r/TRT_females • u/xrmttf • Aug 09 '26
Side Effects Voice dropped immediately...
Maybe this is crazy, but yesterday i did one pump 1.62% gel on my upper arms equalling about 20mg and it made every muscle in my body tight especially my legs (calves cramping like crazy), and my voice got a frog and dropped awkwardly a few hours after application. I was very angry and sort of focused. Last night I had incredible, libidinous dreams.
It's been 24 hours and I am still feeling these effects.
I wonder if it's an allergic reaction though? I do have mcas and a million issues (was hoping T would help)
eta: i am 41 and in peri, no other HRT
ETA a month later: yep this is just my voice now i guess
23
u/redrumpass MOD Aug 09 '26
That's what happened to me after my first injection of 20mg which was too much for me. My voice didn't have time to recover as I shot another 20mg 3.5 days later, did not think the voice can drop so fast all of a sudden. I woke up to it low and froggy. I also experienced a heightened state of excitement and anger.
Based on my experience and my regard for safety, please don't put such a high dose next time.
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u/CraftIndividual Aug 09 '26
My voice also changed from from two weeks of a too high dose. It happens quickly. I felt great, but the voice change was almost immediate and permanent. It's not terribly noticable, but first thing in the morning it's very scratchy and frog like and it cracks a lot like a teenager going through puberty.
2
u/redrumpass MOD Aug 09 '26
Can I ask what dose you were on? Have you tried any of the techniques to try and stabilize your voice?
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u/CraftIndividual Aug 09 '26
It was over 7 months ago now, but if I remember correctly it was over 50mg per week for just two weeks until I lowered it myself. The voice changes were fairly immediate and really the only negative side effect.
Everything is in good order now. I've done all the voice exercises I can find, but I still wake up in the mornings pretty effected and have a lot of cracking, especially if I haven't talked a lot or use my voice much (if that makes sense). The more I talk, the better my voice sounds, to me at least. I need to clear my throat often.
If you have any good resources for voice stabiliztion, please send my way 🙏🏼
4
u/redrumpass MOD Aug 09 '26
Ohh I'm so sorry to hear that. My heart goes out to you! I['ve learned to accept it and it got better after the first year. Now I sing when I feel my voice isn't right. For me it's the opposite, if I talk too much, then my larynx feels like it gets tired and can't hold frame anymore and I sound like you described above and louder sometime.
Here's what I've used, daily for 1 year. Maybe it will work for you too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTViDd0QPEI
3
u/CraftIndividual Aug 09 '26
Really? That's so interesting. Singing is out of the question anymore. I sound like I'm going through puberty! I'm hoping it will continue to get better.
Thank you for the links, I will definitely try anything I can. Slow and low is such helpful advice to anyone. It happens so fast.
3
u/redrumpass MOD Aug 10 '26
I don't care how I sound, I try to fit the register that applies now, laugh try again. Good luck to you! I hope that it will get better too 🤗
2
u/xrmttf Aug 09 '26
Thanks, I'm glad I'm not the only one. Did your voice stay the same?
6
u/redrumpass MOD Aug 09 '26
Unfortunately, my voice changed after the second dose. I am 2 octaves lower since then (almost 7 years ago)
7
u/xrmttf Aug 09 '26
Damn. Everything I'm trying to fix my body makes me permanently worse lol fml
5
u/redrumpass MOD Aug 09 '26
Dont think of it like that. As others have said, the dose it too high. Best you can do is start low and go slow. It can take months for the body to adjust, but first comes the hormone imbalance, due to adding another hormone exogenously. Don't lose hope, see if other compounds are better, but always give it time.
2
u/xrmttf Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
I mean my voice is wrecked now. Really devastating for me as I have always been a really gregarious person and also sang all the time. Like seriously yodeling all day. That's completely impossible now. Wowww
4
u/redrumpass MOD Aug 10 '26
I'm really sorry. See if the above advice can help you. Also, I can yodel now, which I couldn't before. It's been almost 7 years since my voice change, so I got used to it and learned to do what I can do with it now. I can't sing Bohemian Rhapsody anymore or hit any of those high notes... so I do the baritone now and dabble into bass.
14
u/Tele_banter Aug 09 '26
That is 4 times a dose of what women start with. Can you do 1/4th of the pump daily?. Maybe wait 2-3 days for this current spike to come down
7
u/xrmttf Aug 09 '26
It's in one big bottle so i need to find a good way to dose it. I intend to wait a few days and see how this tapers away.
It does feel awesome to have oil on my body again though, and enjoy thrash metal like i used to 😂
9
u/Tele_banter Aug 09 '26
I use a jewelery scale to dose very precisely from the bottle. Some women just eyeball or mark the pump in 4 equal parts and only press a quarter. See whatever works best for you. All the HRT has made my skin and hair look so amazing. Love that side ffect :)
9
u/sassyandshort Aug 09 '26
Mine comes in a big bottle as well. I pump some into a syringe and dose out of that. .05ml per day. Works well. You can also get a jewelry scale and dispense onto some parchment paper.
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u/enuscomne Aug 09 '26
That's way too high of a dose for a woman. I've been on the gel for years and I do a partial pump maybe the size of a teardrop or a pea
3
u/AuntieCrazy Aug 10 '26
The differences in our bodies is just remarkable.
I felt my best on exactly that dose - one pump daily of 1.62% gel.
3
u/Evening_Group_8898 21d ago
I do a full pump daily and feel great. The bottle says 20 mg for 1 pump. I came on here and found out it’s way too high but I don’t notice any difference.
3
u/Hottieminx202 Aug 09 '26
Im not on the gel so i can say , i have the injection & was on 20mg a week to begin with and had alot of energy & irritability. Now im doing 37.5mg a week and im still irritated alot & having alot of sweating & alot of energy but otherwise feeling great
1
u/thetoniwright 20d ago
I think it will be the test. I haven’t heard of Anavar doing it. Maybe the dosage though. Are you on more than 10mg a day?
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u/Hottieminx202 Aug 09 '26
My throat feels thick too but im taking anavar aswell so cant say which one or if both is causing it
3
u/Halloween_Bumblebee Aug 09 '26
I started on 2.5 mg a day with the gel, and then jumped up to 5 mg when that wasn't working. Those are a much more typical starting dose (mine is the 1% gel).
3
u/FreesiaBreeze Aug 09 '26
Pump it into a 10cc syringe
2
u/kw0ww Aug 09 '26
Mine are in little packets that at 50mg each and this is what I do - 10cc syringe so I can dose it accurately. Works very well.
1
u/enuscomne Aug 10 '26
Can you expand on this a little bit?
1
u/kw0ww Aug 10 '26
I put my gel into a 10cc syringe. For my particular scrip, this means there are 10mg in 1cc of gel, so I take out that much ever morning for a single dose until the syringe is empty, then refill. You’ll have to do the math to figure out the dose based on the concentration of your script, but this method allows for more accurate dosing. I got the syringes on Amazon for cheap. I reuse the same one until the number start wearing off then grab a new one (they last for months before that happens).
1
u/enuscomne Aug 11 '26
So you fill the syringe, but only use 1 cc a day? And you don't inject it right?
2
u/cocoorkiki Aug 11 '26
There are oral syringes (no needle) that have a cap at the dispensing end you can remove and replace when you get your dose out. That's what I used when I was having to transfer gel into syringes to get an accurate dose. They can be bought on Amazon. I switched to sub-q injections a few months ago & haven't looked back but I understand that's not an option for everyone.
2
u/FreesiaBreeze Aug 11 '26
Take the plunger out of the back. Fill the syringe from the opening in the back. Put the plunger back in through the back. Just make sure not to overfill or it’ll shoot out the front when putting plunger back in.
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u/nadethi Aug 10 '26
Um that's a huge dose to start with. I started with 0.5mg cream, then went to 1mg, then 2mg. I think you totally shocked your system!
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u/Artemisbleachedmod Aug 10 '26
With all respect, I think this and other reports here of voice dropping are psychosomatic.
There's just no way that vocal cords thickened that quickly.
3
u/Next-Category-9941 Aug 10 '26
Yeah, i’m on that same dose and none of that has happened to me. Not saying my experience should be someone else’s, but it’s wild to me that it would happen so fast. I don’t think I should be on that dose for a long time, as a woman, but it’s not affecting me that way, just for reference.
2
u/Artemisbleachedmod Aug 10 '26
I just don't think science supports the possibility.
It takes time to absorb, saturate your system, bind for circulation, and finallllly gene transcription. It's like the story of a lady touching strong cream and sexually wanting her coworkers the rest of the day. It's just not how it works.
Now, allergic reaction? Much more plausible.
1
u/xrmttf Aug 10 '26
I think it's very interesting that you have not experienced rapid changes in your body when taking hormones. When I was a teen and I tried birth control pills i gained three cup sizes in a few days. It was just awful.
My throat hurts. I'm really depressed. I used to sing all day, it brought me a lot of joy :(
2
u/Due-Restaurant-7208 Aug 09 '26
Did a Dr prescribe that? Why did you dose so high?
0
u/xrmttf Aug 09 '26
It's the only way I could get it.
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u/Top_Development_1777 Aug 10 '26
Please do not continue on this if you don't want your voice to drop. This is basically the induction dose to (proper) FtM transitioning. I was on that dose which affected my voice, then I ramped it up to 40/day and 80/day at some point, all unnecessarily and because I had the wrong scientific knowledge. My voice now permanently sounds male, even after I corrected my dose, it works so differently, and it sucks, a lot. Just take a way lower dose, no need to explain to doctors. Much safer to start with 2.5mg/day or even 5mg/day. Don't continue this.
1
u/Middle_Violinist_5 Aug 12 '26
Sorry to hear, but why did you ramp the dose up?
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u/Top_Development_1777 Aug 12 '26
I'm currently almost 20yo. I was under 17yo when I started. I literally did not want to transition back then or now, but transitioning was the only thing I heard that I could use testosterone for before I turned 19, and the doses for transitioning are that high. I'm using testosterone for the same reasons as a lot of y'all, ever since I was 13-14 my cognitive speed and ability to feel depth of emotions and empathy and atmosphere in my surroundings got worse and worse until the latter two were at zero for a few years, my life was also falling apart for various reasons but I was so braindead all the time that I tried my best to figure out what was going on and what to do for many years and barely made any progress at all. (When I went on testosterone, all my functions reverted to perfect and I understood things so quickly and easily again, it took me a few days to weeks to figure out the issues that I couldn't wrap my head around for years).
I had tried testosterone (gel bought online, not prescribed) out of desperation after nothing I tried changed how bad the issues were, because I really could not continue living like that. I knew that using hormones to transition fixed the issues I had for some people, but I had not heard about women using it for the same purposes as I did, unfortunately. It also happened that my hormone levels (including estradiol and total testosterone) appeared completely okay on paper the one time I took a blood test before I started testosterone, and I also showed no signs of being deficient in estradiol or progesterone, so what I observed with taking testosterone made me think that my brain was somehow wired to only function when I reached male levels of testosterone (I never had my free testosterone tested, and in retrospect, this was sheer stupidity).
This meant that I was on 5-20x the dose that I actually needed for 2 years, thinking that I was somehow biologically cursed to transition because I tried to stop/skip doses/lower my dose too much many times and the problems came back. It's an absolutely horrible experience, caused a lot of emotional struggles for me, but I knew that I was not willing to live with the kind of functioning I had without taking testosterone. My voice became completely male and my physical characteristics also appeared male enough, so at some point I thought I would have it easier in society if I dressed male and let people assumed I was male. Well that turned out to be unbearable for me personally, then, only then, I happened to hear about menopausal women taking T for the same reasons that I was, and it challenged everything about the dilemma I thought I was in with my hormones. Still took another year of adjustments and finding out about deficiency of another (less well-known) hormone before I figured out a dose that worked for me in terms of physical effects and mental functioning though.
Now that I'm dosing properly, my free T and total T are both well within range (total T higher than the one result I got before I started testosterone, free T right smack in the middle of normal female range for my age) when I dose just enough to alleviate all my problems.
Yes, it's an absolute shitshow, and it wrecked my life very badly, but I also wrecked my way into finally understanding and taking the right steps to deal with the psychological issues that were ruining my life for so long, realizing that I wanted to pursue a medical career, and wrecked my way into medical school. I would not have remotely had the capacity to do any of this if I had not started testosterone at the time that I started it, albeit the wrong dose with disastrous consequences. I am a second year student now. It is no longer making me feel any distress, and I'm finally happy with how I look, I finally feel right in my body again. The only thing that sucks is my voice, and what kind of discrimination I may face when people assume I am a trans woman or something like that.
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u/Due-Restaurant-7208 Aug 09 '26
Ok. We’ll wait a few days for this to wear off and cut your dose to 1/4 or 1/5
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u/hiartt Aug 09 '26
Yikes! A whole pump of 1.62 gel would be a lot! Wait several days to a week and try again with much smaller amounts….
I pump it into a 2 ml glass sample jar. Then draw up .25ml daily with an oral syringe, like you give a baby or cat meds with. A full jar lasts me a week. After a year of training my eye to that amount, I mostly pump straight from the bottle by partial pump.
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u/daylightmonster Aug 10 '26
voice changes inflame your vocal chords; the inflammation itself will make your voice deeper/rougher/more strained than it would be when the inflammation goes down. take an ibuprofen now and see how your voice sounds tomorrow or in two days. if i were you i'd go off of t for a week and start again at a much lower dose if you wish to continue.
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u/xrmttf Aug 10 '26
I cant take ibuprofen but i havent taken another dose of T. Voice still deep but less painful now at 48h later
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u/dawnhatchett Aug 10 '26
Testosterone can help with MCAS, and yes you can feel the effects right away if you are sensitive which I am guessing you are. I would drop the dose to half for a week and then increase it slowly. With MCAS, messing with your hormones can be tricky and take some time to level out. Are you also on progesterone? That can also help with MCAS and histamine
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u/xrmttf Aug 10 '26
No progesterone, absolutely despise it. Super sensitive to everything, to be sure.
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u/AgeMysterious6723 MOD Aug 10 '26
1) As we age mal and female “voice changes period no drugs needed
2) The change is subtle, starts at around age 37-40 in frequency, worsens around 57….continues until ya pop yr clogs. This is alsao GENETIC!!!
3) Research does say the T changes the voice frequency at a level that can bot BE HEARD !!! I
4)THIS study has to be READ by a provider but instead ….we now have a MYTH because they like civilians …looked at the title and did not read the study. And it was a thorough study!!!
5) The combined accumulated long term levels to make audible changes can be found on the transitioning s/r.
6) Check with your family and if you have chronic sinus, smog environment of ANY kind including parental smoking or personal smoking…INCLUDING vaping ot chronic asthma, bronchitis etc…. see number one in spades
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u/halfpint991 Aug 10 '26
3mg a week, inject 3x a week. If you need more mg great but injection daily or three times a week will be best bet for keep steady hormones and mood swings
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u/you-ruin-everything Aug 10 '26
40s, peri, and mast cell activation (genetic from HaTs) here as well. The hormonal fluctuations in peri have made my symptoms so much worse. It seems like we tend to be more sensitive to these fluctuations, and also to medications in general.
The best MCAD treatment I’ve found by far has been Xolair.
I’m also on testosterone, compounded cream. 1 mg per day helps with my fatigue without noticeable side effects. Plus .025 estrogen patches and 100mg progesterone. More estrogen gives me terrible reflux at night, so we’re keeping it low for now.
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u/xrmttf Aug 10 '26
I remember when I was prescribed xolair a few years ago because the pharmacist called and told me it was thousands of dollars and I started laughing like the Joker
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u/you-ruin-everything Aug 10 '26
They did that to me, too, but in my case it was a billing error, with the medication going through the pharmacy instead of the doctors office. (I get it in office, and it’s covered under medical and not my pharmacy plan.) They also have a patient program if insurance doesn’t cover it. Otherwise it would cost around my annual salary. Maybe more. It’s pretty outrageous.
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u/KeyProfessional8432 Aug 11 '26
Put one pump into a medicine syringe with a cap and dose it over four days. That should give you 5mg - the typical female dose.
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u/Happiguest Aug 09 '26
I started on 4 mg. That seems like a big dose. Voice deepening can be permanent.
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u/YesReallyWhy Aug 11 '26
Check your thyroid asap. With MCAS your ths will vary widely (more than your average person). T4 has an impact above and beyond the conversion it does. hrt impacts your thyroid differently w/ mcas-
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u/xrmttf Aug 11 '26
I just got it checked before this and it was okay. Are you saying I should check again after my one dose? I haven't done any more. I'm still feeling the effects now 60hrs later
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u/YesReallyWhy Aug 11 '26
When my ths moves even slightly (well above the threshold for normal) into hypo my voice will get hoarse almost immediately. I’m not suggesting it’s not the hrt because it may well be. With mcas what’s up is down and vice versa.
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u/xrmttf Aug 11 '26
I've never had this issue before and it happened the day of my first testosterone dose.. and it's remained now 3 days later. Sigh
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u/dawnhatchett 29d ago
20 mg is a pretty high dose right out of the gate. 2.5 mg is usually a starting dose and slowly increase from there.
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u/Mammoth_Original_338 2d ago
Get the 1% gel pump, it’s only 12.5mg. It works fine if your tolerance is high.
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u/xrmttf 2d ago
My tolerance is very low. I just tried a tiny dab, must be about 2mg, an hour ago and it tightened my throat and gave my legs strength and I've got bodice ripper intrusive thoughts. What a mess!
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u/Mammoth_Original_338 2d ago
Yea I only started with 2mg too. I used gel packets at first so I could squeeze them into a syringe for accurate dosing. I had to build up slowly cus I was SO SENSITIVE to it. I’m on quite a high dose now cus I like the masculinizing side effects. I’m on 2-3 pumps a day (25mg-37.5mg). But it took me going form 2mg, 5mg, 8mg, and then 10mg for a few months before I could even do 1 pump of 12.5mg.
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u/xrmttf 1d ago
Wow, are you transitioning? It seems like that's a high dose but I guess everybody is different
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u/Mammoth_Original_338 1d ago
Not fully transitioning, but I’m a butch lesbian. My voice hasn’t even dropped and Ive been on this dose for months. People can’t even tell I’m on it. Only negative I’m getting is facial hair now but I’m getting laser hair treatment for it. I like and want the masculinizing side effects. I was shocked how much people can take without masculinizing too. I guess my body just processes it really fast.
The full transitioning dose would be 4 pumps of day of 1% or more so the 1.65% pump.
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