get out. I have been trying to grow them out but they seem to break at a whip stitch. Very annoying.
Thanks all! Hope you are having a good day, week, month, and year so far!
Jessie
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I have more difficulty regulating temperatures hot or cold. Now that it is winter, I have become a layering expert :)
I don't have problems with brittle nails, but there are nail moisturizes if your nails are dry and brittle. My skin is definitely drier.
I definitely feel temperature a lot more than I used to especially the cold. The changes in hair growth are normal too. I have noticed the same. Hugs
Mariah
My nails are brittle since I started HRT and I am cold more frequently too.
One word and it will resolve both the brittle nails and being cold: PROGESTERONE. Bio-identical progesterone increases body core temperature and helps tolerate cold. The reason you have brittle nails is due to lack of sebum (skin oil) as a result of less testosterone and increased estradiol. Progesterone increases sebum production and will make nails stronger. I have personally experienced this and read this happen dozens of times in transgirls. Progesterone is the best moisturizer ever and beats all creams/lotions hands down. Your hair and skin might get softer as well. Breasts may get fuller. :)
I total agree with KayXo reference Progesterone. Mind you I feel cold right now. Yesterday the Temperature on the coast in Victoria reached 41C - 105.8F. Today the temperature has dropped to 17C - 68F - Brrrr!!
I know the cold thing all too well. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and I was fine with the cold weather all the time. I've moved to New Mexico since I started transitioning, and now I'm always freezing. It's definitely not colder here. I just feel it so much more than I used to.
I was always cold either way... Pretty much any temperature under 80 degrees F isn't warm to me!
Along with everything else suggested, you might try biotin for your nails. Also keeping a coat of clear polish on them might help protect them from breaking.
When I started HRT my doc and endo didn't put me on Progesterone. Just Spiro and Estrodial. I have an appointment coming up here in just a couple of weeks. I will bring it up with her then. Thanks for the advice KayXo and Judith!
Jessica I hear you about layering. It is the only way I am coming even close to being either warm enough or cool enough. I am worried what this summer will bring. :)
Eevee you are south of me. I am in Wyoming and it has been super cold the last few mornings when I have gone into work. Brrrr!!
Emjay I am taking biotin right now. It has helped a bit, but not a lot. :(
I take prometrium every night. I may ask my doctor to double my dose when I see him in March.
My body temperature regulation has not changed so much as my heat producing muscle mass has and my skin is finer with less hair for insulation too. No complaints really. I did worry i froze my little witches tits as they were white as ash and hurt like hell one day when i was ill advised to take a hike and be braless. Damn it's cold at 45 F!!! ;D
I too have been cold more often, post HRT.
I actually haven't noticed the cold much more than usual. I often get baffled responses from people about my habit of wearing sleeveless dresses during the winter time here in Colorado. I've found some great thermal tights, and they seem to allow me to continue to wear dresses all winter. I certainly am cold a lot, but that was true before I started transitioning. As far as I can tell, I still tend to run a lot warmer than the cisgender women I work with. When they're all cold, I'm feeling fine, even when I'm wearing less.
I'm glad it's not just me, because I've certainly felt the cold more since I started on HRT.
It's the same for CIS women. There was an article in the news about it a few months ago. Unfortunately, I can't remember the reasons why this happens. But it's normal.
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That is true. I used to think my wife was just exagerating, but nope. :)
She is getting a good giggle at me over this and a few other things now that I am feeling some of the same sensations that she has.
Since being on progesterone, I rarely get cold. It truly warms the body and is great for that. :)
you may also want to try adding a Biotin supplement to your pills, they are good for stronger and healthier hair and nails. I noticed how brittle my nails got and a few months on this has fixed it back to 90%.
I read somewhere so long ago that I cant be sure of my memory that due to higher testosterone levels mens internal body temperature is like 0.25 to 0.75 degrees higher than people with lower T levels. this dose not seem like much but you can really end up feeling it when it comes to the cold.
Serena
Rising estradiol levels increase thyroid binding globulin, temporarily reducing free thyroid hormone levels. Lower free thyroid hormone means less endogenous heat production, leading to a sensation of coldness. I often feel cold after a dose. Temperature comfort can be improved by timing doses to precede being in a warm place rather than out in the cold, although honestly, a few shivers seems like a small price to pay for feminization.
Progesterone can cause extreme coldness and shiver attacks, at least for me. Unlike estrogen, this effect is associated with the presence rather than just the rise. When I take progesterone, which is rarely, it makes me feel very cold. That is not surprising, since it suppresses metabolic heat production and causes weight gain.
I always ran warm and still do. Anything over 65 degrees is unbearable to me. However, I used to need 3 cold showers per day to control overheating; otherwise I would feel like the upper half of my body was on fire. Now, I no longer need cold showers and I actually hate the cold as much as the heat. The hormonal changes have made me more sensitive to the cold. I no longer go outside in temperatures under freezing because I can't tolerate it.
I have taken biotin for 18 months and my nails are still brittle and won't grow. My hands are such an embarrassment that I try to ignore them anyway. Nails contain calcium, so a calcium supplement might help if you are trying to grow nails.
Estradiol makes the skin thinner relative to when T is high and E is low. Thinner skin = decreased tolerance to cold
But...
There is a study that confirms that progesterone treatment increased significantly FreeT4.
And...
* Volume 64, Number 1
OBSTETRICAL AND GYNECOLOGICAL SURVEY
"One well-validated finding in women is that core temperature is increased by 0.3° to 0.5° in the luteal phase compared to the follicular phase (49)."
"Core temperature, in other words, is consistently increased when both progesterone and estrogen levels are elevated, as in the luteal phase; elevation of estrogen levels alone is not sufficient."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12141881
"substantial evidence exists to suggest that increased progesterone levels during the luteal phase cause increases in both core and skin temperatures and alter the temperature at which sweating begins during exposure to both ambient and hot environments."
Thanks everyone for the replies! I really appreciate it, and all of the information. It has definitley given me things to think about and talk with my doc about when I see her in a few weeks. :)
You all are awesome!
Quote from: KayXo on January 17, 2016, 02:38:12 PM
Estradiol makes the skin thinner relative to when T is high and E is low. Thinner skin = decreased tolerance to cold
True, but female hormones also increase subcutaneous fat, which is a better insulator than skin. I would therefore question whether thinning skin could be a primary explanation.
Another factor is muscle wasting. Suppressing T and taking E will typically increase the ratio of fat to muscle, and muscle tissue is usually more thermogenic than fat.
Still, I suspect the thyroid involvement. Just as menopausal cis women experience "hot flashes" due to a suddenly crashing estradiol level, I can experience "shiver attacks" due to a sudden spike in estradiol level. Both phenomena seem to be related to levels changing too quickly for the thyroid to compensate. Being cold was much more of an issue for me with injections than it is now with patches, which makes sense since the latter provide a steadier level and a slower rise.
I have the same problem, cold intolerance. So I moved to Florida. This is just fine most of the year, but not this week! :D
Chiming in to say I noticed this too. Hands and feet are colder probably because of lower blood pressure. I find myself wrapping up more than normal. (Not that I mind!)
I used to feel cold on E pills. Since switching to injections and with progesterone, I no longer have this problem. :)
I'm also cold now! like all the time!
I read somewhere that it could also be due to low pressure which can be caused by diuretics (such as spiro) so is there a correlation? I was freaking out for a minute thinking my dose might be too high and was dropping my pressure too much but now I see being sensitive to cold is common??
Skin gets thinner when running on E and less T. I find taking progesterone warms me up and makes me more tolerant. It is known for slightly increasing body temperature.
Quote from: KayXo on July 14, 2017, 12:27:09 PM
Skin gets thinner when running on E and less T. I find taking progesterone warms me up and makes me more tolerant. It is known for slightly increasing body temperature.
Thanks Kay. I have a friend who takes progesterone injections, besides E and T blockers, and told me the injections help her boob size as well, is this true? Another friend told me it doesn't work.
She probably doesn't take progesterone but Depo-Provera (or perhaps 17-alpha hydroxyprogesterone caproate) which is not the same as progesterone and likely doesn't increase body temperature. Progesterone is in a class of its own, is what our bodies naturally produce but there are progestins, analogues to progesterone which have similar but also quite different effects. Progesterone, if injected, is very quickly metabolized and within 24 hours, levels are almost back to baseline. You'd have to inject daily. On the other hand, Depo-Provera lasts 3 months, I think and the other one, has a half-life of about 7-8 days so can be injected weekly.
Progestogens, in general, may increase the size of breasts through various mechanisms, yes but can also work against estrogen's proliferative effects in the breast tissue. It will depend on the hormonal balance in the tissue. Together, they tend to have a synergistic effect, making the breasts look fuller due to ductal and lobuloalveolar formation.
Soo, you have progesterone, what our bodies have secreted for millions of years.
Then you have progestins, analogues to progesterone, not found in the human body but that have progestogenic effects in common but exert also very different effects (i.e. may be androgenic, estrogenic, glucocorticoid, etc.).
And finally, we group progesterone and progestins together and call them progestogens. :)
Quote from: KayXo on July 14, 2017, 02:58:11 PM
She probably doesn't take progesterone but Depo-Provera (or perhaps 17-alpha hydroxyprogesterone caproate) which is not the same as progesterone and likely doesn't increase body temperature. Progesterone is in a class of its own, is what our bodies naturally produce but there are progestins, analogues to progesterone which have similar but also quite different effects. Progesterone, if injected, is very quickly metabolized and within 24 hours, levels are almost back to baseline. You'd have to inject daily. On the other hand, Depo-Provera lasts 3 months, I think and the other one, has a half-life of about 7-8 days so can be injected weekly.
Progestogens, in general, may increase the size of breasts through various mechanisms, yes but can also work against estrogen's proliferative effects in the breast tissue. It will depend on the hormonal balance in the tissue. Together, they tend to have a synergistic effect, making the breasts look fuller due to ductal and lobuloalveolar formation.
Soo, you have progesterone, what our bodies have secreted for millions of years.
Then you have progestins, analogues to progesterone, not found in the human body but that have progestogenic effects in common but exert also very different effects (i.e. may be androgenic, estrogenic, glucocorticoid, etc.).
And finally, we group progesterone and progestins together and call them progestogens. :)
Sounds like those injections are not needed then. I googled the name of the medicine and it's composed of (names in Spanish, sorry): algestona acetofénido 90mg, enantato de estradiol 6mg. It's actually a contraceptive.
Right, it's popular in the Latin countries. Estradiol Enathate and Algestone (or dihydroxyprogesterone) Acetophenide. The latter is the progestogen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algestone_acetophenide
It appears to be a long lasting progestogen. But has been associated with prolactinomas in two transsexual women in Brazil and has been shown to induce pituitary hyperplasia in rats.
Sometiimes, with these combinations, the potency of the progestogen may be too high relative to that of estrogen so that you may not get the estrogenic effects you are aiming for.
That's all I know about it. :)
Thanks!
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Just came across this really old study and here's what they say:
Fertility and Sterility
Volume 8, Issue 2, March–April 1957, Pages 131-148
"Of utmost importance is the ability of progesterone to produce a hyperthermic effect in the organism as a whole, regardless of the phase or cycle in which the animal or human may be.1 , 6, 7.12,13,14 Estrogen, on the other hand, will actually induce a hypothermic response."
"The temperature rise noted after progesterone therapy is attributed in part to the hypothalamic response induced by this steroid."
"the hyperthermic reaction to progesterone does not require preliminary estrogen administration."
Interestingly, they add:
"On the other hand, before progesterone can achieve a notable effect upon any of the sex organs in the female, it is necessary that a prior or concomitant estrogenic activity be present in order that progesterone may induce the desired physiologic changes and therapeutic results."