Yesterday I took my third shot of T.
It’s only been these few weeks, so the voice and hair and the like are things that I haven’t seen and don’t expect to see for a while longer yet, but there are some effects that I am experiencing, and feel confident associating them with being caused by T.
First and foremost is an increase in energy. Boy-howdy do I have more energy. No matter when I start my day, I’ve started to try and begin it with a workout. Now, I’ve got some occupational changes going on in my life (I’ve been hired at Starbucks, which I am unbelievably excited for), and so now I have more time in my day to do things, but this started applying before my job situation shifted. I used to get up, make coffee, make something quick for breakfast (usually a peanut butter sandwich with fruit and maybe greek yogurt), give myself 30ish minutes to digest, go on my walk, hopefully eat something else, then get ready for work. At work, I would lift 3lb weights in about 5 different ways, in 20-30 count sets, as well as using the step one of my coworkers had brought in for me in about 4 different variations done by time counts instead of steps taken. I’d do about 4 sets of each step variation (so 12 sets), and about 5 sets of each arm variation (so about 20 sets). This was spread out over 8 hours at a desk, and it was helping me to control my energy, but not in a way that kept me focused the way I needed to be.
Now that I’m not at that desk job, I have time to do different things.
When I get up now, I get coffee and breakfast, give myself about 45 minutes to an hour to digest, then start with stretches. I mostly just do leg stretches (I’m trying to be able to spread my legs wider, for splits and things), but then I do one set of 30 for each of the arm variations I did at work, and instead of the steps, I do a few other stretches/exercises for my thighs and butt area. These mostly involve squats and thrusts, honestly, but it’s quite a lot of them. I typed up a list of the various things I do, and there’s about 12 different sets of arm and leg exercises that I do before my walks in the morning, not including the stretches. When I’ve done my sets of those, I head out, and a walk around my complex takes almost exactly 15 minutes. When I get back, I take a second to make myself something quick to eat, usually yogurt with fruit, and then I do another round of the stretches and exercises I did before I walked.
It feels awesome. Like, by the time I’m done I’m very sweaty and ready to relax a bit. But I swear it takes me no time at all to feel bright and chipper after that, like I honestly have more energy after my walks than I do before I go!!! I’m gonna say that’s endorphins in action, but for the past few days in particular I’ve been happy and full of energy and productivity. It’s been absolutely awesome, and I honestly look forward to getting up tomorrow so I can do my routine.
So the energy is the biggest effect for me right now.
The other two that I’ve noticed are a slight increase in appetite and libido.
Honestly, the appetite thing can probably just be attributed to me working out more. I’m using more energy, so my body’s like ‘Woah, uh, you gonna pay that back, or????’ and I get that. It’s a little annoying because I’ve felt hungry more times than I was hoping to today, but it’s fine. I grabbed a healthy bite to eat and dealt with it.
As for the libido, that’s there. I’m asexual, so me being interested in sex is not something that usually happens. And it’s not that the T is making me less asexual, or anything like that. What it is doing is making me horny. Not like, all the time, but way more than normal. Now, I don’t know what it’s like for people who are sexually attracted to people/into having sex, but when sex is not really your game and you suddenly get sexual urges, it’s a weird situation. The best way to describe it is basically when someone asks you what kind of food you want to eat, and nothing comes to mind. You know you want to eat something, but whenever an option is presented to you, it doesn’t sound good. So you’re mostly stuck in a limbo of nothing sounds good but you still want something to eat??? That’s what this situation is like.
This is easier to handle, though, cause at least here you don’t have to eat anything you don’t think sounds good. Like, where I’m horny, I don’t actually want to go and have sex with someone, because that sounds terrible. I wouldn’t enjoy it, or be attracted to them, likely. So I just take care of it, and it’s fine. Happening more and more recently, but it’s fine.
If you decided to read through all that, cool. Here’s where I’ll get into what the shot was like this week.
I thought this week would be easier for me, since last week was cake (I say that, but thinking of last week was bizarre). Last week, it took one attempt and I was able to do it. This week I figured it would be much the same, but it wasn’t. This week was a mix between the first and second, where I got a little nervous, but it took me less time to actually do it.
I’m sure I went into this last week, but stabbing yourself in the leg with a needle is the weirdest thing. Firstly, it is slightly painful, because you’re breaking through skin and such and your brain is like ‘Uh, are you sure about that????’. But you are, so when you feel yourself get through the first few levels of skin, you’re not even most of the way there, there’s muscle to find, so the needle will be mostly situated in your thigh by that time. This week I actually pushed a little farther than I might have needed to? By that I mean there was a point where I reached something with the tip of the needle that was like ‘How about you don’t do that, thanks’ and so I eased off a little. Not sure what that was, but I’ll be careful about it in the future.
I may talk about that injection like I had a steady hand during it, but don’t think that I did. This week was horrifying in that I was hyper-aware of myself pushing the needle, and of the layers I was penetrating with it. Like, holy shit, when I say that this is weird, it’s fucking WEIRD. And terrifying, did I mention terrifying? Cause it is. My hand was shaking a bit, but things went okay, and I was able to inject it.
This week I was even hyper-aware of the injection!!!! I could feel the actual T being released and if I hadn’t already had to shove a needle into my thigh muscles, I’d say that is the weirdest thing. So that part will get… third place. Because second place belongs to removing the needle, and this week I was having trouble keeping myself calm, so where I thought I was going nice and slow, I think I didn’t put pressure on the entry point while I was doing it, cause the tiniest amount of T seeped out of the entry point. My health coordinator told me that might happen, but MY GODS it was so WEIRD to see that actually happen. It was okay though, I wiped off the whole area with an alcohol swab and put pressure on it after, so it was fine.
Just. So weird.
Each time I’ve done my shot so far, the injection spot has healed up rather quick, not a lot of redness on the area, though there is occasional itchiness on my thigh (never super close to the injection point). My sheet about effects says to expect there to be some redness, so I’ll try not to freak out if ever it does happen, but at this point my bandaid puts more color on my skin than the shot does.
Doing self-injection is super strange, and something that I’m still getting used to, but I’m digging the effects so far, and I feel happier for having this as a process in my life. ❤
…That heart reminds me. With the general happiness is coming a better tolerance for being social, and I’m having some different emotions than I normally might. It’s only a slight shift, but I notice it for sure, and it’s likely due in good part to the energy boost/endorphins? I think.
As Good a Place to Fall 