Comment by johnward | Hacker News Reader

Comment by johnward | Hacker News Reader

I'm 28 now and I have hypogonadisn and have experience using T and other options like clomid. My total T was <120nd/dl. The lab range for this is usually 300-1000ng/dl. I was severely depressed. Moody and very angry. I experience "roid rage" in the opposite of what most people think. When my T is low I am a completely different, awful person. I literally thought I was going to kill myself.

I finally went to the doc. Got the blood work and was put ona low dosage of Testosterone. Enough to get me to the 500ng/dl range. My quality of life improved dramatically and I was the happy and productive person I used to be. I felt like I did in my early 20s instead of like I was approaching 50. Now I have to take clomiphene because the T kills my fertility. Clomid gets my hormones to the 500ng/dl range but I do not feel the same. My brain is "foggy". I'm not as sharp as I was. I'm up and down with my mood. On a higher dosage of clomid I even had experience where my brain just didn't make sane decisions. I rammed a car one time in traffic. I ran over my mailbox backing out of my garage, even though I did this thousands of times before.

Testosterone can be a miracle for some people. It saddens me that it get such a bad rep for being used/abused by athletes.

If anyone's ever watched the documentary "Bigger, Stronger, Faster*" they raise some interesting points questioning why steroids are demonized. Professional musicians take beta-blockers, athletes get laser eye surgery and take cortisone and opiate shots before/during competition, programmers take Adderall and Modafinil, male porn stars shot their penises full of drugs to stay erect for hours on end, etc. etc. Plenty of examples of professionals "cheating" without widespread media outcry and pearl-clutching about the sanctity of the profession.

Furthermore, taking steroids won't improve your muscle-memory, proprioception, agility, sports IQ, etc... In my opinion they should be allowed in sports in some limited cases, such as recovering from an injury, where it would be administered in a controlled environment by a licensed doctor to accelerate recovery. They're a very useful drug if used properly.

Unfortunately the problem is that they work too well. Every time they are legalized in a limited capacity they are abused in professional sports.

The effect is massively amplified if you give women drugs because they don't have testosterone levels like men do. Those records that were set in the 70's pre-testing will likely never be broken.

The issue is that if it is legal, there is a huge incentive to take it to an abusive point especially in a celebrity economy like what exists is professional sports.

In some sports, professional athletes are almost constantly injured. Off the top of my head I can give you MMA (UFC) and american football as examples but I'm sure there are many others.

Healthy sports end where competitive sport begins.[1]

Right now we have an arms race that barely keeps it at bay. It's not an ideal solution but I think its better than athletes fully abusing their bodies with massive amounts of drugs like they did back in the East German Olympic days.

For non-professional athletes, I agree with you. It should not be demonized to the extent it is.

1. Quote from Brecht, referenced many times, e.g here http://gladwell.com/drugstore-athlete/

The issue that athletes abuse the drugs seems like a problem the athletic association/league/body should prevent instead of classifying anabolic steroids as schedule III drug.

Agreed.

That's a great documentary. If you haven't heard of it: http://www.biggerstrongerfastermovie.com/

I do agree that it should be up to the professionals, but consider amateurs moving into professional sports.

If college football players can't take steroids, they will get __destroyed__ in the NFL. If college players can take steroids, then highschool players will stand no chance at moving up. Likewise, if you make it fine for high school players, middle school gets punished, etc.

I don't doubt that professionals could successfully regulate it and do it (mostly) responsibly. I have a severe lack of faith in desperate parents living vicariously through their kids in little league games.

I think you are being a bit generous in assuming that a steroid ban in professional sports means that they are not used. In practice, it means that they must use them clandestinely, but I wouldn't be surprised if a future analysis reveals most of our top athletes of today are using PEDs. Additionally, highschool athletes are generally untested, meaning that highschool is their one opportunity to get ahead by whatever means necessary before attempting to carry that advantage forward with more conservative approaches in college and professional sports.

It's hard t believe NFL players can maintain that size without some type of help. There is definitely a lot of unreported PED usage going on.

I got measured for low T. My urologist refused to approve TRT because according to him, there is no real "correct level" of testosterone, and that measurement is highly variable depending on the time of day. He kept telling me testosterone is not an antidepressant. Found another urologist who disagreed and told me to go through dhtcream.com. Still depressed, but I am growing more facial hair.

T can be part of depression but not the entire issue. I also found out a had sleep apnea which impacted my ability to think, my depression level, energy levels, etc. Normally if I am on T shots I am completely fine. If not I am up and down emotionally. If a doc isn't doing what you want you fire them, like you did, and find another.

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