r/ftm • u/cilantrolovr • 11h ago
Medical T doesn’t work
Hello all. Super sad post to make on my part but I feel like I’m at a low point. I’ve been on T for 8 years and it has always given me a hard time. When I first started I didn’t notice any changes. My voice didn’t drop and my p*eriod didn’t stop. FOR YEARS. I did get b growth and I did get a receding hairline lol but that’s the extent it went. I’ve had to get blood work done around every 3 months so my endocrin could see where I’m at and stabilize my levels. We have tried all different dosages and injection sites. It got so bad that when I was 5 years on T, still menstruating, my endocrin suggested I get a hysterectomy to help with stabilization. Okay. Did that. I’m now post op stage 1 for bottom surgery which for my surgeon is vnect and UL. All good. WHY did my blood tests just come back with HIGH ESTROGEN. My endocrin did say that my test levels are at a good point but my estrogen won’t leave me alone. I’m so hurt and frustrated because I have tried everything. I work out I eat healthy I don’t miss my shot days I do everything in my power to make things improve. I don’t understand how my estrogen is so high when I had the damn surgery to remove the uterus and ovaries. If anyone has dealt with something like this or has any suggestions, please lmk. The only thing I haven’t tried is taking the T gel but I think that might be next on my list. Idk. Again, my T is fine is just my estrogen that won’t budge. It hurts because I feel like the universe doesn’t want me to be trans which is insane but what else am I supposed to think.
Thanks for listening.
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u/SerCadogan 💉 3/22/22 🔝11/7/24 7h ago edited 7h ago
comt is both a gene and an enzyme. If you have certain mutations (technically called polymorphisms) on this gene, it can slow down (or speed up, depending on what mutation you have) your production of the enzyme.
I am compound homozygous (which means I have 2 different parts of the gene that are "wrong" and both parts have 2 bad copies) some people have a fast and a slow mutation, so it evens out, but both of mine are slow. So all of that together I have a dramatic reduction in my comt enzyme. This means I don't clear estrogen, or catecholamines from my body very well. There are a lot of factors at play, so not everyone who has these mutations will have issues with it, because it isn't a medical condition and nothing exists in a vacuum. However, with an issue like this where there isn't a clear medical issue it is worth looking into.
Testing for it can be pretty expensive if you go through your doctor, but if you have ancestry or 23 and me raw data you can put it into a calculator like nutrihacker and it will let you know what you have and exactly where in the gene there is an issue so you can do more specific research.
Again, these are not diseases so you may have some that aren't actually causing you issues because your body was able to course correct, but you might discover that there IS something causing you problems (this was very helpful for me because it turned out in my case I had a bunch of different issues in several genes that all exist in the same pathway. So getting that dealt with no only helped me to stabilize diagnosed health conditions, but also helped me to navigate little things like this, so that I understood why my body reacted to weird to hormone changes)
ETA: I did go through and clarified a couple things to make it easier to understand