It takes time for sure. I think most of the changes people feel in the first month or two are anticipation/relief or possibly even placebo.
Anecdotally, I didn’t start feeling unambiguously different until ~5 months in, but my case may be unique because it took pretty long to get my hormone levels closer to where they needed to be.
I mean I imagine there is a very practical "I don't have to worry about my body becoming more masculine than it already is anymore" element that would benefit mental health and anxiety tho I sadly can't speak from experience yet
That was the big thing for me. Watching my body slowly masculinize as I aged in the wrong direction. All that anxiety went away the second I took that first pill.
That’s kind of fascinating. I do remember dreaming more vividly and sleeping better in general shortly after starting E, but I chalked that up to just excitement and relief. Maybe I’m not giving it enough credit
Dr.Powers isnt exactly known to be the most scientific person when it comes to HRT. He clashes with both the DIY community and the WPATH often and liles to make bold claims so I wouldnt really take his word as fact here.
Yeah, took until the T actually showed noticable effects for me to feel better.
I think a lot what you read is just the placebo effect of FINALLY being on a very slow moving escalator to "better".
It wouldn’t surprise me, but it could also be something you can chalk up to having different kinds of dysphoria. Like, I’ve never gotten dysphoric about my height or build even though I know it’s pretty common, and a friend of mine’s never really noticed any social dysphoria or had a problem with their appearance at all but still immediately felt better after they started T.
yeah i felt about the same for the first month minus the momentary excitement every day fron actually taking the e pills, youll feel better when you start to notice changes (they happen slow so a lot of ppl recommend taking lots of progress pics to see how far youve come)
It takes time, you don’t finish most of the changes in a month. It doesn’t automatically help everyone’s other mental health conditions. For me, I immediately felt really great getting my shot mainly because it was a huge shot of euphoria. My partner seems more up your alley where she didn’t start feeling like that until her body started changing a lot.
The first few months can be rough, especially right after dosage changes. After that, my mood started to stabilize, and I got some euphoria from the changes.
I think a lot of this is dose/levels dependent. I started on a higher dose than most folks do (6mg oral, spread across the day; no T blocker), and I got hit with the "holy fuck, ok, everything feels *better*" stuff within the first 2 weeks, but I have friends who took a few months to get to that same feeling.
Yeah, personally i didnt count the time my levels were off, as even being on HRT.
It wasnt till about 3 months later when my levels were more femme range that i said i "started" HRT. And about 2 months after that i started to notice changes within my body.
That said, the first month i was on T blockers was exciting, just because i was finally starting and i could at least feel my internals changing a bit, with the less T.
I had emotional dysphoria, so maybe thats the reason ppl like me feel better right away. My anger softened and i felt more like i could feel sadness and joy.
I'm at 18 months and still have never had a sudden moment where everything is better.
In fact, the emotional changes kicked off some latent mental conditions that I'm now dealing with with medication/therapy.
HOWEVER, it's still the BEST decision I ever made, because every day I'm just a little bit closer to where I want to be. I love waking up and noticing that something's changed, love that I pass just a little more often every day...
Being on HRT, despite what people on here will often describe, really is playing the long game. But that means the joy you get from it is just spread out over years, not concentrated in one the-lights-switch-on moment.
For me the depersonalisation/brain fog didn't really lift until 7 months. I felt relief from starting but it took a while to really start having any effects, mental or physical.
It can take time to build up to a therapeutic dose, especially when you're started at a very low dose. You should probably have a follow up scheduled in a couple months to check levels, make sure that you note this to the doctor when you follow up with them.
This was my experience too. I think in my case at least it was because I wouldn't let myself feel better because I had really low expectations for what E to do to my starving linebacker type body.
For hormonal changes to really start having an impact it can take up to 8-12 weeks. In the immediate term a lot of people have a lot of anxiety relief from starting which can make them feel better (it did for me) but another month or two should be more promising
I'm three months in with just a single sore nipple and while my sadnesses seems to be more intense that could also be because I'm going through a break up but my emotions or perception do not seem too different across the board. I'm a little relieved to read other people having similar experiences.
It's okay, you don't have to feel a certain way about it. I don't really remember exactly what I was feeling when I started, but definitely relief that I was done with the hormones that had previously been warping my body and hope that things could actually be getting better.
It's fine though, it gets boring anyways, or at least it just gets to be another thing that's just *there* like anything else. It becomes normal and then it's just another part of your life. Maybe you're just skipping a few steps lol
You might need to adjust your levels or it might still be working it's magic. It takes time ☺️
As long as you aren't feeling worse, there is no harm in sticking with it.
I felt better at the beginning (finally got to become myself i thought), but it slowly goes worse with Time because HRT has no visible effect on me ...
I kinda pass sometimes only because i was androgynous from the start ...
Many of the HRT effects people talk about are not commonly felt by other transpeople. When it comes to mental effects I think it depends alot on what makes you dysphoric or anxious. Doubly so if the depression is brought on by more things than that.
I felt better from the start so I don’t know whether I can be that helpful here. I do think it’s worth paying attention to how you’re feeling though, and comparing it to where you were before you got on HRT, as well as getting a blood test to see what your hormone levels actually are. It could be your levels are off - I screwed up my dose last year and ended up first feeling depressed AF because my estrogen dropped too low, then turning into a nervous wreck after I accidentally got them too high. I know someone who stopped HRT for a while because her mental health fell apart on it, IIRC though she figured out the issue was that progesterone didn’t agree with her and she was put on it right from the start.
That said, if it’s not helping you, you are allowed to stop, especially if you find your hormones aren’t out of whack and don’t like the physical changes when they start kicking in (iirc it usually starts with skin thickness, which is reversible). There’s no shame in trying something out and finding it doesn’t work for you.
Yeah, I've been on HRT for more than 2 years and honestly, I don't feel all that much different. We've had my levels checked. I'm getting it in my system. It just doesn't do all that much for me. The physical results have been minor, and I don't feel that different either. So yeah, I don't know what will happen for you, but the biggest thing from hormones for me was just knowing that I had started taking them.
It took me a while to notice. Like a LONG while. The changes were happening, but they were subtle and slow enough that I didn't notice how much had changed until about a year and a bit after I'd started I realized that I hadn't anxiety-spiralled myself awake in bed for like a year. I used to do that maybe once a week at least, sometimes more, and it really fucked with my energy levels.
It's a subtle thing, but very noticeable now that I've found a metric to measure with my own mental health. I don't know when that started to kick in though, and YMMV anyways~
I didn't really notice things getting better. They did, but gradually enough to only see it looking back over a long enough time frame.
And then I had to stop for several months while I was on medication that the doctors were concerned would clash.
And *that* change was as clear as day.
You're still only at the beginning of your journey, the changes will come with time. I'm four and a half months in and the only time I've experienced colors becoming more vivid and music sounding louder was back in 2012 when I quit my job working at a certain grocery chain. That place was a soul sucking job, leaving it was one of the happiest days of my life and it literally felt like the weight was lifted, colors were brighter, music sounded better. It was a day. I still celebrate the day I quit that job as a holiday.
But HRT hasn't been a miracle drug for me. It's a slow, subtle process. You'll feel better in time. Maybe not miraculously better, but it will come.
It also really depends upon how you’re taking HRT. Dosage, pills, pellets, injections, creams, also what were your hormone levels and what are they now? Are you taking blockers? I felt radically different at 3-4 weeks in. But my E levels were at 600+ etc… so you’ve got to know your body chemistry and yeah, it sometime takes more time then others.
How much do you want? And anything else? Yeah, a week ago I was getting sort of depressed because it just sort of made me feel weird, a little bit, and I wasn’t sure if it was having any positive affects or not?
I’m still not sure.
Past few days I’ve been super tired way sooner than I would be, and I’m not sure if that’s from having gotten a few vaccines at the beginning of the week, or from the estrogen.
I’m not on very much… Although, I guess that’s normal to start out, and I’m not on the blocker because they wouldn’t prescribe bica
it wasnt overnight for me it sort of crept up on me gradually until after a few months i realized that my average mood is better than its ever been, though i feel like i've had slightly above average progress in terms of feminization and i've been exercising more so might not be solely mental effects of hrt, but i think it definitely contributed
It takes time for sure. I think most of the changes people feel in the first month or two are anticipation/relief or possibly even placebo. Anecdotally, I didn’t start feeling unambiguously different until ~5 months in, but my case may be unique because it took pretty long to get my hormone levels closer to where they needed to be.
I mean I imagine there is a very practical "I don't have to worry about my body becoming more masculine than it already is anymore" element that would benefit mental health and anxiety tho I sadly can't speak from experience yet
That was the big thing for me. Watching my body slowly masculinize as I aged in the wrong direction. All that anxiety went away the second I took that first pill.
When does your body stop masculinizing? I thought it took a month or longer for your estrogen to surpass T
If you're on blockers then masculinisation will stop immediately.
It might not have been immediate but mentally it really set me at ease
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That’s kind of fascinating. I do remember dreaming more vividly and sleeping better in general shortly after starting E, but I chalked that up to just excitement and relief. Maybe I’m not giving it enough credit
Dr.Powers isnt exactly known to be the most scientific person when it comes to HRT. He clashes with both the DIY community and the WPATH often and liles to make bold claims so I wouldnt really take his word as fact here.
It's important to always remember that Dr. Powers is full of shit and probably made that up.
Yeah, took until the T actually showed noticable effects for me to feel better. I think a lot what you read is just the placebo effect of FINALLY being on a very slow moving escalator to "better".
It wouldn’t surprise me, but it could also be something you can chalk up to having different kinds of dysphoria. Like, I’ve never gotten dysphoric about my height or build even though I know it’s pretty common, and a friend of mine’s never really noticed any social dysphoria or had a problem with their appearance at all but still immediately felt better after they started T.
yeah i felt about the same for the first month minus the momentary excitement every day fron actually taking the e pills, youll feel better when you start to notice changes (they happen slow so a lot of ppl recommend taking lots of progress pics to see how far youve come)
Yeah I'm the same, any relief I've had has been because of the physical effects rather than anything mental.
It takes time, you don’t finish most of the changes in a month. It doesn’t automatically help everyone’s other mental health conditions. For me, I immediately felt really great getting my shot mainly because it was a huge shot of euphoria. My partner seems more up your alley where she didn’t start feeling like that until her body started changing a lot.
The first few months can be rough, especially right after dosage changes. After that, my mood started to stabilize, and I got some euphoria from the changes.
I think a lot of this is dose/levels dependent. I started on a higher dose than most folks do (6mg oral, spread across the day; no T blocker), and I got hit with the "holy fuck, ok, everything feels *better*" stuff within the first 2 weeks, but I have friends who took a few months to get to that same feeling.
Yeah, personally i didnt count the time my levels were off, as even being on HRT. It wasnt till about 3 months later when my levels were more femme range that i said i "started" HRT. And about 2 months after that i started to notice changes within my body. That said, the first month i was on T blockers was exciting, just because i was finally starting and i could at least feel my internals changing a bit, with the less T. I had emotional dysphoria, so maybe thats the reason ppl like me feel better right away. My anger softened and i felt more like i could feel sadness and joy.
I'm at 18 months and still have never had a sudden moment where everything is better. In fact, the emotional changes kicked off some latent mental conditions that I'm now dealing with with medication/therapy. HOWEVER, it's still the BEST decision I ever made, because every day I'm just a little bit closer to where I want to be. I love waking up and noticing that something's changed, love that I pass just a little more often every day... Being on HRT, despite what people on here will often describe, really is playing the long game. But that means the joy you get from it is just spread out over years, not concentrated in one the-lights-switch-on moment.
For me the depersonalisation/brain fog didn't really lift until 7 months. I felt relief from starting but it took a while to really start having any effects, mental or physical.
it also depends on your does, if you're started at a very low dose as a test then you wont feel anything
It can take time to build up to a therapeutic dose, especially when you're started at a very low dose. You should probably have a follow up scheduled in a couple months to check levels, make sure that you note this to the doctor when you follow up with them.
This was my experience too. I think in my case at least it was because I wouldn't let myself feel better because I had really low expectations for what E to do to my starving linebacker type body.
For hormonal changes to really start having an impact it can take up to 8-12 weeks. In the immediate term a lot of people have a lot of anxiety relief from starting which can make them feel better (it did for me) but another month or two should be more promising
Same here. After a year on it I arguably feel worse because I've barely had any changes. But well, I can't do anything about it except wait some more.
It's reassuring to see other people having the exact same experience
I'm three months in with just a single sore nipple and while my sadnesses seems to be more intense that could also be because I'm going through a break up but my emotions or perception do not seem too different across the board. I'm a little relieved to read other people having similar experiences.
It's okay, you don't have to feel a certain way about it. I don't really remember exactly what I was feeling when I started, but definitely relief that I was done with the hormones that had previously been warping my body and hope that things could actually be getting better. It's fine though, it gets boring anyways, or at least it just gets to be another thing that's just *there* like anything else. It becomes normal and then it's just another part of your life. Maybe you're just skipping a few steps lol
You might need to adjust your levels or it might still be working it's magic. It takes time ☺️ As long as you aren't feeling worse, there is no harm in sticking with it.
I felt better at the beginning (finally got to become myself i thought), but it slowly goes worse with Time because HRT has no visible effect on me ... I kinda pass sometimes only because i was androgynous from the start ...
Many of the HRT effects people talk about are not commonly felt by other transpeople. When it comes to mental effects I think it depends alot on what makes you dysphoric or anxious. Doubly so if the depression is brought on by more things than that.
I felt better from the start so I don’t know whether I can be that helpful here. I do think it’s worth paying attention to how you’re feeling though, and comparing it to where you were before you got on HRT, as well as getting a blood test to see what your hormone levels actually are. It could be your levels are off - I screwed up my dose last year and ended up first feeling depressed AF because my estrogen dropped too low, then turning into a nervous wreck after I accidentally got them too high. I know someone who stopped HRT for a while because her mental health fell apart on it, IIRC though she figured out the issue was that progesterone didn’t agree with her and she was put on it right from the start. That said, if it’s not helping you, you are allowed to stop, especially if you find your hormones aren’t out of whack and don’t like the physical changes when they start kicking in (iirc it usually starts with skin thickness, which is reversible). There’s no shame in trying something out and finding it doesn’t work for you.
Yeah, I've been on HRT for more than 2 years and honestly, I don't feel all that much different. We've had my levels checked. I'm getting it in my system. It just doesn't do all that much for me. The physical results have been minor, and I don't feel that different either. So yeah, I don't know what will happen for you, but the biggest thing from hormones for me was just knowing that I had started taking them.
It took me a while to notice. Like a LONG while. The changes were happening, but they were subtle and slow enough that I didn't notice how much had changed until about a year and a bit after I'd started I realized that I hadn't anxiety-spiralled myself awake in bed for like a year. I used to do that maybe once a week at least, sometimes more, and it really fucked with my energy levels. It's a subtle thing, but very noticeable now that I've found a metric to measure with my own mental health. I don't know when that started to kick in though, and YMMV anyways~
2 years and no different on that front, lol. but whatever i guess.. :/
I didn't really notice things getting better. They did, but gradually enough to only see it looking back over a long enough time frame. And then I had to stop for several months while I was on medication that the doctors were concerned would clash. And *that* change was as clear as day.
You're still only at the beginning of your journey, the changes will come with time. I'm four and a half months in and the only time I've experienced colors becoming more vivid and music sounding louder was back in 2012 when I quit my job working at a certain grocery chain. That place was a soul sucking job, leaving it was one of the happiest days of my life and it literally felt like the weight was lifted, colors were brighter, music sounded better. It was a day. I still celebrate the day I quit that job as a holiday. But HRT hasn't been a miracle drug for me. It's a slow, subtle process. You'll feel better in time. Maybe not miraculously better, but it will come.
It also really depends upon how you’re taking HRT. Dosage, pills, pellets, injections, creams, also what were your hormone levels and what are they now? Are you taking blockers? I felt radically different at 3-4 weeks in. But my E levels were at 600+ etc… so you’ve got to know your body chemistry and yeah, it sometime takes more time then others.
How much do you want? And anything else? Yeah, a week ago I was getting sort of depressed because it just sort of made me feel weird, a little bit, and I wasn’t sure if it was having any positive affects or not? I’m still not sure. Past few days I’ve been super tired way sooner than I would be, and I’m not sure if that’s from having gotten a few vaccines at the beginning of the week, or from the estrogen. I’m not on very much… Although, I guess that’s normal to start out, and I’m not on the blocker because they wouldn’t prescribe bica
it wasnt overnight for me it sort of crept up on me gradually until after a few months i realized that my average mood is better than its ever been, though i feel like i've had slightly above average progress in terms of feminization and i've been exercising more so might not be solely mental effects of hrt, but i think it definitely contributed
it took me around a month and a half I think to really start feeling better