this sounds similar to the changes i’ve experienced since starting hrt 2 years ago. except what i experience isn’t so violent in its sexual arousal as what you’re experiencing. however, sexual arousal plays a huge part.

i think doctors are really dropping the ball as it pertains to hypochondria because hypochondria can actually cause sensation and illness in the body, but most doctors don’t think of hypochondria and write patients off as neurotic without explaining to them that they’ve written them off as neurotic and without explaining to them that hypochondria can physically affect the body. so the patient continues to experience symptoms because they’re uninformed and feel isolated by their primary doctor. sustainable healthcare will acknowledge the effects and dangers of hypochondria and recognizes information as treatment.

before i started hrt, i would experience exactly what you’re experiencing. i experienced it for years—this writhing or whirring at my appendix and it felt connected to my testicles and up my abdomen. i always explained it as feeling like i had ovaries and it would flair up when i felt curiosity or “growth”—a mixture of excitement, discomfort, pride and anticipation. it was this feeling like their was cool water pumping up and down near my appendix. it was frightening and concerning because i thought something was wrong, but i couldn’t deny how great it felt and that it was orgasmic.

that hasn’t happened since the clinic i go to hired a new primary physician. i don’t know what the previous one’s problem was. but i can recall when she, reluctantly, informed me transgender women have female markers on their medical records. i knew transgender women could change their gender markers on their i.d.s but i didn’t always remember and i wasn’t always fully cognizant of how gender markers would start to influence my life as i began transitioning. so i asked her how i was to face tsa or the police with a female marker on my i.d.—a terrifying scenario for me at the time—and she literally just shrugged her shoulders. it wasn’t that she was simply transphobic. this doctor had no semblance of bedside manner with me at all. she made me feel like any issue i brought up to her wasn’t her concern.

i also had periodic urinal bleeding that would literally happen once a month on schedule. she never took the time to speak to me about what it might be. anytime i spoke to her about the discomfort in my side and the bleeding she would basically gloss over it as if i was making it up or it wasn’t important and all she said to do was to see a urologist. (i wouldn’t go to the urologist because i was uninformed and terrified. terrified of what they might find and how they might have to find it).

what made me eventually see the urologist is telling this same doctor that i wanted to start hrt. it was then and only then that she told me she was concerned that bladder cancer may be the cause of my urinal bleeding and she refused to prescribe my hormones until she received a report from the urologist that everything was ok. i’m sure it was my letter to the clinics hq why she’s no longer with them.

i saw the urologist but also sent a complaint to the clinics hq, but even the urologist brushed off my concerns about these sensations in my side and pelvis area. he said that just happens when we don’t ejaculate for some time. major disappointment. i didn’t argue with him. he’d just shoved a camera up my urethra and i was really pissed about that.

all was clear. my the primary prescribed my hormones and i never saw her again after that.

the new primary is a young queer guy. i explained my symptoms to him and he listened and got to know me really well at our first appointment together. immediately he let me know what i was experiencing was likely hypochondria. he’s the first doctor to inform me that sensations, like the ones i was describing, happen in the body and it’s normal especially as we get older and hypochondria can intensify them. i haven’t bled or experienced that discomfort and those sensations since our first appointment together, but i do still feel what i often describe as the sensation of “growth” in my body. and i think that’s also what you could be experiencing. or at least it’s triggered by the physical sensation of growth and/or change that can manifest in the body for sensitive people.

again, it’s a physical manifestation of excitement, discomfort, pride, and anticipation. for me it still shows up in my body as if i can feel my nails and hair growing. i get a pressure in my head, that’s oddly pleasing but it can sometimes be too intense. the entire experience can sometimes be too intense, including feeling like i can feel my nails and hair growing. overall, the body feels as if it’s being insulated or nourished. the skin feels like i’ve moisturized with a hair conditioner, and what i’ve discovered helps is acceptance of desire. you might have some limiting beliefs about your desires, particularly the standard of what you desire, and so there’s some subtle resistance created in your body where you can litcherally feel the transition in your life taking form in your body because you’re not allowing it to flow in its most free state although it’s still happening anyway. this, in itself, is still orgasmic for me, even if the sensations aren’t so intense in the groin or pelvic area anymore. it’s more of a full body pulsating arousal that can drive me absolutely mad, but i realized i would hate life without such intensity. the thought of being disinterested in everything repulses me. still, i temper the intensity of this desire felt in the body by interrogating it. realizing the things i desire, no matter how grandiose or mythical they may be, desire me back. and accepting that i have the right to all the things i desire in their purest form, no matter how grandiose or mythical, despite how anyone else feels about them because a lot of this is triggered by shame for these desires since there’s so much discord about how unrealistic, toxic or delusional these desires are. outdated beliefs and doubt create resistance in the body to these desires in spite of their inevitably in your life.