Aside from dyslipidemia…
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From Primo, are you sure?
I’ve never read that anywhere. Some run it year long anecdotally without any impact on bloodwork. The same people report that Anavar crushed their HDL into the ground.
Pretty sure it is tough on the lipids.
Primobolan crushes HDL (usually) and can jack up LDL depending on the dose/predisposition.
Not to the extent Anavar does though. A short run of Anavar at a reasonable dose can take someone from having say
HDL 45
LDL 105
To
HDL 10
LDL 250
Granted these changes are highly acute in nature
With primo say a 20-60% decrease in HDL and a 20-30% increase in LDL isn’t out of the norm.
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I chose to avoid dht derivatives once I learned that DHT is the main cause of prostate problems.
I considered Deca at a low dose(50-100mg) because yes it is very toxic on the heart neurologically and physically. However, I hypothesize that the blood pressure can be monitored with a blood pressure monitor and supported with magnesium supplement and omega 3 for example. Thus it is dangerous but somehow I would rather have heart surgery than prostate surgery at age 70. (absolute worst case scenario). of course I could be completely wrong
Do you think this is actually a huge concern? I’m a bit on the fence about it and think that since it is highly acute and we are not talking about perma blasting, the effects should be negligible in all likelihood. Also, if there’s one side effect I could choose if I had to choose one, it would be dyslipidemia. All others are usually worse imo and often more permanent in nature.
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Not acutely… Or perhaps even over an intermediate duration of time
You could probably go five straight years with HDL 20 LDL 130 or something without serious detriment.
The effect is cumulative, no one runs one blast… Or at least very few only run 1-2 and call it quits.
The cumulative exposure over one decade + of bad lipids is a concern.
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The health risk knowledge today is way more than anything available in the '70’s, '80’s, and ‘90’s. When I started it was exclusively Dianabol. It was 1971 when I started with a prescription for 30 days of 10mg of Dbol per day. After a couple of 30 day cycles I bought a PDR (Physicians’ Desk Reference) and looked up all the anabolic steroids it contained. I read the details of Dianabol, Winstrol, and Anavar. There was very little in depth specifics. (I bought an updated one a few years later and found two more orals: Halotestin and Anadrol.) I don’t recall seeing either Deca or any injectable testosterone. I started my first Deca at 100mg/week in 1977; and my first testosterone at 200mg/week in 1978.
Most all the steroid information was word of mouth. In those days only one was considered risky, Anadrol. When I used Anadrol it was only 50mg per day and for between 3 and 4 weeks at the start of a cycle and changed to another oral for the remainder of the 8 or 12 weeks of the cycle (contest cycles were 12 weeks).
Word of mouth in those days held Primobol acetate as the Holy Grail of the steroids for contest prep. I never had the opportunity to try it, but it was considered about worthless for adding size and strength (do know that we took much lower dosages than is common place today).
So for all the years of taking AAS’s I, thus far, don’t seem to have any long lasting consequences for their use. I should say I got Dermatamyositis when I was 48 which totally removed my capability of ever being capable of a physique worthy of being on stage. I had what was know as a cyclic version and fought may cycles of flare ups until I was selected for a test group for the use of rituximab as a treatment for Dermatamyositis. BTW, the disease affects women twice as often as men. And at the time, via a national support group for my disease, I found not even a weight lifter that had the disease, much less a steroid user. But of course, as people will talk, some claimed that the AAS’s caused my disease.
So, age 48 was the last year I did any AAS cycles. But due to some rather low testosterone, I started TRT at about the age of 58. So at 72 I still am plugging along, trying to retain as much muscle as I can.
In conclusion, though I am a very small sample size of 1, I believe AAS’s (70mgs/wk to 600mg/wk) can be cycled over many years and not be your undoing. So far, at least…
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Thanks for sharing.
Have you or anyone you know had trouble peeing from enlarged prostate or prostate cancer? I have never heard of anyone personally who had that problem, only have read about it. They say that if someone has their prostate removed, often the life gets really difficult. no erections and hard to control the bladder. I’m curious if steroids really cause this… because in any case it can happen to a non-user as well.
I agree to a degree. I think there’s even a huge difference between a cumulative five year period and a strung together five year period.
5 years blasting >>>> 5 years blasting in 3 month cycles over a 10+ year period >> a few blasts over a decade > no blasts and TRT or no AAS
The time given for the body to reverse remodeling in an ideal case (granted: no dyslipidemia off cycle, no high blood pressure,…) is in my opinion equally as important as how much you are on cycle with bad lipids. Ideally you are way less time on cycle than off. Arteriosclerosis takes time to develop and can be reversed if parameters are in line and the body has enough time.
So, I agree that it is a concern over decades of on and off cycling but I think how these decades are composed plays a big role and damage prevention can definitely be achieved.
Sadly, we don’t know the dynamics well enough to give clear guidelines. I think the time on = time off is an absolute bare minimum requirement and probably not enough for damage prevention.
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That’s good to know, thanks.
I’ve been lucky with HDL, it’s always been around 75-80, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens with Primo and Anavar.
For what it’s worth I’m thinking of adding something like 10-15 mg/day of either to my 18 mg/day of Test C. I’m not looking to run huge blasts, just TRT+ here and there and maybe even permanently as I keep an eye on my cholesterol and run regular ultrasounds to monitor my heart
I have no idea. I’d think 5 cumulative years, then going off forever supercedes being on and off (time on = time off) rule for decades on end.
That’s why I added in the 10+ years so it would be clear that I don’t mean 30 years. But the same time in around double the period.
Perma blasting forever > blasting and cruising forever > everything I wrote before
Everyone has different genetics as it pertains to both positive and negative response to AAS’s. I only have an idea how my body has responded, and as I have said before, I am a sample of 1.
I have been blessed with low cholesterol. My total cholesterol has always tested below 150. But I never had HDL numbers included in my blood tests until the 2000’s, so I don’t know how low they dipped during my AAS cycles. The '70’s, '80’s, and most of the '90’s, most of my cycles were 8 weeks “on” followed by 4 weeks “off”. I quit all injectables two weeks before my cycles ended, which means the last 2 weeks was all orals. I wanted to feel like I actually had a full 4 week “off” period. So, for the most part my ratio of weeks “on” to weeks “off” was 2:1. In 1997 I quit AAS’s altogether, at the age of 48 years and 9 months. Still alive and counting my blessings, knowing fully that life is fragile.
Disclaimer: I don’t advise anyone that what I did is safe for everyone. We all are different on how our bodies respond. I will say that I consider myself on what I call the “Goldman Dilemma spectrum”. That is, I was willing to accept the risk for the reward I was hoping to achieve, but not to the total extent of the Goldman Dilemma. But I was on that “spectrum”.
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You definitely did a lot better than the original spec that Goldman had of 5 years. Later studies indicated much less bravado towards the offer.
Here’s the problem with all this talk in generalities and mean response. Unless you are genuinely interested in the science and like statistics, boring math, etc do you really care? N=1 is all that matters to you.
Are you the top data point in the AAS user bin or the bottom data point in the non-user bin?
Murphy’s law guarantees you that you won’t even be in the distribution; instead you’ll be way over in right field in this case.
In you want to be healthy, don’t use AAS. There is no healthy stack and any AA regimen including AAS (besides TRT testosterone which we all can’t agree on anyway) will be an accelerated aging regimen not an anti-aging regimen.
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@bfg1
I didn’t read every post so forgive me if i missed it but what is your cycle history? Most of the posts on here suggest you really didn’t do much research on the compounds you propose to use.
Include @disciplined_trt, @spiceweasel and @wsmwannabe on that list. Detailed, sharp dudes.
Go Team! Now back to your daily infusion of EDCs and xeno-estrogen filled lifestyle broght to you by modern science and technology :-).
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Please note, I incorporated the use of the word “spectrum” to denote that I was willing to assume some risk (on a sliding scale of risk, where one end is no risk and the other Goldman’s death result in five years)) for a desired benefit.
I like the Goldman Dilemma, because I believe everyone who is thinking about AAS usage needs to understand the that there are many who are willing to risk all for a great moment in time, only to die shortly thereafter.
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Did you generate the data for this histogram to make a point?
I base all my decisions on real data, if available. Murphy’s Law is a defeatist attitude that I refuse to accept.