The nurse practitioner didn’t seem to worried about it, and I’m not to worried about it either. I mean obviously it is something I need to take seriously, BUT I think it’ll be easily reversible, especially if I can get the sleep study and CPAP.
I’ve been running 200mg/wk Test C and it keeps me around 1000-ish so I’m thinking I’ll drop it down to 150/wk for now.
Initially I was a little upset at the idea of having to not run cycles before competitions, but both of these last two comps I was making great progress on TRT only and then hopped on cycle anyways. So it’ll be interesting to see what I can do on TRT only for my next comp.
Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about 1000 ng/dL if you were doing ED or EOD, but on 2x a week, you are probably up near 1500 for a bit. I think 150 mg/wk is a good starting point.
Yea, another thing I have to remember is that my last 3 cycles have all been with pretty harsh compounds. I spent ~39 weeks on cycle between 4 July 2020 and 16 October 2021, which is about 65 weeks. All 3 of those cycles included nand, tren, or both. I probably just need to chill out a bit and save those types of compounds for the really big comps.
Jesus, I hadn’t thought of it like that until just now. It’s no wonder I had this issue pop up. I am glad to have caught it now. I think it is still easily reversible and not a big deal as long as I chill for a while.
I think Test alone is pretty good for strength sports. It won’t get you to the WSM, but it is pretty effective. Maybe a combo of Test and short duration of orals is a safer path forward. Maybe avoid the orals that add a lot of bloat as that will increase BP. I have noticed strength and endurance with Tbol.
Stop using before this turns to full blown CHF, it’s not worth it.
Data is indicative normalisation re cardiac function takes about 8 months. Take eight months off, take another Iook at your vitals.
40% isn’t “borderline”. Most ref ranges cut off for LVEF at 50 or 55%, for athletes typically 50%. Your left ventricle is pumping 10% less blood per pump relative to the lowest possible standard of what is considered normal. Mine was 65% (or 64%?) Three years ago, currently 60%. Whether that difference is pathological or not is unknown… my body took quite a beating over a six week period right before I turned 19.
Tren in particular is a cardiac killer. Mg/mg the stuff is just so potent. Think about it… how much test, primo or masteron would you need to use in order to simply replicate (strength gains or body composition) what you’d get on 200mg tren?
I think you’re looking at 600mg test minimum or 1000mg+ for the primo/mast
Caveat being, it’s actually gotta be trt. If your TT is above say… 1300ng/dl (barring astronomically high shbg) at any point or above 1000 as a cavg you are dosing too high.
If you say… peak at 1200 and nadir at 600, probably not the end of the world.
Many take say… 250mg/wk, nadir at 1,000ng/dl “I’m fine, my levels are only 1,000”… your peak is around 2x that.
Well I was wrong about that. Yesterday I got an arm cuff BP monitor during my cardio appointment, and this morning I used it and my wrist cuff BP monitor to see how accurate the wrist cuff is.
The wrist cuff said my BP was 120/74, the arm cuff said my BP was 140/65. Unfortunately, I have been using that wrist cuff for about 2 years now, AND I used it during some harsh cycles to check my BP. I assumed that the wrist cuff was accurate, and that is my fault for trusting it I suppose.
You’re right though, the gear has certainly been a large contributing factor in all of this, but the high BP hasn’t helped either, and in fact I would argue that I have been dealing with high BP for much longer than I have realized. In retrospect, it has been at least twice as many years as I have been running gear.
So the very first thing I need to do is get my BP in check, and the doc prescribed me with Metoprolol. I am supposed to take 1/2 pill 2x/day, but I haven’t gotten my prescription yet, it is coming in the mail, so I am not sure what that dose comes to. I don’t know much about it an have a bit of reading to do on it. It is a beta-blocker, I asked the doc if it would interact with my albuterol, which is a beta agonist, and I was told it would not, but I am not entirely sure I believe that.
I am not dismissing the use of gear as part of the issue, but I am saying that I have likely had high blood pressure for well over half a decade. stage 1 hypertension is the low end of all of the readings I am taking. It took me a couple of tries to get that. That was with no caffeine ingested yet today.
I am not looking to jump back on cycle any time soon. I guess I am just hopeful that there is some way to turn this around to get my LVEF back up to a somewhat normal level. The more I am thinking about it, the more I realize that gear usage is likely done for the rest of my life unless I want more issues.
So instead of continuing to drive your point about gear usage (which I fully understand), maybe a helpful hint or two on decreasing BP would be better and more productive.
Metoprolol will help, but beta blockers aren’t generally a first line tool for lowering BP
Watching (but NOT eliminating) salt intake, aerobic exercise, certain supplements (coq-10, celery seed etc) can help slightly
Otherwise meds like ace inhibitors/ARB’s will decrease BP and slightly improve LVEF/reduce and perhaps reverse a degree of the cardiac remodelling you’ve induced.
You’ve also got calcium channel blockers, alpha 2 adrenergic receptor agonists like clonidine (VERY sedating) and diuretics.
Can go into mechanisms behind each class of drugs if you’d like. You’ve already got a script for a beta blocker though. Chances are dropping the dose + low dose beta blockerbwill = acceptable BP. Systolic was only at 140
Thanks, I was reading the same thing you just mentioned about the beta blockers. I thought about going to a second cardiologist to see if they have a different regimen, or maybe just going back to my original cardio and asking them to prescribe something else (like an ACE inhibitor). With the (very limited) amount of reading and knowledge I have about beta blockers, it doesn’t seem to be the best course of action
I bought a treadmill yesterday so I can focus on and hit LISS hard (medium?) to help recover my EF. I have also started my metoprolol and CoQ-10. I have some Vit D/K2 mix coming as well as celery seed extract.
I cut back my cals a little bit to bring my weight down. I wanna walk around at about 235, and starting today, I am bringing my TRT down from 200-150.
I am getting stronger in the gym and I feel like I am really filling out my muscles, which is weird to me since I am getting stronger using minimal weight. I guess I am doing what would be considered “powerbuilding” at this point.
I hit an insanely easy 3x6 @ 225 on incline bench. This has not been very challenging weight for me for a while now, but I was surprised out how easy I cranked it out, even using tempo. and this was without elbow sleeves.
Overall my recovery for my lat is done at this point, so I suppose I’ll just continue with my strongman training sans PEDs. My cardiologist told me that as long as my lifting doesn’t affect my heart, I can continue lifting as I have been.
I have a stress echo scheduled for 11 Jan and a sleep study scheduled for Jan 3. I feel certain I will end up with a CPAP.