How estrogen affects feelings, moods, thoughts, relations?

[Physics Buff]

For the first time ever, I had the thought of going on estrogen (I am AMAB), not in order to develop a female body but rather with the idea it might help my thoughts, feelings and moods. I tried reading about on the Internet and on this forum, but didn't find any answers. The neurobiology is complex and not well understood, for example. Also, some sources say male brains are fundamentally different from female brains while others say there is no such thing as a "male brain" or a 'female brain."

How does estrogen HRT affect one's feelings, thoughts, moods and relationships?

[Trinity]

Dec 11, 2018 21:03:00 GMT 8 Physics Buff said:

For the first time ever, I had the thought of going on estrogen (I am AMAB), not in order to develop a female body but rather with the idea it might help my thoughts, feelings and moods. I tried reading about on the Internet and on this forum, but didn't find any answers. The neurobiology is complex and not well understood, for example. Also, some sources say male brains are fundamentally different from female brains while others say there is no such thing as a "male brain" or a 'female brain."

How does estrogen HRT affect one's feelings, thoughts, moods and relationships?

Its amazing how much spin there is on this subject.

There is most certainly a difference between the way male and female brains process hormones.

There is most certainly different ways the male and female and trans brains fire in the region associated with gender.

There are slants that are based on old information, and there are slants based on predudice and narrow minded interpretation of facts.

It can be quite irritiating.

The truth is that nobody can predict how it will affect you.    It affected me greatly and it still does.  I love estrogen.  Probably at an addictive level... and thats another issue.  At high doses, a patch achieves good levels.  At very high doses, it goes to injections, and self administering injections is not for everyone and can be protentially triggering for us 60's children


For nonbinary, low dose is usually the way to go, Ativan can fill you in on that.   For a full transition (my body is full mtf transition with no operations, as opposed to nonbinary low dose transition) the doses can be quite high and your body will change dramatically.

That's what I have on it.

High dose completely altered my body, and my mental state is probably also affected, specifically emotionally.  My oldest friends here might know how much, I am not objective about it and don't really know.

I would prefer dying to not taking hormones.

Also, while most folk say hey you can try it three months and there are no affects so you can drop them, I would challenge that a bit.  I am not so sure.

Avoid Spiro and finesteride at all costs. They break chains in the brain connected to seratonin uptake, and put a layer of fat on your intestines that its nearly impossible to rid yourself of, and also can limit breast growth.   Its old school to use it and its totally the wrong thing to do, but medical folk have not understood that yet.  Some have, but its the ones that are trans themselves that figured this stuff out.

It figures, right?

Best.....

[Trinity]

Before starting hormones it is recommended that you see a gender therapist. That is a whole different thread and an important consideration.

[Leena]

Dec 12, 2018 2:40:41 GMT 8 Trinity said:

Avoid Spiro and finesteride at all costs. They break chains in the brain connected to seratonin uptake, and put a layer of fat on your intestines that its nearly impossible to rid yourself of, and also can limit breast growth.   Its old school to use it and its totally the wrong thing to do, but medical folk have not understood that yet.  Some have, but its the ones that are trans themselves that figured this stuff out.

It figures, right?

Best.....

Depends a lot on what you want and need physically. There's little evidence that E alone significantly stops hair loss, that is one of my primary concerns. OTOH some cis men just use finesteride and keep their hair...I already have plenty of fat in that area I can't get rid of, the seratonin thing is a concern, but might be a risk I'm willing to take.

I'm not sure everything that is attributed to estrogen affecting feelings, moods, thoughts, relations is that. Simply fully admitting I was trans changed those things for me quite a lot, I see the world a lot differently than I did before. Quite a lot of people start HRT soon after so how do they tell what to attribute these changes to? Certainly coming out as trans affects relationships more than taking HRT. It would be interesting to see if I feel differently on this if and when I start...

[Trinity]

Dec 12, 2018 9:36:53 GMT 8 Leena said:

Dec 12, 2018 2:40:41 GMT 8 Trinity said:

Avoid Spiro and finesteride at all costs. They break chains in the brain connected to seratonin uptake, and put a layer of fat on your intestines that its nearly impossible to rid yourself of, and also can limit breast growth.   Its old school to use it and its totally the wrong thing to do, but medical folk have not understood that yet.  Some have, but its the ones that are trans themselves that figured this stuff out.

It figures, right?

Best.....

Depends a lot on what you want and need physically. There's little evidence that E alone significantly stops hair loss, that is one of my primary concerns. OTOH some cis men just use finesteride and keep their hair...I already have plenty of fat in that area I can't get rid of, the seratonin thing is a concern, but might be a risk I'm willing to take.

I'm not sure everything that is attributed to estrogen affecting feelings, moods, thoughts, relations is that. Simply fully admitting I was trans changed those things for me quite a lot, I see the world a lot differently than I did before. Quite a lot of people start HRT soon after so how do they tell what to attribute these changes to? Certainly coming out as trans affects relationships more than taking HRT. It would be interesting to see if I feel differently on this if and when I start...

It has a fairly profound effect on me, including changing my color perception.  I see colors better on E.  Psyche placebo effect on colors?  I don't know, I don't think so.  And it shifts to the red part of the spectrum.  I'm pretty sure something in my eyes fires up better.   Its less noticeable now that I smoothed the dose pattern up to minimize peaks and troughs.

An alternative, once on hrt long enough, is adding progesterone.  That has a direct impact on male baldness.  And rogaine, or its equivalent, works well.  I am on that regimen.  It could be better, but its gone from hopeless to ... be really good with hairspray and you can pull it off.... 

[Trinity]

By the way it is said that progesterone repairs finesteride related brain issues...

I don't feel the effects of it much, its supposed to make you a little sleepy when you take it, it does nothing to me except it has helped breast development, no doubt on that one, introduced in late mtf HRT development at 4 years.

[Physics Buff]

Yes how do you differentiate the effects of estrogen on thoughts, feelings, moods and relationships from the effects of coming out on these things? Very difficult I guess. I read that the way a person responds to stress may be changed; the studies of stress response show that it is pretty dimorphic. That is, it is different for persons assigned male at birth from persons assigned female at birth. I have not seen any information on the response of trans persons to stress.

Many of the documented effects of estrogen on the brain I have read about in the neuroscience review article have to do with developmental effects. That is during the time in the womb and during adolescence, estrogen causes certain cells and circuits in the brain to develop differently. Since I am well past adolescence (68 years old!), perhaps I cannot expect HRT to rewire my brain.

I am traveling to the home of a dear friend (who is accepting of the changes I am going through) over the Christmas week, where I expect to meditate on it and perhaps pray on it.

Thanks for all your thoughts and information. Keep posting!

[Trinity]

Dec 12, 2018 18:09:24 GMT 8 Physics Buff said:

Yes how do you differentiate the effects of estrogen on thoughts, feelings, moods and relationships from the effects of coming out on these things? Very difficult I guess. I read that the way a person responds to stress may be changed; the studies of stress response show that it is pretty dimorphic. That is, it is different for persons assigned male at birth from persons assigned female at birth. I have not seen any information on the response of trans persons to stress.

Many of the documented effects of estrogen on the brain I have read about in the neuroscience review article have to do with developmental effects. That is during the time in the womb and during adolescence, estrogen causes certain cells and circuits in the brain to develop differently. Since I am well past adolescence (68 years old!), perhaps I cannot expect HRT to rewire my brain.

I am traveling to the home of a dear friend (who is accepting of the changes I am going through) over the Christmas week, where I expect to meditate on it and perhaps pray on it.

Thanks for all your thoughts and information. Keep posting!

I would be VERY interested in what you found out about the time in the womb since I was DES (synthetic estrogen) transitioned before birth.  That information is extremely important to me.

Honestly, other than emotionally being much more sensitive and open, and the physical differences on Estrogen involving my body and how it responds to touch and nerve endings (which is female on E, and was before but now more so), I can't tell you about additional changes.

[Leena]

Dec 12, 2018 9:45:52 GMT 8 Trinity said:

Dec 12, 2018 9:36:53 GMT 8 Leena said:

Depends a lot on what you want and need physically. There's little evidence that E alone significantly stops hair loss, that is one of my primary concerns. OTOH some cis men just use finesteride and keep their hair...I already have plenty of fat in that area I can't get rid of, the seratonin thing is a concern, but might be a risk I'm willing to take.

I'm not sure everything that is attributed to estrogen affecting feelings, moods, thoughts, relations is that. Simply fully admitting I was trans changed those things for me quite a lot, I see the world a lot differently than I did before. Quite a lot of people start HRT soon after so how do they tell what to attribute these changes to? Certainly coming out as trans affects relationships more than taking HRT. It would be interesting to see if I feel differently on this if and when I start...

It has a fairly profound effect on me, including changing my color perception.  I see colors better on E.  Psyche placebo effect on colors?  I don't know, I don't think so.  And it shifts to the red part of the spectrum.  I'm pretty sure something in my eyes fires up better.   Its less noticeable now that I smoothed the dose pattern up to minimize peaks and troughs.

An alternative, once on hrt long enough, is adding progesterone.  That has a direct impact on male baldness.  And rogaine, or its equivalent, works well.  I am on that regimen.  It could be better, but its gone from hopeless to ... be really good with hairspray and you can pull it off.... 

I have pretty good color perception to begin with. The idea of E changing my color perception kind of scares me, as well as any other mental things. This could be a bit of internalized misogyny.

The physical stuff is much more quantifiable. I want most of these things, I'm not sure my reluctance to lose muscle mass isn't also some sort of misogyny. It was the one thing I actually liked about being DMAB when I was younger, but it's not like I'm going to become a star athlete at my age.

I'm already using minoxidil and it slowed the loss quite a bit, though I have not got as much regrowth as I would like. I may have waited too long on both minoxidil and HRT for that to happen, though I can probably live with what I have now, though I don't think just minoxidil (and the other things in my regimen that may or may not work)is going keep it for the decades I would like to keep it for.

[Trinity]

Dec 13, 2018 4:37:33 GMT 8 Leena said:

Dec 12, 2018 9:45:52 GMT 8 Trinity said:

It has a fairly profound effect on me, including changing my color perception.  I see colors better on E.  Psyche placebo effect on colors?  I don't know, I don't think so.  And it shifts to the red part of the spectrum.  I'm pretty sure something in my eyes fires up better.   Its less noticeable now that I smoothed the dose pattern up to minimize peaks and troughs.

An alternative, once on hrt long enough, is adding progesterone.  That has a direct impact on male baldness.  And rogaine, or its equivalent, works well.  I am on that regimen.  It could be better, but its gone from hopeless to ... be really good with hairspray and you can pull it off.... 

I have pretty good color perception to begin with. The idea of E changing my color perception kind of scares me, as well as any other mental things. This could be a bit of internalized misogyny.

The physical stuff is much more quantifiable. I want most of these things, I'm not sure my reluctance to lose muscle mass isn't also some sort of misogyny. It was the one thing I actually liked about being DMAB when I was younger, but it's not like I'm going to become a star athlete at my age.

I'm already using minoxidil and it slowed the loss quite a bit, though I have not got as much regrowth as I would like. I may have waited too long on both minoxidil and HRT for that to happen, though I can probably live with what I have now, though I don't think just minoxidil (and the other things in my regimen that may or may not work)is going keep it for the decades I would like to keep it for.

HRT wont replace the minoxadil.  The hair folicles are dependent on that. I wish I had gotten more too, but at least I got something.  Its like the boobs, thank God I got what I did.

I actually don't know anyone else that experienced the color shift.

[Physics Buff]

Trinity, I was mistaken about the prenatal effects of estrogen. It is thought, but perhaps not certain, that estrogen is prevented from entering the womb. However, if you were affected in the womb by hormones then perhaps they did cross the placenta and get to the fetus.

When I said that estrogen influences the development of the brain in the womb, I was mistaken. According to the article, it is the lack of testosterone that causes the brains of newborn girls to be different from newborn boys. In males, there is intrauterine testosterone and testosterone in the period shortly after birth. This is what is thought to produce the sex differences.

I would be interested in hearing more about your DES exposure and its effects. Perhaps you could message me or answer here.

[Trinity]

Dec 13, 2018 13:51:45 GMT 8 Physics Buff said:

Trinity , I was mistaken about the prenatal effects of estrogen. It is thought, but perhaps not certain, that estrogen is prevented from entering the womb. However, if you were affected in the womb by hormones then perhaps they did cross the placenta and get to the fetus.

When I said that estrogen influences the development of the brain in the womb, I was mistaken. According to the article, it is the lack of testosterone that causes the brains of newborn girls to be different from newborn boys. In males, there is intrauterine testosterone and testosterone in the period shortly after birth. This is what is thought to produce the sex differences.

I would be interested in hearing more about your DES exposure and its effects. Perhaps you could message me or answer here.

Start with Wikipedia and work through the resources there.  Di Ethyl Stylbesterol.

That is a synthetic estrogen, a chemical.  Supposedly 1000x more potent than bioidentical estrogen.  It is illegal to use on humans now.

There is a lot of controversy over it.   Nothing concrete has been furnished, most research was done overseas.

I need to let this thought track go right now.  

[Ativan Prescribed]

Spiro is really an off label drug used by the uninformed Drs who think it is a part of a hormone regime, the use of it as a log term drug isn't recommended and it's real purpose is to help shrink a prostate.
And that use is questionable because of all the side effects it has, one os the loss of testosterone, why Doctors think it is a part of how to change the E and T hormone balance.
The truth is that it isn't needed at all, what they wanted was to lower the t, when all they really have to do is use more E instead, it eventually gets there and is a lot less dangerous.
Finasteride works on the chemical by product from T that causes male pattern baldness, and just hair loss isn't always that in males, is a lot of the time, but look at the males in the framily to judge if it is, it's hereditary and it isn't always that even, hair loss can happen from a number of things and it will happen on the hairline and that is where it is noticeable, but if you are losing a lot of hair combing and brushing it, then it isn't all coming from the hairline, look up hair lass and go past the male pattern baldness part we all know about and look at the other reasons, it can easily be environmental, shit in the air, water, the food you eat, it might affect you and not the next person, at least not on that day.
Finasteride is also used to stop hair loss with an off label use of it and it was never meant to be used that way, but that it works for a select few, they will let you try it, but know the side effects before you jump on that wagon.
The use of hormones like T and E is to change the ratio of the two and they both can be in a wildly huge range and you can't tell from looking at a person, being a fem guy has no bearing on that ratio at all, they can have more T than the burly neighbor belching beer on the front porch all the time.
The ratio isn't a set thing, and your ratio is going to be different than the next person, so just taking a sex hormone isn't the final solution, if it was they would market it as that and sell it over the counter as the sex change you always wanted, because in itself, it is relatively harmless to take, it just isn't for everyone, we all don't have the same chemical needs of all the hormones we use in our brains, and the simple view that there are just those two hormones is a huge mistake,
Because it is defined for a lack of a better way as the ratio, you can have low of both and still be on the ratio range, which is about as wild was either of them anyways.
The blood draw ranges that people say you have to get to is pure bs, the ration that works for you at the levels of the hormones is the right number, there is no ideal number, it can kill people trying to get there.
And it is used to often to justify the excessive use of a far to high a dose, hardly ever is it the other way, which right there kinda gives the first clue about the right dose.
When you first take E, it is going to change the ratio a bit and your body is going to fight back by upping the T in your bloodstream, but it is also going to be changing the levels of all of the brain hormones and your body is literally run on hundreds and hundreds of hormones, the usual brain ones like serotonin is just a hormone, and the levels of it and the others will change until your body gets used to the idea that it has more E than it used to and that it isn't going away, so the initial buzz factor is a lot of that to begin with, it takes months to get to the nitty gritty of it all and having it a normal in your body at the levels it deems useful,, not the number you find online or especially from places like fb, that is riddled with false info on most everything trans related, you have to pick through a ton of garbage to find something worth sinking your teeth into (that sounds gross, but that's fb for you), there are a few fb accounts that have better info than others and even then you have to find the stuff that pertains to your ubique chemistry.
So just taking a sex hormone has a lot of different things going for it, but the one thing that seems to stick to the wall everytime is that if it isn't right for you, you will know within a few days and especially by the end of the week, same goes for T, there is a defense mechanism of a sort that when you introduce one or the other it is going to set off those chain reactions (think of breaking the rack of balls on a pool table)in a way you aren't going to like, you can tough it out, but I've never heard of anyone who kept going until they grew boobs, probably just went out and bought a pair and let there hormones do what they are supposed to do, and that brings it to the other side of the entire thing, it is possible that you don't have the right chemistry you need and for shit reasons, you have been under the use of a wrong ratio all this time, and the first dose of either E or T is going to just be a mind blowing experience of knowing this is exactly what you have needed for all these years of psychotherapy and antidepressants and street drugs to scare away the wrong hormone blues.
Most people are going to have a much milder start, and it takes a few days, two or three is common, and you start to get the idea that is is just right, it's a feeling and like most hormones your brain uses to determine things, its the hormones that do it, and if it is just the right feeling, then it is, there is really no other test for it, blood draws or not, this is one of those if it feels right, then do it kind of things.
No matter how you want to go with it, partons or not, just a nudge of it maybe, you are going to start on low dose no matter who you are and it is the right thing to do, you don't want to overdo it and have it turn back on you, a small dose will tell you if it is right, so that is what you get, and that is low dose.
You can stay there or move on to higher dose, but then there is the narcotic effect of it making you feel so good, then twice as much is twice as good, right? Doesn't work that way it isn't some mind warping painkiller heroin ball of crap, it is a dose of hormones in an attempt to get yours adjusted to the right amount, because at anytime, if you nudge it to hard, it feels like the effect of this is not right, so doubling up isn't going to get you anywhere but a longer time trying to get that straightened out.
The ratio is still the best gauge there is for how it is doing, but the ranges of both fall outside the ratio and the ratio can go from one extreme to sorta the other way, the range, or amount in your blood can very a lot, they overlap a lot, more than you would think, so the more reliable is the ratio, but good luck on getting them to take the extra step, they will go with the amount as the gauge and that takes a long time to settle, and even then there is so much difference in the day and stress changes it and watch what you eat, it all matters, so the very best gauge is an honest idea of if it feels right or not,, don't fall into the trap of talking yourself into it being better when it really isn't just to keep the dose up in the hopes of getting the victoria secret job you always wanted.
Look not only into the common sex hormones, there are others , but look into all of them that you can and get the idea of what they do and how they are dependent on other ones, so change one and there can be a cascade of effects that can just screw with you, the same is true of all of them, depression can be a lack of serotonin, or one of the other common ones, it can be from something entirely different, there are as many kinds of depression as there are people diagnosed, so don't expect it to get rid of that, might, might not.
But look way into the info and become your own expert on this stuff before you run off demanding hormones by the bottle from your Dr who might not have a clue, not all of them are even close to being up to speed on this.
This is one of those times that the more you know, the way better you are going to be in getting them, taking them, and having realistic ideas of the limits of them.
Going in blind and dumb is not the way to do it, because most of the Drs who will prescribe, need to get up to speed on the latest, so it is up to you to know, your Dr probably has some rich person wanting more vicodin than the pharmacy has, but money talks in that business just like any other, depend on your own best judgement and the only way to really get that is to look into it as much as you can, and even then it doesn't hurt to check in once in a while, you never know what now and wow kind of thing has come up that you should or shouldn't be doing.

[Ativan Prescribed]

Dec 13, 2018 4:37:33 GMT 8 Leena said:

Dec 12, 2018 9:45:52 GMT 8 Trinity said:

I have pretty good color perception to begin with. The idea of E changing my color perception kind of scares me, as well as any other mental things. This could be a bit of internalized misogyny.

The physical stuff is much more quantifiable. I want most of these things, I'm not sure my reluctance to lose muscle mass isn't also some sort of misogyny. It was the one thing I actually liked about being DMAB when I was younger, but it's not like I'm going to become a star athlete at my age.

I'm already using minoxidil and it slowed the loss quite a bit, though I have not got as much regrowth as I would like. I may have waited too long on both minoxidil and HRT for that to happen, though I can probably live with what I have now, though I don't think just minoxidil (and the other things in my regimen that may or may not work)is going keep it for the decades I would like to keep it for.

The color change is temporary if it happens at all, and you can't really tell that through the day your perception is always changing in the way it seems to work for the people who do see a change.
If it is more red, then it is just firing those receptors a bit more, but like putting sunglasses on, your brain catches up, you see the things that are supposed to be red while wearing shades that can block those and you brain compensates.
I have a better program than what windows uses to turn the blue down in the evening on my monitor screen and I don't notice, it's very gradual, but go into another room for a bit and come back I can see it before I sit down, but then in a few minutes, it all looks ok, until really late and then it is really orange, but I have it set that way, a lot less eye strain for me. I'd hate to lose the color in my eyesight, it means as much as just seeing does.
As for muscle mass, lots of people work out to maintain, and some go even further for that really weight lifting kind of look, and you can easily do exercises that change your look to be more curvy as well.
You can be skinny and still have better tone and can lift more than others, I have lived most of my life that way, I look like I can't, but the I can to the surprise of a few.
Going on HRT if you go with a higher dose especially can help no matter your age I think, there might be a point of no return, but by then you're going to be more worried about what shade of blue to use, lol.
There are other things that can help I seem to have read somewhere about using with HRT that otherwise might not work so people just don't, and there is that always new info thing as well, but I wouldn't stop looking and trying, it runs in my family but it hasn't hit me other than the hairline in front is back a little, but still way less than most my age, I have better hair than than most all the ladies around here and I still want it to grow back in front more.
And by the way, the castor oil on the lashes works really good, I do it a couple three times a week, a line on each lid and then a mascara brush top and bottom and there is more growing where it stopped before and where it was, it's getting thicker and I think with the dry air of winter here that they stay moist enough to not fall out, and I have gotten it in my eyes more than once and it doesn't do a thing, I did read where it could be used for dry eyes by coating them slightly, and I have been using it along the hairline in front and I can't be sure, but it looks like new hairs in there, not much, but I'll take it.
The stuff is good for getting eyebrows to grow thicker, so some might want to try that, some might want to be careful, but for sure my eyelashes are a lot better, it's always been a thing to me, they have always been thick and long, then old age hits and they look like crap to me, but I like them again, I want them to get better though, always always, like getting my hair on my head longer, which a drop, one drop on a hair brush makes it a little to thick, but shiny when brushed through, but washes out in the shower easy enough and seems to just be healthier from that.

[Leena]

I'm not sure I'd like the way I'd look if I was more curvy. The more I think about it, the less I like about how I would look and how things would be for me if I continue more towards a binary transition.

I think I do have a clear image of how I want to look, and it's not that far from where I am now. I just want to do as much as I can for my hair, and continue with my electrolysis. I'd rather have more muscles than less muscles, if anything.

Why do I feel everyone else's way to be non-binary is valid except mine?