A different question. As someone who had to recover from Achilles tear and had to rebuild an atrophied calf muscle.
Why don’t we just give anabolic steroids to people if their muscles atrophied after wearing a cast?
Why don’t we just give anabolic steroids to people if their muscles atrophied after wearing a cast?
As a result, when you end your cycle, your body needs to restart its natural test production. There can be a delay while this happens and it leads to unpleasant, though temporary, side effects, like weight gain and a loss of sexual appetite. This can be mitigated somewhat by taking estrogen regulators such as Clomid, which is a prescription drug for women.
Anyway, the upshot of all this is injecting steroids in men is sort of complicated. For your rehab scenario, your doctor would have to monitor your test and estrogen levels as you end your cycle. For moderate cycles like with your calf rehab, the dangers are vastly overblown in the media, but the short-term side effects can be bothersome.
Note that women don’t face these issues and indeed women can take convenient oral steroids like eg Winstrol without having to inject test to compensate for their natural production getting shut down, because they hardly have any natural production to begin with. Indeed, ethics aside, the arguments for women to do a very moderate cycle for your rehab scenario or just athletic performance are pretty strong.
Why not just slowly taper it off?
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_androgen_receptor_mo...
The issue is compliance - nobody really wants to inject themselves every day or every other day.
(Well, I know why—like you said, compliance. But c’mon, left cheek on Monday, right check on Thursday, easy enough.)
Also there are several steroids with different half-lives, so you can pick the best for your case.
As others in this thread have pointed out it’s not necessarily a good approach for healing a tendon, and could be counterproductive.
Back in the day when designer “pro-steroids” (basically tweaked pro-hormones that metabolized into anabolic steroids in the body) were widely and legally available from supplement manufacturers, I had a bone graft surgery scheduled and wrote to the chemist who had developed one of the better products to get advice on a cycle for my recovery. This is anecdotal of course, but my surgeon told me that when she was fixing up the bone she realized it was in worse shape than the MRI had indicated and she puts the odds of success at 50/50. She was amazed at the speed and completeness of my recovery. I still have Frankenstein scars where the stitches were because my skin had “healed so quickly” that the stitches were difficult to remove and left gnarly holes.
I like to think that the supplement tipped the odds in my favour. Despite the well-established benefits of anabolic steroids on bone healing, the stigma around them means they are almost never prescribed even in bad cases. YMMV, but other than a few friends commenting that I a bit of an asshole while on the cycle (which could have just been the misery of post-surgery), I suffered no ill after-effects and actually put on a few pounds of lean mass despite being largely convalescent.
And it seems there is good reason to have it be a prescription: Some of the side effects aren't wonderful and it would seem reasonable to at least get regular blood tests if you are taking it. It is just benefits sometimes outweigh the risks.
See it come across as "I got 2nd place in a men's triathlon. I found out the winner is on TRT, which is not allowed. How do I get them DQed so that I can rightly claim my medal?"
Which to me makes sense, but age groupers don't get any blood testing done, so it's a bit of a he-said she-said thing.
The clearest reasoning for why anabolic or androgenic steroids' are NOT given in the context for recovery strength or function in a professional medical setting are that:
- it has unintended consequences that can be severe
- it has unintended consequences that can be long-lasting
- the expected consequences of use are more harmful than the regular recovery
- and that these can be quite harmful, enough that the use of AAS isn't necessary.
and finally the primary goal post surgical:
> One of the most important considerations in selecting operative versus nonoperative treatment is the risk of rerupture. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7031433/
Quite a few responses are getting into details of AAS use that isn't quite correct based on my understandings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothalamic%E2%80%93pituitary...
The hypothalamus releases GnRH which tells the hypophysis to stimulate the testicles. The hypophysis releases LH which tells the testicles to release testosterone.
If there's too much testosterone, the GnRH release of the hypothalamus is inhibited. If there's too little, it is stimulated. Through this mechanism, testosterone levels are regulated.
Introducing exogenous testosterone can seriously screw with this system. The extra testosterone causes negative feedback on GnRH and LH, decreasing or stopping natural testosterone production: hypogonadism.
Physical therapy does not have these risks and is effective at recovering functionality. Perhaps a specialist would use anabolic steroids in case physical therapy alone isn't enough.
I have a tendon/pulley injury that doesn't seem to want to heal and I've been researching it. At least one relevant study.
There is one Dr. in my area (a gyno of all things) that has a website promoting his practice using it. So has at least a sheen of professionalism.
i climbed seriously as a kid until like 22 ish. then didn't for 7 ish years. it's now close to 2 years back (sep 24). I think that's the main issue, my skill/strength is higher than my fingers. Though I'm still decently strong just have pain/days I can't do much and fingers are weak compared to what I used to have.
what about you?
I've been thinking of seeing if this local Dr. has any ideas, it sounds like you have to get the peptides injected near the injury which freaks me out. Don't mess with my fingers!
And subcutaneous injections are so easy you dont even feel them, I pin daily every morning with my coffee and it takes me 20 seconds using a super-slim insulin needle.
I know a lot of serious athletes swear by it and I definitely feel the effects.
It's hard to describe the sensation it doesn't hurt too much (though tapping into tight areas does hurt a bit). You can feel the change in how the tendon/whatever passes current when connected.
Like at first when really tight the finger doesn't really twitch but after a bit when it releases it goes wild.
Afterwards I'm weak for the afternoon and then feel looser after. I might equate it to an intenseness massage or Myofascial release treatment but highly specific for my inside the arm tendons.
I recommend it, but I would think only with an actual Doctorate PT.
Within a few months of cortisone it felt great and didn't have mobility issues (I had scar tissue buildup that was cuasing trigger finger too) and now a year and a bit later its 100% functional with no pain and full mobility/range.
worth a try.
Nothing. Nada. No perceptible difference. I am…passingly acquainted…with injectable performance-enhancing drugs, and TB-500 and BPC-157 just did nothing for me.
Nor did they for a good friend. Now, that is a tiny sample size, and largely meaningless. (Did our supplier actually manage to get ahold of or synthesize a complex long-chain peptide? Shrug!) But there’s my 2 cents.
Anyway, I went and injected both the peptides for 15 weeks, and after over a year of having a completely messed up shoulder, it fixed it well enough that I can surf.
I was going to transfer to a US office to get the surgery done, but covid fucked up my transfer. I'll probably never compete in a powerlifting event again, but I can surf and that's good enough for me.
I injected 0.25mg of BPC-157 twice a day(near the shoulder) and 3mg of TB-500 every 3.5 days (into belly).
Disclaimer: not a doctor, just my experience. I bought them off random websites which in hindsight was insane. I was depressed and desperate. If you can get it from a real doctor/clinic, it would obviously be much better.
One thing to note -- you don't need to inject BPC at the site of the injury. Subcutaneous anywhere on the body works just as well. Your body will direct the peptides to the fibroblast (healing) areas where it is needed.
Not sure if sourcing is illegal on HN. If you have any suggestions I can't tell what is legitimate online or not. or if this is not good I have an email in my profile if you are willing to share
E: I should add both compounds can have severe side effects. Testosterone cycles can destroy your natural test production and HGH can have undesirable side effects. It makes things grow indiscriminately so you really have to do it with good medical advice. There are ways to prevent and manage the negative side effects.
Edit: Oh and specifically for steroids - one of the things that -can- (dunno how frequent really) happen is that your muscle strength growth outgrows your connective tissue (such as your Achilles tendon) growth rate and you end up with more connective tissue damage. Maxing out your muscle growth rate might be the best strategy, especially when recovering from connective tissue damage.