I am 5 ish months in. I started at 2 mg, then bumped to 4mg and now 6mg oral estradiol and 50 mg of oral cyproterone for the last 2 months because there’s a spironolactone shortage plaguing where I live. Before switching, I was on 200mg of spironolactone.

Breast growth started 2-3 weeks in with a lump behind each nipple which have steadily grown to be ~7cm across along with very minimal fat collection so I’m a little bit jiggly with slightly larger areolas and nipples which are leading the way away from my ribcage giving me cones for boobs. The things I never see mentioned about breast growth are the itchiness that comes with increased bloodflow (it’s nearly painful sometimes, like a horrendous mosquito bite) and the fluids. I was playing with my nipples one day early on, gauging the size of the lumps behind my nipples, and drops of clear fluid came out of my nipple and scared the shit out of me! Turns out, that’s totally normal unless it starts coming out on its own and is a result of the development of milk ducts, but it would have been really nice to know beforehand. That particular effect stopped after about 3 weeks of monitoring it.

My emotional range spiked to be insanely wide when I started for about a week, then shrunk back down to what it was before, then another spike about 2-3 weeks after each time I upped my dose, and this time it seems to be staying mostly open. If I had to give it a number, I’d say I can feel about 250% more than before, which sucks when a dysphoric low hits me, but it’s totally worth it when I go into an instoppable giggle fit, or get aroused by a spicy scene in my book, or have my heart melt when one of my niblings does something adorable.

My relationship with sex has been… weird. Initially, when I was on spiro, erections ceased to exist. I could get it up for a few minutes if I found something particularly arousing, but that was it. Sex with my wife dropped from 3-4 times a month to maybe once every other month. Cyproterone has let some of that come back, random boners haven’t made a comeback, thank god, but my penis is far more sensitive than it once was. My wife and I have tried to have sex a couple times recently, but insertion is just too much for me to handle, and sex has ended up with us grinding on a vibrator between us. Another thing I never saw anyone write about was the difference between boy horny and girl horny. There was one day when my SIL was staying with my wife and I in our one bedroom apartment, so sex was off the table, but I felt a need to jump on my wife and ride her to the stars, but so far as I could tell, I wasn’t horny. Some conversations online later, and I realized I was horny, it was just a very different kind of horny and I had no way to identify it. One person described boy horny as a hunger and girl horny as appreciating fine art, but for me it’s a lot more subtle. More like boy horny is a hunger to get off, and girl horny is a desire to enjoy the sex part of sex, not just the orgasm with someone. I talked to a friend of mine about it, and she hasn’t really experienced any difference in how she gets aroused, and she’s about 5 months ahead of me on HRT.

I haven’t really noticed any size difference in my genitals, but tucking has gotten a lot easier with practice and trial and error to find what panties/gaffs work for me. Period panties are great for smoothing things out, and have a wide gusset to hold everything in place, but they don’t let sweat breathe, and I find an extra pair of my everyday panties on top of them are necessary to keep them from slipping and letting things out.

I already had a pretty nice butt, but my wife and I have noticed it’s a little fuller and getting more dumptrucky in the last few weeks. My thighs are following suit, getting a little thicker and more jiggly, but my hips have not gotten any extra on them, so I’m still shaped like a tube from the front.

Muscle atrophy is a bitch! I work in trades, so moving heavy things (50+ lbs) is expected, and I’ve started noticing carrying an empty ikea cabinet across the room absolutely gasses me. I don’t know if it’s because of the rate or the overall amount I’ve lost, but my butt, thighs and shoulders get sore totally at random like I ran a 10k with no prep the day before. I play ultimate frisbee, so muscle soreness like that is very familiar to me and it feels identical.

Temperature regulation is also weird. I used to be comfortable in slightly lower temps and wasn’t bothered when the weather was -30C, but now -10C is horrible! There was a month or so when my wife would sleep half covered by our comforter, and I would have the comforter and a doubled over fleece blanket on top of me and a heated throw under me on full blast to barely be comfortable in bed. I’m not that bad now, sleeping with just the comforter again, but I still prefer it warmer than my wife, when I used to be the one who wanted to set the temperature a bit lower.

That’s my experience so far, and I’m going to ask my doctor about progesterone next time I see him, so hopefully bigger boobs soon.🤞Wow this was a long comment!