My experience with Nuvaring

CW for anatomical terms

So I've been on T for almost 5 years now, and I started experiencing some signs of vaginal atrophy around the 2 year mark that only got worse with time. I wasn't entirely experiencing much dryness which was surprising to me, but most penetration left me with bleeding and pretty much any orgasm (penetrative or not) left me with cramping that felt very similar to when I was having severe period cramps in my teens.

At first I tried using the estrogen cream to treat it and it definitely helped my symptoms, but I was pretty bad at keeping up with consistently using it and found it a bit messy and uncomfortable so symptoms would usually return. I then started looking up alternatives on r/ftm and wasn't able to find a lot of helpful options, but I heard about the nuvaring and despite it's mixed reviews I wanted to try something that was more "set it and forget it".

Now I've been using the generic version of the nuvaring for about 5 or so months now and fellas this shit has changed the game for me. When I first started using it, I was getting cramps a lot more often but it was much less intense than before, and thankfully that has subsided and I only get cramps maybe two or three times a month and they're so much more bearable. Plus all other signs of atrophy have diminished so I don't have any more issues with bleeding or dryness and since it's birth control, my insurance is willing to cover it in full unlike with the localized estrogen options.

The biggest con that I've seen other people on this subreddit talk about regarding the nuvaring is the fact that it's effects aren't localized, and that part is true so my PCP and I have been monitoring my T levels to make sure that everything looks good. The weird thing though is that my T levels actually started going up after starting the nuvaring and we're still working through lowering them to a more average level.

Now all of this has just been what I've experienced, so I can't guarantee that this would help everybody trying to combat vaginal atrophy, but I haven't seen a lot of first hand experience discussed in the community surrounding the nuvaring so I figured sharing all of this may help someone figure out what options they have.

Good luck out there comrades!