Alright I’m sorry to bother you on you’re holiday however something happened that I thought you and everyone on here should probably know about. So, I had a final exam coming up, one of the super important exams that determines what course I get into after school, goes towards a decent portion of my atar, which is the Aussie equiv to GPA/SAT scores or however they do it there. Anyway as a child I had ADHD, so I took amphetamines (prescription) to counteract the hyperactivity, I stopped taking them when I was about twelve due to certain adverse effects (extreme appetite suppression, certain ones made me borderline psychotic, however I ended up on Focalin (dexmethylphenidate), which had no side effects besides the appetite suppression, but as I got into lifting weights I decided to stop using it due to the appetite suppression so I got my doctor to wean me off. Now I still have a huge bottle of this stuff lying about, I’ll explain how this factors in soon. Now earlier you said you’d never judge me, but I’m sure you’ll judge me to the extreme with what I’m about to say.
To study more efficiently and for longer durations for the final exam, I took 5mgs of dexmethylphenidate the day before the exam. I would like to point out this is not something I do on a regular basis at all, maybe individual five times a year to help study for exams, and that’s just started this year. Due to anxiety, I couldn’t sleep that night (and I had gotten up early the morning prior), so studied through the night, but found myself getting very, VERY tired at around 4AM, considering I had to get up in two hours, I couldn’t risk going to sleep and not getting up, so I took 200mgs of caffeine (pill form), and my body HATES caffeine, I get diarrhea, tachycardia, heartburn (no point into going into mechanisms here, I’m sure you guys know why this happens with caffeine), and then three hours later before the exam I took another 5mgs of dexmethylphenidate as it helps me concentrate for hours on end (seriously when I’m not on it my attention span is so short I have to study in 15 minute increments). Anyhow, that morning due to anxiety about the exam and the stimulants in my system I had a full on panic attack, something that I’ve never had before and it SUCKED, there was pain in my chest, rapid heartbeat, I was nauseous (HR was already rapid due to the stimulants), I knew it was just a panic attack but I couldn’t help but freak out. Anyway, I got over it eventually and I went through the exam (which went well I think, I was anxious for nothing).
So after I got back home and decided to workout, now at this point I hadn’t eaten or had any significant amounts of fluid in about 20 hours, I’d been awake for around 36-40 hours but I wanted to work out anyway, so during the workout my heart rate was very, very high and I had a tightness in my chest, and towards the end during some curls I started feeling light headed, my HR became irregular and extremely fast (atrial fibrillation, this had never happened to me before) and I was like “shit, better go lie down”, the reason I didn’t check into a hospital was because if I did I’d have to come clean about what I’d done, and with my doctors that’s a last resort, if I’d had someone like you or a doctor that was open to monitoring me I wouldn’t been more comfortable with checking myself in. Anyway, I was in bed and my heart rate didn’t go down that much, during afib I believe it was well over two hundred, and then while in bed it was 120, but an hour in, while lying down, my heart started beating rapidly and irregularly again, I got up because I was like “that’s it, gotta check myself in”, I was nauseous, sweaty etc. So I got up and fell down, then got up again and sat down for a minute, and the heart rate went back to around 120BPM, still tachycardia, and my heart was beating HARD, like serious palpitations, I was almost sure I was going to die, so I sent out some texts to anyone who knew what I was doing telling them that it was no one’s fault but my own and for no one to blame themselves, that if anything bad happens to me I have few regrets etc. I lied in bed and kind of accepted the fact that this might be the end, but eventually after what seemed like an eternity the symptoms subsided, my heart rate is still elevated when I walk, but resting it’s no longer above 100bpm. Now I’ve decided I’m not going to use 200mg post cycle anymore, I’m just going to use what the doctors prescribe me regardless if I feel like shit or not, and I’m never using stimulants to help me study ever again. 200mg would probs get me to 900-1000ng/dl, and although I feel great up there, todays scare was too much.
Now, I’m sure it was synergy, the stims, the anxiety, the exercise, lack of food intake (and likely low blood sugar, the testosterone and previous brief use of nandrolone and oxandrolone, the lack of sleep, dehydration and stress), however I don’t want to risk something like this ever happening again, I’m going to be laying off exercise for a while too. I can’t rule out the risk of AAS induced heart damage given my bad luck previously, do I have dilated cardiomyopathy? Have I caused cardiac damage on a molecular level? Who knows, potentially for the first one and probably for the second one, unfortunately I won’t be able to find out, as I can’t go to a doctor and be all like “hey, I’ve used AAS”, which then goes back to my doctor giving me TRT, I get pulled off TRT and a whole new set of problems arise.
Anyway, today fucking sucked, if I stop posting or coming online just automatically assume something bad has happened to me. @physioLojik I don’t know you in person, therefore I don’t know whether you’d be concerned about this, probably not as you don’t know me in person, I’m just putting this out here because I feel like it’s important and I’m putting this out as a deterrent for anyone else who does stupid shit like this. I was aware of the potential side effects/ interactions of the two stimulants, I just figured “well it’ll be fine if it’s just once, and it’ll help me get a better ATAR which is worth it”. It’s strange the stupid and irresponsible things things some of us will do and justify accomplishing what we REALLY want, like getting into med school as an undergraduate. Anyway, to anyone reading this, judge away. Will I die soon? Potentially, I don’t know, it’d suck if I did that’s for sure. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be comfortable using non-prescription AAS again.
@anon10035199 Whether this event was a consequence related to my blast there’ll never be a way to tell, however I do know that 17y/olds shouldn’t be having serious arrythmias from events like the one told above, considering there’s tons of kids my age who use METHamphetamine, drink to excess multiple times a week and they aren’t having any current heart troubles.