I have recently learned that you can get hrt medicine off the counter in my country. I am an 18 year old and I am at the last year of high school. My plan since I learbed this was to wait till my finiahing exams are done (May) and start after that which puts half a year between that and till I can move out aboard for university. What worries me is having to hide the effects especially with the summer in between and swimming that comes with it. How much does it take for breast growth to become noticable and what would you do in my place?

  • LadyAutumnMEnglish
    18·
    2 months ago

    First off, congratulations on your upcoming high school graduation! 😊 I’m sure you must be very excited to start HRT and move out on your own.

    The development of your breast ducts will happen pretty quickly early on. This will result in your nipples increasing in size and protruding noticeably from your chest. This is normal, breast fat will grow to fill in the shape around your breast duct and once enough of it has grown, the nipple will not appear to protrude and will instead be at the apex of the breast. The development of breast fat takes a longer time than breast ducts though. Certainly if you’re on HRT starting in May, by July and August your breast ducts would be developed enough that your nipple would be noticeably larger and raised without a shirt on.

    I recommend familiarizing yourself with the tanner breast development scale which can give you a bit more of an idea how this development happens. You could wear a shirt while swimming and a sports bra underneath it. Though depending on the material of the shirt and the color, it might be noticeable that you’re wearing one. You may have to find ways out of swimming later in the summer, like saying you don’t feel like it or something like that.

    • RachelRodent@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
      5·
      2 months ago

      aight. I should probs start after the swimming season as tempting as starting as soon as I reasonably can sounds, because swimming with a shirt would be suapicious. One of my motivations to start early is that I don’t want T to ruin my body further. Is there something I can take that isn’t quite hrt but that will reduce the effect of Testerone till I can reasonably start hrt? does it even matter if I start a year later? What got me self concious was a friend that told me my voice had become deeper recently and my parents who said that I looked taller, I thought this shit wasn’t supposed to keep happening after puberty.

      • LadyAutumnMEnglish
        10·
        2 months ago

        Unfortunately, puberty, especially with regards to T, continues into your mid twenties. So you will still experience masculinization effects of T for some time. Your voice can get deeper, and you can grow more facial hair and so on. A year while still undergoing the effects of T would probably be really difficult. 😔

        As the other commenter said you could start anti adrogens in May and wait to start E until you’re away from home. Anti androgens just block T, but you can still experience some feminization taking just them.