Medical Info - Blog Posts

I feel like I should make a post about this because it’s not something that’s very well-known, and that Americans in particular may need to know about given the uncertain state of our healthcare system at the moment. I’ve wanted to write this out for a while, It’s kind of a long post, so sorry about that!

If you have an emergency and have to go to the hospital, you’ll owe the hospital a lot of money. (I got into a car wreck and broke my ankle and my arm. My hospital bill was around $20,000)

You’ll also owe the ambulance provider, if you need one. (My ambulance bill was about $800)

You may get separate bills from the anesthesiologist or surgeon. (My anesthesiologist bill was $1,700)

You may need follow-up appointments. (My orthopedic surgeon billed me for the appointments and his surgery together and it was about $1,000)

You’ve also got to pay for medical equipment you need afterward, like crutches or a walking boot. (Mine cost about $75)

Altogether, I ended up with almost $24,000 in medical debt from one car accident. That’s a really scary number for someone like me who makes $10/hr at a 12 hour a week job.

I got my debt down to $1075 by making some phone calls and submitting some paperwork.

The first thing I did was contact the hospital. They don’t make it easy to find, but many hospitals (perhaps most hospitals?) have financial assistance programs for people who can’t afford medical bills. I don’t make a lot of money, and I have bills to pay, so they were able to help me. I called the billing department and asked if they had any assistance programs for low income people who can’t pay their bills. I had to call multiple times, and I got transferred in circles by people who didn’t know what I was talking about. Finally, I got an appointment with someone in “Eligibility Services” (I don’t know what other hospitals call it, if it’s something different). I had to bring my pay stubs and copies of all of my bills. When I got to the hospital for the appointment, nobody knew what I was talking about so I had to wander a little to find where I needed to go. I spoke with the guy in Eligibility Services, and I waited for a decision on how much of the bill they would forgive. A month later, I got a call telling me it was totally forgiven.

I did the same thing for my ambulance bill and my anesthesiologist, but the process was a LOT easier. I just had to mail some paperwork and it was totally forgiven.

I didn’t bother with the medical equipment suppliers, since the bills came from separate companies and I didn’t feel like going through the process twice for $75. I was assured at the hospital that they had similar programs for debt forgiveness, so I could have probably avoided paying that too.

The only thing I couldn’t get taken care of was the surgeon/follow-up appointment cost, but they were able to put me on a no-interest payment plan.

Medical debt is scary because it’s something that can come from stuff that’s already really scary. I didn’t need the burden of $24,000 in debt on top of trying to get around on a crutch with a broken arm (it’s not easy, believe me!).. but I can’t imagine what it would be like with a bigger debt or a more severe medical emergency. I see lots of people in even worse trouble than I was in, both financially and medically. Please know that there are options for you when that GoFundMe doesn’t do enough. Even if your income is higher than mine, it’s worth a shot even for partial debt forgiveness.

Every time I see another ibuprofen post on this site I'm like STOP

STOP

Stop.

Take that after a meal. Take it with a big glass of water. Don't take it on an empty stomach EVER. Don't take it with alcohol. You will destroy your stomach. You will end up with an ulcer. You will vomit blood. I'm not exaggerating.

Yes, you. Yes, it will happen to cute little you. With your cute little bottle of miracles. Ibuprofen really does that to your body.

Love, an adult person over 35 who can't take NSAIDs anymore

Hello, just came across your blog. I've been on testosterone for over a year and a half, and I'm considering stopping eventually to preserve my health, even though it's helped my with my dysphoria, and I feel a lot more comfortable with my body as it is now compared to pre-transition. Any advice, since you've gone through something similar according to your bio? From your experience, what changes revert back? Thanks for your time!

Hey! This is going to be long, bear with me.

Great to hear your dysphoria is better and you’re doing well. Honestly, this course has been very good for me personally. For brief background, I always expected to stop HRT after getting permanent changes from it, because the health risks like cancer and heart disease sounded like a bad tradeoff for essentially nothing in the long run, but it did surprise me that I had to stop early due to the health problems HRT was giving me, both mental and physical.

So in total, I’ve been on HRT for four years: I took two years off it in the middle because of the effect on my mental health, and then went back on when I was more stable, switched from gel to injections and stuck to it for another two years before I started losing hair, at which point I made the decision to quit permanently. I’ve now been off for some three years total.

For changes, I was pretty far into masculinization at that point. I had increased hair growth everywhere, although by genetics I was never set to become very hairy. Also by genetics I was doomed to have shitty facial hair growth, so I only ever managed to grow a couple dozen beard hairs under my chin. My voice dropped very low quite fast, and my friends say it’s lower than most men they know, although I’m personally deaf to how it sounds as it’s always just been “my voice” to me. My body fat had completely redistributed, I was thick in the middle and my face was angular, and within my own demographic I was usually read as male. And as said, I was losing hair, particularly from the top of my head, which was most unwelcome to me personally, lol. So I made the decision to stop there.

In terms of mental wellbeing, testosterone always had a shitty effect on my anxiety and paranoia; it masculinized my depression and made it more active instead of passive, leading to anger and anxiety rather than sadness. Other than that I felt very good about myself and overall had a positive experience with T, even though it (combined with binding) caused me various unexplained health issues like trouble swallowing, muscle tension and such, which, like mentioned above, were high on the list of reasons I quit and have to be mentioned as “effects” of the treatment.

Backstory over, so, I quit T.

What happened first was my hair literally just fell off all at once. Yay? This is apparently normal, based on my extensive research on male-pattern baldness prevention online; when you start taking DHT blockers (or cease injecting testosterone into your muscles), the damaged hair on your head just dies off and gets replaced by new, healthy hair. I shed like shit, I’m not going to lie, I had short hair but when I went to take a shower my palms would be covered in hair when I ran them through my head. So I shaved it all off, problem solved(?). Like promised by the Internet, my hair did grow back more healthy, and I was no longer losing any afterwards. At three years in I have a normal head of hair.

Second, my periods came back. Based on my previous experience on stopping T, periods coming back is shit, not because nobody likes them but because your body’s fucked up from the treatment. First time around I had horrible cramps for a couple months - pretty much non-stop through the entire period, debilitating and just awful, way worse than I had in my teens. Second time around no cramping but I literally just bled buckets. I had a large-sized mooncup, but I had to empty it hourly instead of every 8 hours like recommended, and I would still bleed through it. Like there was just so much fucking blood everywhere. I had to leave work for it, it was that bad. So be prepared for your periods to be fucked up afterwards. I was warned repeatedly by gynos that they’ll probably not come back after stopping T, but they always did, and after a couple months they went back to being regular and normal again. Three years after T I have a normal cycle, pretty much the same it was pre-T, with less cramping due to my age compared to when they stopped the first time when I was still pretty young.

Third, my body hair calmed down. I lost the hair on my chest entirely, my neckbeard had slowed down to the point where I don’t bother shaving it more than once in three months or so, my unibrow vanished, and my whiskers grew lighter. My arm hair has gone back to being relatively invisible. My leg hair and thigh hair is still thick, which I like. Brows still thick, which I like.

Fourth, body fat redistribution. You have to lose and gain weight for this to happen, so it may be faster or slower depending on your lifestyle, but essentially your new body fat distributes in a female pattern whereas your old fat burns from the male pattern. My waist is back and my hips are wide. Breasts are way fuller, even though nobody needed that. Face is round. I still retain some angularity to my jaw but essentially back to babyface for me at three years in.

Fifth, voice. My voice is still low range masculine,

but reaching higher pitches is much easier, and my voice overall has softened and regained range in general. Nobody else has picked up on it, but I’ve noticed, especially within the past year, my voice becoming much more versatile and in general higher and more feminine. Obviously, as imaged, this doesn’t affect the average range of my voice, but it is noticeable.

I’ve done plenty of voice training for my safety (sometimes I get questioned in female bathrooms, for example) so this is not just the effects of T alone, but here’s an example of the ease in which I can reach a passable female voice three years off T:

Sixth, TMI and sad, but I no longer have a dick. It’s gone. I’m back to square one in that field. Luckily I don’t suffer penis envy, I just really liked the growth both aesthetically and in terms of it being on my body. I really, really liked it. Safe to say I never had much to begin with, but it was quite significant in comparison to what I have now. Bye, dick. You are dearly missed.

Health-wise, I’m doing much better! I no longer experience issues with swallowing, my muscles are feeling much better especially with regular exercise, and I don’t have unexplainable physical symptoms that leave my doctors shrugging in confusion. My mental health is also excellent, but it’s worth noting this has a lot to do with external factors as well, such as escaping abuse for a major contributing factor. However, it’s also due to active practice in merging together my fractured self in terms of embracing my female reality instead of trying to live as a male in whole. Finding that balance has been a big help in alleviating the dysphoria I dealt with upon quitting T. I feel really good in my skin now, with the permanent changes T has provided me together with my healthier body, so I can safely say this has been a good choice for me overall.

Tl;dr: Post-T Edition

Things that changed for me: body hair lessened, balding stopped and hair grew back, voice became more versatile, physical and mental health improved, beard growth slowed down to fuck all, regained a round face and hourglass figure, boobs filled up, bottom growth went back to 0

Things that didn’t change: normal speaking voice is still deep as shit, leg hair growing strong, brow game bushy, still have whiskers, people keep questioning my presence in female bathrooms and nobody tries to sell me makeup, dysphoria doing good.

Overall: I’m in a good place, yo.