Hey everyone ,
Definitely a bit outside my realm of comfort posting all this publicly, but in hoping I can get some intelligent responses here for my particular situation
Background
Age 25
Occupation - paramedic
Medication history - none ! Two bodybuilding shows as a “natural” bodybuilder. Never have touched a hormone altering substance
Everything was going great for me this winter , I finally nabbed my position as a paramedic, which I’ve been planning to keep as my career focus . My current job position with the company I work for is a "casual " position. Although this means I can take as much time off as needed, it also means there is no real structure to my work schedule , and many times am fatigued by night shifts running over 12 hours and having no solid sleep schedule. However also there are many nights where I am not busy and am able to catch sleep during my shift . There is no rhyme or reason to how I get my hours one week could be 4 consecutive nights at 3 different bases in our province ( lots of driving just to get to work )and the next week could be 5 day shifts . (All shifts are 12 hours but frequently can run way over depending on how the shift runs).
Sometime in March I started to feel a pain in my left nipple , at the time I disregarded this ( I wish I had seen a dr ASAP now) . Basically at this time I was at the peak of my "bulking " phase (where I was about 28 lbs over last contest weight ) and decided I would switch gears and do a dieting phase. Before the dieting phase had even started the pain in the nipple had subsided and I could tell some sort of growth had formed. I was t sure what to do here except for carry out my mini diet and see what happened with the lump after I had lost some fat . As I researched gynecomastia I learned way more and realized the only way to remove it wad thru surgery, and that instances of gynocomastia were common for overweight teens and in older men with decreasing levels of testosterone. Me being a healthy , natural , 25 year old I certainly didn’t fit the bill . However to add to this , growing up I believe I also had a bit of gyno from puberty( you can see a small amount in my profile pic, on the right side )
Since this has all happened I’ve seen a surgeon and I have a surgery date to remove the gyno, and I’ve also booked an appointment with my doctor where I will get blood work done to see how I stand currently.
The kicker here is that , if things in my blood are obviously off and I have to go on some sort of medication to correct the problem , I can’t compete in natural federations any more , as any sort of hormone altering substance is going to be banned. This sucks for me because it was a goal of mine to win an overall at a natural show , but in reality might not be hard for me to give up , if going on medication improves my overall health and we’ll being .
So my questions for the group are :
1-would getting on trt for someone who is going be doing shift work the rest of his life be beneficial ? I personally believe if I didn’t have this schedule I’d be 100 percent fine , my blood work might even come back 100 percent fine as if I say i take a week off work , get on a normal sleep routine, I feel awesome. But changing careers now isn’t something I’m willing to do , as I do love my job.
2- anyone have any guesses why I all of a sudden got gyno? I know the “bulking” part of the story may raise an eyebrow or two of suspicion , but when I think of logically , I’ve been waaaaaaaayyyy fatter Before with zero of these issues .
Very odd case/story I know , I hope some of you can take the time to read this and type back a response !
