Possibly odd question about nipples

[RiverdanceGirl]

Hi. When I was born I had an undescended testicle and I've read online that if it didn't descend by the age of one that a child can be considered to be mildly intersexed. And then about 12 years old I noticed that I could feel discs under my nipples. I was taken to a doctor and he said it was fairly common in boys. It was an early form of breast growth and so long as I didn't play with my nipples I wouldn't get boobs. I was in a very awful school situation at the time bullied by students and teachers for being feminine, so I was afraid of growing boobs. I'm not sure that I really had gynecomastia but I'm really sad I didn't let nature take her course. Has anyone had a similar experience? I'd really like to know what was going on.

[Andrea85]

I was the same way, but I had a mild form of gynecomastia though. For me though, I had breast buds. Made gym, and other activities that were shirtless very uncomfortable. I was an AA cup then, and it sure helped me once I started HRT.

[sandra-leigh]

I had the discs as a teen as well, and they were very firm, like washers (firmer by far than anything that has happened to me on 2 months of estrogen.) My breasts didn't hurt: the discs were just there. We didn't know what they were so we had them checked by a doctor, who said they were not uncommon and would go away by themselves. And so they did. I don't really know how long it took as I stopped paying attention to them.

I have read about this subject a little, and each time I have found it said that this is a common effect of the surge of hormones a teenaged male goes through, and that they go away as the hormones rebalance. I do not recall the figures at the moment; what comes to mind is "about a third of males".

I don't think playing with my boobs would have had any effect.

My memory is fuzzy, and I am not sure to what extent I am back-projecting. I have the impression that at the time I did worry about growing boobs. I wasn't bullied for being "feminine" but I was bullied for other reasons, and the last thing I needed was yet another reason for the guys to set me apart.

Now that I am on HRT, I do sometimes wonder whether that experience is having any effect on the development of my breasts. I don't know enough to say either way.

[Kokoro]

I also had the discs behind my nipples as a young teenager. I wasn't ever really worried about them as they were the same size on both sides and thought it was just normal. They eventually went away by the time I was in my late teens.

I can't really remember what I was thinking after I discovered them, but it certainly wasn't worry.

[Melody Moore]

so long as I didn't play with my nipples I wouldn't get boobs.

Hahahaha, just like they tell you that your penis will fall off if you play with it. LOL

First of all, there is nothing 'mildly' intersexed about having an undescended testicle - its an intersex condition
& that's it. I happens more frequent than a lot of people realise, about 1/100 births apparently. I was born as
an intersex baby as well, with a fully developed penis, divided scrotum & vaginal cavity. However a decision was
made I was to be a male, so my genitalia was surgically altered as a young infant to reflect that. As for the discs
under your nipples I am not too sure about, I too had something similar, but nothing else come of them until much
later in life. At the age of 31 when my ex was pregnant with our daughter & I suffered all the symptoms of what
is called a 'phantom pregnancy', complete with the lower back pain, stomach cramps, morning sickness, sore breasts
then lactation. I was like 'WTF is going on? I didn't tell anyone else apart from my ex of the time about it until years
later. But it seems that her pregnancy caused some type of hormonal surge of oestrogen in my body & during this
period I also had significant breast development.

[RiverdanceGirl]

First of all, there is nothing 'mildly' intersexed about having an undescended testicle - its an intersex condition
& that's it.

Thanks everyone but particularly Melody. I had the surgery to place the testicle into my scrotum and at the 3 month checkup the doctors refused to tell me or my parents what they had done. Said we didn't need to know. So we asked our family doctor if he'd find out and he went to the hospital only to find out that my records had been 'lost'. Makes me wonder if I should have had options to choose my gender and they just brushed it under the table. If so it would explain why all my life I've had a part of me that's strongly and definitely female, the part of me that I feel defines me the most. Or maybe I'm looking for patterns that aren't there. I will never know because my surgery was in 1978 and if the papers were gone the information will never be found.

[Melody Moore]

Said we didn't need to know. So we asked our family doctor if he'd find out and he went to the hospital only to find out that my records had been 'lost'. Makes me wonder if I should have had options to choose my gender and they just brushed it under the table.
Oddly enough, I ran into a similar dead-end street when I wrote to the hospital shown on my birth certificate I was born at.
They told me my birth medical records were destroyed as per their standard policies & procedures after 28 years. The real
odd thing about my birth certificate it shows that I was born in the 'Childrens Hospital' or paediatrics ward & not the 'Mothers
Hospital' or maternity ward where children are normally delivered & noone has ever been able to answer the question about
why my birth certificate shows this anomaly. I do know however that my parents lived some 90 miles away from Brisbane
where I was born in 1962, up in Toowoomba which you might have heard about recently during the Queensland floods. Well
Toowoomba has a large General Hospital with a fully equipped maternity ward in which my sister was born in 13 months later.

So it makes no sense why I was 'born' in Brisbane & so far away from our actual hometown of Toowoomba, but based on the
information I now have, then the most likely scenario I have was that I was born/delivered in Toowoomba but then sent to
large children's hospital in nearby Brisbane to determine what they were going to do about my intersex condition before they
completed the birth registration forms & had them signed off by the doctor in Brisbane. The hospital that did this is a very large
private hospital ran by the Catholic Church. My mother was also a nurse who worked in Catholic ran hospitals but is not what I
would call a practising Christian. The odd thing was that I was sent to Catholic schools from primary school & was never allowed
to befriend & socialise with girls. As I went into puberty, my high school years were completed in Christian Brothers & Brothers
of Mercy Roman Catholic All Boys schools. My mother was friends with church pastors & most of their discussions went on behind
closed doors. So the Roman Catholic church did play a huge part in my upbringing & are probably largely responsible for the way
that my parents are towards me now about the matter. I am met with a huge wall of silence by my father & my mother instantly
changes the subject while turning the situation into an attack on me. So I guess noone is ever going to tell me the truth about it.
So I won't ever be holding my breath waiting for an apology from anyone involved.

[RiverdanceGirl]

Melody, it's really sucky isn't it? You really should have been allowed to choose. The ward I was in, all the intersexed children were being surgically made male. It was a mixed hospital ward so I don't think there was a part where intersexed kids were being made female. Nobody actually asked me what I wanted. Just fix him up as a functional male and screw what he feels he is or wants to be. Easiest way out I guess. Plop a testicle into a scrotum and bob's your uncle. My mum is quite supportive of my femaleness, but wasn't always, but then again she has Alzheimers. Like you say, religion played a key in my teens. I hope your parents will change their views and learn to accept who you really are. But even if they don't, you are who you are and that's a wonderful thing.

BTW, isn't Natalie Bassingthwaighte from Toowoomba?

[HairyBethCD]

I've never heard of an undescended testicle being considered intersexed. it's just one of those things and as someone said, fairly common. They're usually in your body when born and drop down later but sometimes one or both can't get through the gap. Happened to me. Saw a surgeon who tried to manipulate it doen externally but in the end had to have a small op to pop it down. What they are though is a slightly raised risk of testicular cancer in later life.
As for the nipple thing, over here it's called jogger's nipple and pretty much everyone I knew at school had it so some extend or another and it is amazing just how hard and disk like they are.

[Melody Moore]

Cryptorchidism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptorchidism) has the same genes as other intersex conditions associated with androgen or AMH deficiency or
insensitivity. It's also believed to be caused through the same processes during foetal development that also
caused other intersex & gender identity disorders such as transsexualism. EDCs are also believed responsible
& is also a strong possibility that the intersex condition is hereditary & can be passed on to future generations.

[sandra-leigh]

"jogger's nipple" is completely different; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fissure_of_the_nipple (note: not linked to as it contains an image.)

[CharleneT]

Having cryptorchidism does not mean a mild form of intersex exists in the patient. But it is true that in around a quarter of the patients, a diagnosis of cryptorchidism is concurrent with one of the intersexed conditions. How the un-decended testicle rests and its nature are strong predictors of a possible intersex condition.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10458421

It doesn't sound like you had gynomastica, it ususally presents as some breast development.

I was also bullied for feminine behaviors etc... till I started to suppress it more effectively (around 7th grade). The harrassment came roaring back in HS when I went thru puberty and started to rebel against my male developemnt. Although I did not have an un-decended testicle - that I know of *- I do have the retractile version of cryptorchidism.

* my parents are the sort who would never tell me about this sort of thing.

[RiverdanceGirl]

Well I've read the wikipedia page on Cryptorchidism and I'm actually now more worried than I was before. My condition was known at birth but I never had an x-ray or an ultrasound or any kind of hormone therapy. I wasn't asked or consulted or given any options at all. I was just told to wait until it got to the point that my teste was causing me pain and then they'd schedule me for surgery. When I was about 8 or 9 it started pushing through my abdominal wall whenever I did any kind of moderate physical activity. It was very painful and made me feel very weak. My parents were not supportive, often accusing me of pretending to have the pain in order to get out of doing things I didn't want to do and I'd have to pull down my pants and underpants in public to show them my swelling. I went into hospital and all I know is I had a large incision in my lower stomach that hurt like hell for months, and another incision in my scrotum which wasn't really that bad at all. I wasn't told anything about the nature of my surgery and how it would impact on my future life. I wasn't given any counselling or consultation about my gender identity before or after. I certainly did not feel a major increase in masculine confidence after the surgery as the wikipedia article suggests. I continued to dress in feminine clothing at every opportunity and enjoyed the typically feminine things I did before, and my fantasies about being somehow becoming female didn't change at all. You know how it is when you're young, you fantasize that there can be some kind of magical transformation that you can pretend was against your will so you don't have to explain that it's what you've always wanted.

One thing I've remembered about my nipple discs is that they were a bit sore for a year or two and occasionally itchy. Funny how you can forget things that later turn out to be important.

[Avana]

i also had the nipple thing when i was younger.

and now i have it again, hard-core (no pun intended), after 2 months on HRT

[Billijo49504]

After 7 months on the patch, the front inch of my breasts are very firm, and tender. And behind the firm area, they are soft. I've had 42C boobs hat are filling out nicely....BJ

[Kelsy]

Hahahaha, just like they tell you that your penis will fall off if you play with it. LOL

.

They told me that I would go blind. Now my eyesight is not that good!!!

Doesn't everybody get the hard painful nipples durring puberty?