A few weeks back my dosage of Spiroanalactone was upped by my doctor to 200mg a day (100mg 2x daily). I was also taking 4mg of estrogen each day as well. I have to warn you that if you suffer from depression or bi-polar disorder you need to be VERY careful with yourself and have a strong support group around you for when your bodies normal hormones crash and are in the process of being replaced by your true genders hormones. I had no support around me, no friends, no family, nothing and went into a suicidal depression without any local support and almost managed to kill myself with a massive OD.

The only reason I am still here is because my family became worried about me after a fb comment I made and tried to get a hold of me. When they couldn't they sent the police and paramedics to my house where they found me unresponsive and in effect nearly dead. My blood ph was at 6.68, my CK eventually rose to over 85,000 (normal is around 300) and my lactose acidosis was at 18. By all rights I shouldn't be here. I have little doubt that in part, this occurred because I was changing my hormone balance and the process triggered my bi-polar disorder causing in part a severe and nearly fatal depression in me.

I am mostly happy that I survived (still struggling a little with my depression) and the end results are I have started developing a strong support base as well as a strong medical support team to help me with this but it was a close thing. My doctors flat told me I shouldn't have survived this.

So please, please if you are depressive/bi-polar please make sure you have a VERY strong support group around you as you transition because a depressive phase can come out of nowhere and surprise you and as I said above, I am totally convinced HRT had a lot to do with the triggering in me.

~Elain

Elain,
That is a scary story. OMG, I'm so glad you are alright. I know you will be more careful in the future.
Hugs,

Clara

Elain,
That is a scary story. OMG, I'm so glad you are alright. I know you will be more careful in the future.
Hugs,

Clara

It was very close Clara. I wasn't breathing on my own when they found me so they had to intubate me for 3 days. I was in an OD caused coma for those three days as well, my brain suffered some swelling and I am still being effected by that (memory issues, difficulty walking, vision issues etc), I developed hospital acquired pneumonia which I am also still fighting.

My doctors told me that had another 5 minutes gone by before help got to me, there wouldn't have been anything they could have done to bring me back and by all rights I really should be dead due to the quantity of medications I took.

Being bi-polar my manic phases are usually the part of my cycles that are the most dangerous for me. My depressive phases I have always managed to trudge through. This one though, was so heavy and so deep I didn't even think of anything else other than killing myself when I woke up already deep into it. I am absolutely convinced this was caused in part by my hormones crashing due to the spiro and triggering a depressive phase and because my hormones were in imbalance, the combination made it much worse, nearly costing me my life.

Add into that, that I had no friends, no family, no local support of any kind and I was lucky to have survived at all. I am now living in Spokane with my family and I have gotten in touch with and joined up with a local trans support group (first meeting yesterday, really awesome people), i've got leads on a medical group up here that deals with trans medical issues as well as the psychiatric/psychological/counseling.

But yeah.. I am convinced that HRT if it didn't actually trigger my depressive phase.. made the one I had significantly worse.. so now I am letting people know what could happen.

BTW... I have never tried to kill myself in a depressive phase before, though I have tried to get police to shoot me in a manic phase (many many years ago.. and that event was what got me diagnosed as bi-polar... nothing like it has happened since). So yeah.... I really do believe HRT had a magnifying effect on this one.

~Elain