I only consider future blasts on the basis that my health is good and tests come back healthy. If my health is anything otherwise I will do the necessary to bring back in to homeostasis in the most applicable way based on my body and brains requirements… Note : tomorrow @ 8am I’ll be calling my GP surgery for a same day appointment to come clean with my doctor. I will engage in harm reduction and necessary tests. WILL UPDATE THIS POST
PS- workout today first
One back did a full body and was feeling shakey and off, almost light headed and
Heart was pumping unusually hard. I definitely didn’t feel well and I can see why I’ve put off training in the last week: I definitely don’t feel well. Bad brain fog and definite depression symptoms with bad chest tightness and pain
Man that’s the worst. You can play through some physical discomfort, but mental pain and fog are a different animal. Hope you feel better.
I have to absolutely concur here : the Brian fog and lack of ability to clutch to any positivity is far outweighing even the worry of heart issues… however I’m looking forward to tests this week and as a result of confiding on this forum I have now plucked up the courage to see an NHS GP … if it’s too judgemental and lacking in knoweledge ill
Take the plunge and go private… will update
There’s a clinic in the UK that caters to AAS users, I don’t recall the exact location/name of said clinic.
So… brain fog is worse than death… okay
Get cardiac imagine/testing done… now… for those who acquire AAS induced autonomic dysfunction (such as myself… although I have mild autonomic dysfunction to begin with… with or without AAS) the effect is rather immediate, it doesn’t suddenly start after years on.
Testosterone does appear to alter iron metabolism… if you’re iron deficient it could theoretically induce heart palpitations/exaggerated increase associated with exercise. However given AAS are prone to inducing alterations within cardiac morphology/function… this isn’t something you’re going to want to wait out… get checked, and lower the dosage
Check BP, RBC/HCT… there are numerous mechanisms by which you could potentially have heart palpitations. The worst case scenario is cardiomyopathy (even in which case if caught early AAS induced cardiomyopathy may be reversible). Though unfortunately HBP can easily induce extensive LVH.
Expertly written. My appointment is at 11.50 in less than an hour… Not even sure how explain why my dosage crept up to 1200 other than the stated 400-1200 dose on the said website product information form for the test e
man, I COMPLETELY forgot about him! He was so great. I honestly had to google Johnny Perry.
That’s still a very short list. And you HAVE to expect early deaths from time to time in strongman, football, any sport where people are abnormally large. I strongly doubt that the percentage of strongmen over 300 lbs dying young exceeds the percentage of the general population over 300 lbs dying young. Let’s say like before the age of 45. Obviously I have no data to support this, but the fact that strongmen aren’t dying left and right, and plenty are living healthy lives well past 50, tells me that the associated risk of the steroid use is likely low.
I have heard CT Fletcher say he thought using AAS was healthier than being really heavy. I think he was both using drugs and was really heavy. He has paid the price too with several heart surgeries. Probably not an individual who will live to be 80.
I think risk of steroid use is low if used responsibly. Golden era guys in BBing seem to have pretty normal life spans (I am sure they were fairly heavy users, but not compared to current pros). I think the guys from the 90s and on will have a shortened life span.
That was off the top of my head, I’m sure that if we knew the amateur ranks statistics there have been a lot. Truthfully though, most don’t just drop dead. The price for long term cruising at high dose is high though. Most guys simply cannot, and drop out after a short run. No one really talks about what those high doses cost down the road, they just insist that everything is fine and the problems are always due to something other than the PED’s. That’s not honest or fair, guys end up misinformed about the cost.
Actual study of test effects
So that link is an endocrine study. They had to terminate the portion of subjects receiving 600mg a week because of the negative health consequences measurable short term.
I think older guys had better conditioning overall and to an extent were just tougher. They did cardio to get lean, not HGH and Tren. Better drug knowledge and development is actuaaly negative health wise to newer guys, IMO.
Yeah, they were smaller. Zane and Colombo were about 190 lbs at competition. Arnold who was taller was about 240. Guys now are much bigger on the pro level. Overall size plays into it as well. Access to drugs was less. I don’t think tren or HGH were around in Arnold’s day.
One study I read (I think Unreal linked it above) looked at long term AAS user’s hearts. The results were not good. However, the average dose in testosterone (other drugs were converted to a dose of testosterone) was 675 mg/wk, and the average time on was at that dose was 460 weeks. That is heavy usage. Some in the study were over a gram, and well over 500 weeks at those dosages. I’ll link the study in case it was in another thread.
These study participants are playing with fire IMO.
There was also a study recently released that said 300mg/w for 20 weeks had no statistically significant impact on a wide range of health markers. But 600mg did in fact have an impact. None of that is earth-shattering (higher doses are more harmful than lower doses, no shit) but it’s interesting that 300mg was not really dangerous in any measurable way.
What would you all consider a health concious cruise / blast dosage to be whilst remaining effective for muscle building and retention?
I think the problem with yourself will be the fact that you’ve ran 1200mg of test for a year, you’ve missed out on getting the same gains at a much lower dose. I feel that your going to run into problems when your body doesn’t respond so well to that dosage that you up it again or add compounds to continue to improve.
As said previously go on a proper trt dose and give your body plenty of time to recover , You’ve been blasting for a year , you’ve gotta give your body the time it needs to recover and thats much longer than 12 weeks. People get bloods and because the markers are in the Green they use that as an excuse to jump straight into another blast. Think about the abuse and strain you’ve put your body through for a year , that’s why people blast and take the same time off to recover health markers.
If you read that study carefully it explains that they could not find a link between AAS users and cardiac dysfunction out side that of the common causes of cardiac issues in life in general. This can be found in the discussion towards the bottom of the paper. Clearly states there’s no link between the two specifically
150-200mg/week depending on where that puts you
For how long and what blast dose also for what duration
You should probably just focus on the cruise, figuring out the lowest optimal dosage and maintaining that for some time before considering blasting dosages. It will be a while before you blast again and you’ll have lots of time to read and figure that out.
This can be found in the last few paragraphs of the study, Under discussion section at the end as mentioned by two people on this thread to support an argument that seemly contracted in the very material they’ve quoted ? Unless I’m wrong ,
It reads :
“It is noteworthy that our analysis revealed no significant relationship between cumulative AAS use and cardiac dysfunction. This observation suggests that AAS-associated cardiotoxicity might perhaps be only partially and unpredictably related to lifetime dose, in a manner similar to the cardiac toxicity of alcohol.37 Further work is required to determine whether cardiac function is influenced by factors”
Aim for 6 months with the intention to stay longer.