Hormones

Part of this journey I'm on is in some respects unending.

Pre anything, you get your baseline bloods taken. A starting point so to speak.

Male testosterone is usually around 10 and female oestrogen between 150 and 400.

So once you have your baseline the endocrine system gets adjusted through testosterone suppression and oestrogen patches. The aim being to decrease and increase respectively.

Surgery again changes things as the reconfiguration stops testosterone production in effect (negligible) so the body gets another shock.

I get my bloods done quarterly. The monitoring is to check oestrogen primarily now as I can't produce testosterone anymore.

I'd been feeling very up, down in fact all over the place post surgery this time last year. Expected but bouts of random tears or low resilience to the same plus real highs and lows of emotions.

I'd expected a period of adjustment but I expected it to settle down. Boy is it taking some time.

I checked my data out the other day and the numbers are all over the place... 474 / 178 / 1897 (1st post op) / 129 / 673. 

The base is supposed to be maximum 400!. That explains a lot. 

What can I do about it? Well I've been on the same hormone dose so I'd say it's just a case of adjustment by my body. Just taking a bit longer than I hoped.

When the non educated about my community start questioning our validity I'm pretty sure some have no understanding what we go through. It's been coming up to four years of questions, examinations, injections, surgery, doctor appointments and adjustments.

It's far from a walk in the park but it's certainly worth it. This is what it involves though medically never mind the social adjustments.

Let's hope it starts to settle down or I'll have to invest in a bulk order of tissues.

@AmandaOutThere.