Hi all

At fourteen it seemed that my secret wishes had come true...I grew breasts and my hips got wider. But the next year my external development took another direction and suddenly I got a bad hayfewer. That hayfewer turned through the years into a bad asthma, I had to take three different medicines a day and sometimes spend a day in the hospital, getting oxygen through pipes.
About two months after having started my HRT the asthma symptoms faded away and they have stayed away ever since. I have not needed any medication since then.
Three doctors have so far told me either that I was allergic to testosterone or that my transsexuality definitely played a part in my asthma, it was my "silent protest against my false sex".
So, the wrong gender and sex CAN make you physically sick.
My shrink in the ts screening told me I am not the only case, there is this phenomenon for sure, but nobody has made a research on it yet. Have you had such or other physical symptoms before and after yout HRT?

Laura

Yes, I certainly have. Ever since the first year at military school I've had some autoimmune problem - normal colds and flus turning into major infections. And hypersensitivity with running of the nose and attacks of coughing from slight changes in the environment. During architecture school I could see that it was a stress symptom as it worsened at the end of semesters. But only the last few years have I been able to see how this has effected me on a day by day basis.
For years I were thinking that it was the harsh conditions at military school that made it happen. But the truth is it came when the worst was over. I had passed every hurdle with good results...
And then I have remembered this one special day when we were all standing on parade - a cold november morning, and have said to myself that maybe it was that - that cold day after all that hardship. And in a certain sense it was. In some sense I had better days than at home. The worst was definitely over. I felt some semblance of safety. As one of only 16 I had gained entrance to the Air Force Intelligence Operations School and would not have to work as an ordinary sergeant. And one of the first days, while sitting in the classroom, my nose started running and running... I had too leave the room. And ever since that it has been a problem.

"Silent protest" ... Yes.

In autumn 2003 I had a new kind of "allergic reaction". When out walking in the city my eyes started running with tears. A couple of weeks later I had an "inexplicable infection" - the worst fever since my childhood. My eyes kept running throughout winter. I remember thinking "wonder if people think that I'm crying". And I was, it turned out. Silently.


Linda