RJLupin (imported) wrote: Sat Dec 16, 2006 12:26 pm I agree. Even after orchiectomy AND estrogen treatment, I don't feel any "calmer" than before. If anything, I feel more stressed out from the hot flashes and fatigue I now experience. If you do a Google search for "low testosterone" you'll not find "calm" listed, you'll read about all kinds of horrible things like "apathy" and "weight gain" and "cognitive impairment."
I don't regret my orchiectomy surgery, because it was done as part of a gender reassignment process. However, anyone who thinks it will be either some huge erotic thrill, or will make them "calm" after surgery, is deluding themselves and headed for disaster.
Firstly, you are on estrogen, wich is known to offset the effects of orchiectomy by and large. Additionally, estrogen has a powerful effect on the male pituitary wich definitely reinforces most of symptoms of menopause if you quit the regimen abrubtly vs. if you never started it in the first place. I know of a 58 year old female who have major difficulties of quitting her HRT regimen, for exactly the same reasons, and her symptoms are far worse than they were at the time of menopause, if she skips over just a few doses (the higher the dose, the most difficult it is to withdraw). I would think this to be a very common side effect, as also seen in the bodybuilders (who consider even the so-called normal male range as "too low" after periods of steroid abuse). Furthermore, your experience flies in the face of so many people who reported significantly less aggression after testosterone reduction, here on EA and elsewhere. F. inst. one of the most extensive personal homepages about castration on the internet, that of Sherry Lanina, deals in great detail about the castration-related serenity, as can be read here: http://www.geocities.com/sherrylanina/C ... fects.html
As to the Google search results for "low testosterone": frankly, most of the "terrible consequences" you can read about on the first pages, and all those "sponsored links" to the right, are in some 90% of cases a result of active marketing tricks selling androgen supplements for men who are hungry for more sex and boosted masculine appeal in our exceedingly sex-crazed world (Of course, virtually all of the men who apply for these supplements have absolutely no interest in castration). These sites are constantly pushing all of the pro-androgen publications and advertizing up the Google ranks so it`s not the least surprising that such results are popping up. However, if you search further you might get far more balanced results.
Finally, I do not consider the so-called naturally occuring low testosterone levels (wich in many cases is about a level of between 200 - 400 ng\dl) as a fair example of some of the castration effects, including the "eunuch calm", etc, mostly due to the reasons above, but also because in most cases these men continue to be under still significant androgenic influence (baldness, prostate enlargement, etc, wich is documented to continue even at levels below 300).
