#slynd

[distractedpebble]

I am in tears today.

About a month and a half ago, my doctor changed my birth control without telling me. It's "basically the same" because they're both Progestin only pills because I can't take anything with Estrogen.

Unfortunately, I woke up in extreme pain this morning and I almost had a mental breakdown when I realized that it was my period, despite the fact that I've been taking the pill every single day at the same exact time. I don't know if it's that this pill doesn't work as well as the last one or what, but when I was on Slynd I never even had spotting. Now that it was changed to Jencycla, I've been cramping a lot, but it wasn't nearly as bad as period cramps so I didn't mind all that much. Then my back started hurting like it did during my period, but I made note of it and moved on.

But today. Today I woke up in so much pain, that very familiar pain, the whole reason I'm on birth control to begin with, and I wanted to lose it. I'm sobbing as I write this post because I'm so sick of it. I'm so tired. I don't want this anymore, I don't want to "handle" this anymore. I'm in so much pain. The pills were supposed to stop this, what's the point of taking them if they don't even work???

[lesbian-lady-bird]

Taking birth control pills is really like:

You’ll cure your severe cramps that last half the month, lower your anxiety about getting pregnant, reduce your acne and facial hair, and treat your PCOS and possible endometriosis.

BUT

You’ll be fatigued all the time and depressed and stressed out. You won’t know if it’s your pill or if your life just sucks. You’ll get your period twice in one month.

Some people have good experiences on the pill and I don’t wanna discount that! They’re very effective and usually safe. I’m just venting about my own experience. I’m upset that people with uteruses have to deal with all this. It took me almost 9 years to get diagnosed with PCOS, and now that I have an answer and treatment that’s working, I have to put up with side effects :(

[lemememeringue]

experiencing normal intensity cramps instead of needle-stabbers and I've forgotten how to deal with an unpleasant but manageable amount of pain

[zillysqueaks]

Out of curiosity. Which would you choose:

- Fall terribly ill with a painful and debilitating stomach flu approximately 12 days each month, but have a hyperfixation

- Only get a bit of an upset tummy 4 days each month, but have no hyperfixation

[ptsilencedhill]

Had my IUD removed Thursday and immediately began taking Slynd, had sex last night… fellas am I cooked. Aren’t you supposed to wait 48 hours… do I take a plan b

[sovaharbor]

im honestly at the point where im so annoyed by my cycle making me feel THIS dogshit for 2 weeks a month that im finally gonna try to get nexplanon. cuz like im so over this. im not touching depo with a 10 ft pole bc the thought of having all that in me and literally no escape if my body doesnt like it sounds horrifying. and also i physically cannot handle an iud so. rod in my arm it is. but anyways. birth control is a literal fucking nightmare when u have migraines with auras 💖💕💓💞💖💝💕💓💞💖💕💗💕

always funny how every month im like damn why do i feel like DOGSHIT and then i look at my samsung health tracker and go oh. cool. thats why. got it

[mandana-the-service-pup]

You guys. My blood pressure has been incredibly normal for 5 days. And I can hardly believe it but my heart rate hasn’t gone above 120s at all in the last couple days. I still have a lot of symptoms like fatigue, pain, etc but I’m so bewildered. I literally just woke up one day w/o POTS like what?!

Average Day VS Today

Over the last yr my daily average max HR has increased from 130-150s to 170-190s. In October & December I had three separate episodes that felt like a heart attack but ekg didn’t show a heart attack. Blood pressure has been 140/90 (daily high) with a max measured at 197/96. Then I just wake up one day and my heart rate is 50-120s and my blood pressure is consistently 110s/80s and it’s not show any signs of getting worse?!?!

Here is my current theory:

Back in like 2018 I was really struggling with a lot of things. Besides HR problems I was having issues with nocturia (TMI // waking up multiple times to pee at night). My dr at the time put me on fludrocortisone. It helped retain some of my blood volume which slightly improved some of my POTS symptoms and stopped the nocturia. I completely forgot I even had that symptom until October of this year when a Cardiologist took me off the fludrocortisone. Besides worsening my typical symptoms, the nocturnia immediately came back and no amount of management was helping.

On Jan 14th? 2023 I decided to use my service dogs red laser therapy jacket (Spectra Laser Therapy XL jacket) to help with my back pain. Long story short the vet recommended red laser therapy for a muscle strain in Mandanas back and it has helped her immensely. I thought maybe my EDS was causing my lower back to hurt at night, so on a whim I decided to sleep on top of the laser jacket (low lvl laser with programmed intervals meant to be used for hours at a time) to see if it would help. Not only did it help the back pain which I had expected but since that first night of using it the nocturia has been completely gone. I’ve been able to go 2-3 days without using it without the nocturia coming back and it seems like the more days I use it the more permanent the results are becoming and the longer I can go between uses. I’ve been using it on & off for two weeks and five days ago I noticed my blood pressure & heart rate have started to stabilize.

The tricky part is that due to a ruptured fibroid that could have caused the heart crisis in Oct-Dec I had to go on birth control (Slynd) to try to get my bleeding under control. I was on it for a couple months and just stopped taking it. I didn’t see any change in my blood pressure or heart rate when I started Slynd so I don’t know why stopping it would suddenly fix everything but I wanted to mention this bc I stopped taking it after the nocturnia was solved but about the time the blood pressure & heart rate got better. Because there are multiple variables I have no way of knowing if it’s the red laser therapy that has helped or if its some how related to the short course of birth control.

I’m not trying to claim some magical cure, but y’all have watched me struggle every day for almost three years on Tumblr. I cannot ignore this sudden turn of events simply bc it’s too unbelievable. I’ll keep posting updates as they come. I’m afraid to get my hopes up but this proves my body is capable of functioning normally and that is incredibly encouraging.

Also, when I first got my diagnosis of POTS years ago I was told by the specialist that sometimes people just wake up cured and we have no idea why. It sounds like a fairytale but after the week I’ve had I’m beginning to believe it might be real.

[official-megumin]

idk if this helps any but there’s a birth control pill called slynd i use and a lot of my other friends use it too i personally have never menstruated but the people who do say that it blocks periods. and from experience i haven’t had any averse side effects :)

here's the thing tho, I really don't wanna mess with HRT by using birth control.

And if the gender clinic finds out I'm doing it, they will simply take my HRT away from me, so it's not even really an option to begin with.

But thank you, I appreciate the concern and advice regardless

[distractedpebble]

So, I've been taking Slynd for two months. It's an estrogen-free birth control because I am unable to take anything with estrogen. I know that results will vary for everyone, but this is the first birth control that I can legit say I almost forget I'm taking because the side effects have been minimal. This still isn't ideal, I don't want to have to take a daily pill just so my uterus doesn't kill me, but for now it'll work.

[the-meri-rose]

Eyyyyy guess who just got approved for surgery to deal with her ovarian cyst, a new progesterone pill that shows promise for suppressing endometriosis (called Slynd, which sounds like some kind of wizard), and, if Slynd doesn't deliver on Slynd's promises, a recommendation to the Endometriosis Center at U of Michigan!

[malscare]

will they let me start slynd or will I have to go fuck myself forever

[lemememeringue]

slynd is working! breakthru bleeding finally stopped after a month and a half 🥳🥳

[ihavejustthisonethingtoshare]

HRT Journey

I started HRT about a year ago, and the Gender Spiral Podcast was definitely a big part of coming to the decision to try it. Hearing stories of other NBs, sharing similar doubts and uncertainties about their genders made me feel more secure that all these feelings are valid, and none of them are a strong enough deterrent from trying out taking T.

Thinking back on the moment of decision, Dr. Beal's take on the number of things you're excited about vs the number of things that scare you - makes so much sense! And that's pretty much how I arrived at the decision to try it. I was excited about more muscle definition around my neck, shoulders, and jaw, I was excited about stronger-looking arms, excited about a deeper voice. Not worried about body hair and more fat around the stomach. Kinda nervous about facial hair, and loss of head hair, and really hated the idea of bottom growth.

I started with a 2.5g daily dose of Testosterone Gel 1%. Improvements in mood and energy were felt almost immediately. It normalized within a few days. After a month, not noticing any physical changes I tried going up to 5.0g daily. I tried that for a month, but it got way too intense. I would get really horny, and would get random erections (?? i guess). And I hated it. It was the feeling of "bottom growth" I was worried I'd hate. This was all entangled in me coming to terms with being Ace too, so it didn't feel like me. I found that it wasn't bottom growth per se that bothered me - I just didn't want anything going on down there taking up space and attention. So I took a week break (maybe a month even) - no T at all. Until all these unwanted side effects subsided. And went back to 2.5g daily. And it all felt normal again. That's the best way I can describe it, with a small amount of T in my body I just feel normal. I would sometimes take a couple of days break after getting my period, if I was feeling overwhelmed. But mostly maintained the same dosage.

After 6 months I started noticing other physical differences. The hair on my chin and neck started to grow more. I thought it would bother me more - but it's just kinda there. I've always had some facial hair and was made to feel self-conscious about it. But accepting it as part of my trans-non-binary identity helped me be like - fuck it, that's just my body, it has hair places - deal with it. So I let it grow, and shave every couple of days. I got a fancy safety razor, and i actually really enjoy using it. And it all feels normal. I also noticed more definition around my neck, shoulders, and jaw. My voice started to drop a bit. Although I can still hit the same old high pitches, it's just the relaxed register is lower now. It feels more mucousy and nasally - but not in a bad way. After getting over a cold recently - I thought my voice was still hoarse - but then I was like - oh yeah, that's just my trans voice… something that I wasn't really expecting or thinking about (but makes sense in hindsight) the way my body smells changed. And I think the new smell bothers me less… my head hair actually started to grow back at my temples and the sides of my forehead. I was worried about additional hair loss, because I was already experiencing some, but now I think it may have been more anxiety-related, and getting a handle on that helped. My hair is still pretty thin at the top of my forehead, but with a good haircut, it doesn't bother me much.

My periods never stopped, which is a bummer. Not a fan of periods. When I was still trying to get a handle on my anxiety, period-time would be extra hard, and I'd often feel dizzy. It's better now - with T and a mix of anxiety meds. But still a work in progress. I'm trying the Slynd birth control pill to help with the periods. A bit nervous that it would counteract the T too much - since I'm on such a low dose already. But so far seems fine - and I have not needed to take a break from T during my last period, which is cool. But we'll see how it goes.

I think because I have Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, and had elevated levels of T at puberty - I wasn't too bothered by the changes my body was going through then. I was just having a hard time fitting into the idea of "girl" everyone tried to squeeze me into. But when I got older, the cysts went away and my T levels dropped, the way I was aging didn't feel right anymore. I stopped looking at myself in the mirror because I didn't recognize the person looking back anymore, and I much preferred my reflection in other people - through the eyes of people I loved and loved me. But it was getting really hard to connect with my own body. I simply couldn't see what they were seeing. I looked so jaded in the first video of myself I made to track my progress. I am so much happier now. I'm exploring new fashion, and it's fun again. I recognize myself in the mirror, and I like what I'm seeing. I'm still aging - and that is a gift in its own right - but the way I am aging makes sense now. I just feel normal.

I'm thinking about top surgery next. The boobs gotta go. They just don't make sense on my body anymore. I'm taking my time figuring it all out. I'm nervous about getting a major surgery. But the more I've been reading about it, the more right it feels.

I don't think I'm done transitioning, I don't think we ever truly arrive at a "final form". You just kinda go with the flow, and what feels right. But I do feel more secure in my identity now. And that's huge, honestly.

[multitudecontainer420]

being socially "on" lije a dancers or robot, presenr, parts in place ready to glide out smoothlt

things change then.sftee....theyre dufferent ,:o

u balk at thingsbc u i.agibe u at tr current stage n configuratuobs dping these things and base o n that how hard scary and intimidating they are...u actually just gotta worrying about do8ng stage one of the thing and by the tame u get to stage 80 ull have develiped skill and handiness

how daunting an unpleasant writing journaling slynds like based on how ardous it is to get urself to do it right now. if u just focusing on doing it a lot the ease of dping it will start taking care of itself

:o success to being intetesting and liked not actually achieving by obsessing and obsessively self monitering and making mental football play tactics maps to get a good grade at social e counter :o :?? :o obvioysly more practical is imaginine this throwing all that away and do cool stuff that interests you and go around in curiosity

poly in the hallway...stacks of papers and folders arpund her hair frizzy sorting into piles

anders the practical problems of being a thing doer commuity amongst thing doers in this category

[ptsilencedhill]

So slynd is supposed to be effective the moment you take it if you’re on your period…. I took it immediately after my iud was removed so I can’t track my cycle that way because I didn’t even get my last period. The packaging says it takes 48 hours for full efficacy if you’re not doing it period style. They say if you’re taking it in the middle of your cycle to wait 7 days before unprotected sex, so I might just follow that advice JUST IN CASE my body doesn’t like the transition from Mirena -> slynd

[satorhime]

thank you so much for ur reply for the BC! I’m currently on Yaz, been on it for around 4 months. It’s my first one, so im planning on changing soon. Women’s healthcare is shit, wish there were better options.

okay update, i’m officially off slynd and my symptoms went away in a few days i’m SO relieved. my doctor prescribed me lo loestrin but i haven’t started it yet bc i want to give my body a break. it’s been a hellish four months on slynd lmao.