Been kind of worried as of late... I've been on HRT for 7.5 months (since December 22) and I had one period of breast tenderness and growth from the beginning of March to the middle of May that resulted in me getting about 3/4 of the way to an A cup.  Though seriously, if I went outside without a shirt on, nobody would think twice.

But since the middle of May, I seem to have had no growth, or next to no growth, and no more tenderness.  Literally, nothing.  That means five of my seven months on HRT have been without any development whatsoever and I'm incredibly frustrated.  The first three months I thought might have been a warm-up period, but why did development stop after such a short period of time and without any hint of return?

How many of you went through growth dormancy periods and how long did they last?  Was it anything like this?  I'm desperate to get B cups because I'm a 38 band and 38A is a near-impossibility to find at reasonable prices (and certainly not in cute styles).  But I can't help panicking when I think I'm done at less than A.   Some people say that you'll get the majority of your growth in the first year, some say two years, some say it takes 5+ years of steady development... I don't know what to believe!  But I'm seriously getting worried now.  Is it too early to be getting worried after 7.5 months?

When I was on hrt I got a growth spurt almost overnight.  I gained so much weight on oestrogen that any further breast growth was swallowed up with blubber.   Zoe I envy how you can be on hrt for nearly 8 months and be worried about being underweight.  Had I continued on hrt I would have been about 200+lbs by now.   I am sure that the next few months will show an improvement in your bust size.   

I am sorry to be negative but there is a night and day difference between naturally produced oestrogen and synthetic oestrogen.   My personal view is that hrt affects people on a very individual basis.

YMMV.

In my experience people with a higher percentage of body fat develop more breast tissue.  Skinny people don't. 

Hi Zoe,

I was diy (as you probably already know) for about a year and a half and had the growth spurt as you described then nothing for a while. Then they started itching and hurting alot around a year in and got to a good A cup on one side and the other a bit smaller. I am a 38A too but couldn't find a bra in that size so I got 36B's and they fit me well-or at least they did for a while.

I have gotten off my meds for I guess around 3 months so I can get close to baseline blood test results (I hate losing the time too but I want to do this right). My boobs still itch and are filling out but no longer hurt when I hit them on something. I can only hope they start to hurt again when I resume taking my meds.

I will need a larger cup size soon as my bras do not fit as well as they used to, they seem to move around and I am adjusting them now whereas before they would stay where I put them and my breast tissue would not drop out of the bra cup-but it does now.

I can't say with certainty that you will see more growth-only time will tell if you will-but if you are like me you will see them growing again soon-7 months is not a really long time in the grand scheme of breast growth and hormone use. I am assuming my 1 1/2 years is not a long time and sincerely hope that I will see my status return to the way it was when I was taking Estrogen and Spiro together [places hands together and says quick prayer].

I have my checkup and bloodwork done next week and hope things go well but am prepared for a test of wills if it comes to that. Keep us posted with your progress.

Randi

Quote from: Zoë Natasha on July 25, 2011, 05:18:14 PM
Is it too early to be getting worried after 7.5 months?

Yes. everyone is different and breast growth occurs over a period of years in natural female puberty. Some people get a lot of growth early on and then stop, other grow steadily over 5+ years. Anyway I'm sure your boobs are just fine hun and will continue to grow just fine...I very rarely if ever experience breast tenderness...sometimes they itch, mostly they don't, but my boobs have carried on growing just fine and so will yours.

I've been on HRT a few months longer than you and have the same problem.  I had the initial growth the first few months and then went dormant.  They continue to be very sensitve though.   But nothing else noticable.  That includes no weight change.  No hip change.  No softening of skin.  No change in the hair on my body.   Makes me wonder why I should continue with HRT.

Zoë,
your entire post could have been written by me, word for word, even your 3/4 A38 fits.
And it's not easy to find "normal" off the shelf bras that can work. No-bra I hardly have man-boobs. I can feel your plight...

Since you are a lot younger I wish for you it be just a dormant spell, to be over quite soon.
You may wish same for me to, hon.

Axelle

Yes, it's way too early to panic..  From my research, it seems that breast growth can be ongoing for up to 4 - 6 years.

Well, let's consider our bodies in a general sense for a moment... We start out as babies and grow a bit every year until we reach whatever height we are going to grow to... We may be tall, we may be short, some are thin, others are heavyset... We grow at different intervals at different times

Every time my breast growth slows down, I think "Well, I guess that it... That's all the boobies I'm gonna get"... Right about that time they perk up again

I'm sure they will stop growing at some point, but I'm not worried about it anymore

Writing this response on my phone so apologies if it's kind of disjointed.   For some reason, this phone and these forums don't get along.

Thank you all so much for your responses so far in this thread.  I feel like I'm being silly and acting like my usual neurotic, strung-out self, but I'm literally worried about this to the point of not sleeping at night.  I fall asleep fine, but wake up with racing thoughts that keep me up for hours when I so acutely feel the lack of any sensation in my chest. It no longer hurts like the growth did a few months ago, but they also don't feel sensuous like they did.

I'm back to wondering if my body is up to its old tricks and overcoming what I'm putting into it.  Not only has the breast sensation gone, but uncontrollable erections (like constant) have returned after being gone for six months.  Spiro didn't work on me and so my doc put me on depo provera, and I'm wondering if that's also stopped working.  She also has me on generic estradiol that I take under my tongue, and she's said that if my current treatment plan doesn't work, there aren't any other options open to me.  No progesterone, no injectables, nothing.  I'm super frustrated with that assessment.

And then there's the fact that I started taking prozac a month ago to treat the depression that the depo provera caused.  Now I wonder if that's disrupting my HRT because the erections and loss of breast sensation started with the prozac.  Anyone else have this experience? I see my doctor in three weeks and I'm going to be quite vocal about this concern.

And as if this whole thing can't get any more convoluted, I have genetics both on my side and totally against me breast-wise.  Every woman on both sides of my family is quite well-endowed, all a D cup or higher.  My sister is a C she's tall and skinny like I am).  But then there's my mom, who's the runt of the family with her A cups.  So I have no clue in the world how I'm going to turn out.

This is so aggravating!   I want so much to stop panicking already.

Zoë,
*... I started taking Prozac a month ago to treat the depression that the depo provera caused.  Now I wonder if that's disrupting my HRT ... *

YES! It will.
It is a known fact that anti-depressants will happen to reduce E efficacy.
I recall that anti-depressants interfere with estrogen receptors.

Funny thing is that lots of doctors don't know, or don't want to know.

So you'll have less E is my best guess, AND progesterone up, which also happens to be a precursor to T.

It explains to me every thing you are relating, boobs, morning-glory, the works.

Progesterone in any case is "optional" and mostly used so as not to go Estrogen dominant.
It's also well known that it can cause depression.
Add Prozac and reduce E that way... hello!

I'd stop the progesterone and the Prozac and watch what happens.

Axelle

The fact that you are on progesterone only 7.5 months into HRT is a big red flag for me. In classical medical terminology, I think it's time you got a second opinion.

@Zoë 101 HRT, never go for ANY depo if you have not established that it work in terms of dosage!

Yeah, now you got to wear off the depo shot.

@Sarah7 Progesterone suppressing T, that is an entirely new one to me! Say no more.

@Lisbeth I really agree with you. You start thinking P after MAYBE one year HRT, some would say even later.

Do not just stop the Prozac. Wait until the Depo has had time to clear from your system, on the order of 4 months after your last shot, and then gradually taper the Prozac. Depression caused by Depo is serious business (almost killed me). And antidepressant withdrawal is also serious. And you don't want to be dealing with both at the same time.

Do not take Depo again if you've had a bad reaction to it. It's evil stuff. There may be a form of progesterone that won't cause problems for you, but this isn't the one. And if part of your HRT is causing rather than relieving depression...that's a serious problem, and should have been a red flag for your doctor.

As for your breasts, for a standard of comparison, I had less-than-A-cups at 11, Bs at 15, Cs at 18, and Ds at 20. So that's 9 years. Even if yours develop twice as fast as a cis girl's because you're already an adult on adult dosages, 5 months is nothing. I'd be much more concerned about your mental health, involuntary arousal, and loss of sensation than about any physical development.

(By the way, I'm not aware of progesterone suppressing T levels. Estrogen alone can have that effect, but progesterone? Not aware of any mechanism.)

Red flag, eh?  Whatever for?  I'm curious about that comment since I don't know what difference it would make if I was on progesterone now or later.   My doc put me on it because the max dose of spiro didn't put a dent in my T levels.  She even tells me not to count my months on spiro as months that I was on HRT because my T levels were so high, at 650.

I'm not surprised about the link between estrogen and antidepressants... Just looked it up briefly and there appears to be a lot of info about that out there.  Could be why my doc was very hesitant to put me on the prozac?  She didn't say anything, but she wanted me to try everything but.  Only problem is that nothing I tried worked because I couldn't stop crying four to eight hours a day, despite my best efforts.

As for finding a new doctor?  I'm thinking about it if my current doc won't try anything outside of two HRT regimens, one of which doesn't work on me, the other leaving me completely non-functional without antidepressants.  There has to be more...

I hope for all of our sakes, Axelle and Sarah, that we can find something to put us at some more common sizes!

Wow... Three responses while I wrote that?  Writing on a phone is so slow. lol  Can't wait to get back home to a real internet connection!

Kyril, I sincerely appreciate your thoughtful and hope-invoking response to this.  I really hoped at least one FTM would come here and chime in!   What you said mirrored my thoughts completely, why my doctor would have me continue on the depo when my last shot put me in a paralytic depression.  She wasn't completely convinced it was the depo because I didn't react that way to my first shot and didn't start until three weeks after my second, but that it ramped up again three weeks after my third shot is pretty conclusive proof that the depo is killing my emotional life.   This time I don't think she'll have any problem coming to the same conclusion and take me off the depo.

What disturbs me though is that she flat out said that if not depo, my only other option is spiro, which simply didn't work.  My T levels were 650 on spiro, 9 on depo, but I can't continue with depo if I can't handle the emotional side effects.  It left me sitting in a dry bathtub next to a knife, not because I was going to end my life, but because the thought of being so close to doing it helped put me into such a crying fit that I couldn't do anything but sleep due to the exhaustion.  I know just how bad this stuff is.

So if my doc refuses to do anything else, I might be in the market for a new one...


EDIT: I should probably qualify my earlier statement about the erections... they're not exactly full, it's just marginally solid all the time.  As in, the solidity hadn't abated one iota in six days.  Six complete days, every second of the day.  Something is not right here, and I really think the prozac is causing it.  This has never happened in my entire life.

There you go honey, straight fro the horses mouth, um. :-)

* (By the way, I'm not aware of progesterone suppressing T levels. Estrogen alone can have that effect, but progesterone? Not aware of any mechanism.) *

Seem your doc is doing some Guinea-pigging. In fairness HRT is not so much a science as more of an art form. But excuse me, some basics also apply to art.

BTW, I'm longer the 1 year on HRT and I use progesterone cream and there is all oral Prometrium (ABBOT), and generic Endogest (Cipla) and Utrogestan (Benson Int).

Why depo only, beats me... and why P in the first place...
Is your doc an Endo or normal medical practitioner? Just wondering.

'nough said,
Axelle
PS: * Cyproterone acetate (Androcur) is another option *
Not so! It's not FDA approved i.e. a banned substance in the US.
Only used on sex-offenders for all I know. It is approved in Europe, also SA.
It is ~4 times stronger then Spiro. I used it for some time.

Well I have tried twice to post back in without success so here goes again.

I am sorry that you continue to struggle like this. Your condition is more complex that I was aware of and my heart goes out to you. The spiro knocked my T out very quickly and I am looking forward to using it again-very soon. The testosterone dominance is something I truly hate. It makes me have difficulty concentrating and at times it makes me extrememly irritable. The erections are an indicator of the rising T dominance over E. Just try to bear in mind that hormone use is a long-term thing and there is time to counteract problems in the long run so don't loose hope [hugs].

My sisters are large breasted but our Mom is the opposite-I am as large as she is and still filling out. 

I'm looking (though not very aggressively) for a new doctor. I wanted to wait until I talk to my nurse pract (who I really like) and get my checkup and bloodwork behind me (her boss is a real jerk and I refuse to let him touch me again). Hang in there sis, we'll make it thru this somehow.

Randi

Fancy some more info

Quote from: Hayley Rivka on July 20, 2011, 03:51:12 pm
For those that asked about progesterone boosting libido. I was taking Depo-Provera injections prescribed by my doctor and my libido shot through the roof!!!!! I didn't like it all! I was always switched on. I also started getting body hair coming back and so after about two months or so, I stopped it.

I'm now on Finasteride as well so I started taking the Depo-Provera injections again on my own, in hopes that the Finasteride will counter the Depo's hair production.
+++++++++++
So much for suppressing T... hello!
+++++++++++

Next, quote ?

I had excellent hearing before Provera.  After Provera I experienced trouble hearing one person in a crowd.  My brain could no longer distinguish one voice among many.   I stopped taking Provera and told my endo.  She said I was just old and my hearing was deteriorating.   I tested my hearing and it was O.K. for a single soft sound.  I lost hearing at picking one voice among many!  I noted that problem among other TG's taking Provera....

++++++++++

What we have here is failure to communicate...? :-)

Well honey, now you go and take you pick, eh

Axelle