Steroids-Serious folks only

You guys are so full of information, thought i would ask one of my pet projects.

Ok, I have a muscular disease. My muscles do not heal as fast as yours, but they do which folks with MD do not.

Basically I have gone down hill the past ten years or so. I started using a cane, walker, crutch, wheelchair, electric wheelchair. Then pain killers, trigger point injections etc.

Long story short I saw the pain killers were not the solution, but worked great at first. I headed to a viatmin shop and ask for natural pain killers. They helped, then played dumb and asked what would they recommend for a body builder. They said protein, creatine and an anabolic steroid. So, I tried them all. They worked. I managed to almost get rid of all my pain minus some in my neck and I have managed towalk off and on. Since the ban on steroids they are harder to buy and not as strong, but I have bought some up for use later.

Basically I use twin labs andronitrate tablets 3, tbomb by mhp and twin labs tribulus fuel extreme. Although I do take a pill before I work out when I am up to it, on my bad days I take one and nap and wake up pain free if i had any minor aches and pains.

The only real downside I see since I do not plan on having kids and what it can do to my reproductive system is the weight gain. It seems to be a catch 22. I need to take them to exercise, but even doing so I gain weight and out grow my cloths where not taking them i seem to loose weight or get smaller like in the gut and other areas. I have a very busy routine between work, class and study so it is difficult for me to work out, infact i have not since August 20 or so. I did so an hour to hour and half daily. I plan on making some changes, but am currenty in this rut.

My other concern is steroids in the future. Can I get them from a sports medicine doctor or some other legal way?

thanks

Sorry for all these questions, but:

1. exactly what is the disease?
2. what does your physician say?
3. have you tried any other methods of treatment?
4. how did you determine your dosages?
5. have you talked with anyone who has used these steroids?

Again, sorry for the questions but, my concearn is prolonged treatmen my require larger doses of steroids. This is when problems begin to arise. More than Sterilization or weight gain. This is definately a situation you want to look into immediately to see if you are taking the proper steroids and dosages. AFAIK, the damage that can be caused by improper treatment may not be reversibe. Here are a few links:

http://www.steroids.org/treatment.htm
http://www.surgerydoor.co.uk/medical_conditions/Indices/S/steroids_tablet_treatment.htm
http://ms.about.com/cs/treatment/a/Steroids.htm

There shouldn't really be a problem getting steroids from a doctor, at least not in the short term. A short course of steroids can be akin to a miracle change, again, in the short term. If you cannot address the underlying problem though, as tiktok says, long term use is very dangerous and they will eventually cause you much worse trouble.

You need to find a doctor who knows how to properly treat you! If the ones you've seen in the past weren't doing any good you should find another.

There isn't anything bad, or illegal or questionable in taking steroids for a real problem for a reasonable amount of time. And a doctor should be willing to get you a real prescription for an actual drug while beginning the research and testing to find out whats really going on with you and eventually treat that.

It is dangerous to think that you can do this yourself over the long term. I think they also have a very negative impact on the immune system in general which over time leaves you open to nasty infections.

Yes, doctors have let me down. My heart doc seems to support it. My primary doc has seen me in a wheelchair and walking with a cane. He tells me I am fat and lazy when I use the chair and nothing with I was 75 pounds heavier and walking.

Its called marfan, www.marfan.org

Right now I take the regular dose or just half. I also cycle it as mentioned in the directions or take one every otehr day than twice a day. From what I read online about the products, most folks abuse them and take 2-3 times the dose to get great results.

Sorry about playing doctor. It does seem to work though.

First, I am NOT a doctor or a trained medical professional. Do not take what I am about to say as having any merit. You NEED to consult a licensed physician and not listen to me.

Ok, on with the show.

If you feel you need steroids and it has alleviated some of your pain I would recommend that you just keep trying doctors until you find one that will go along with your assessment.

Steroid use can in some cases cause liver and or kidney problems along with sterility, etc, etc. Though steroid use does not necessarily cause various types of cancer, they can cause it to surface in an otherwise healthy person who may not have had a predisposition for it to ever have surfaced.

One of the reasons for weight gain is the retention of water. You some times see people using them who have a "puffy" look about them, that's the water being retained (strain on the kidneys and/or high blood pressure). Some body builders will take steroids along with a diuretic to keep from retaining water. If they do not take a diuretic, it is very difficult to get that "cut" look they are after.

Let me further state that any "steroid use" without a physicians involvement should be considered "steroid abuse" as it should be monitored closely.

Purchasing steroids on the black market (I am not saying that you are, just cautioning you against it) is playing with fire. Some of those products are not safe and in some instances used on horses or other livestock and relabeled. Even worse, they may not be the correct dosage as indicated or even the same medication as the label states.

In short, taking steroids without first consulting a licensed physician could make you more sick than you are now.

Good luck to you,
Mike

I'd strongly advise you to consider seeing a specialist. Marfan syndrome affects your body in many ways, moreso than just muscles.

higher blood pressure and fluid retention from steroids, higher blood pressure and weakened aorta from marfans, and higher blood pressure from smoking. Sounds like a good way to really aggravate the situation.

But really, you know more about your situation than any of us. Nobody here can give you a real solution as nobody here can write you your prescriptions.

Good luck!

Well..... you do not know till you ask.

But seriously, dont critize. My dad smoked from age 14 to 50 and he is still alive and had no ill effects. I smoked for 2 years now, no signs. I take abeta blocker for my heart since childhood. My heart valve use to leak, it shrank as I grew and quit leaking. Yearly I get a battery of tests done and no change in health from taking roids or smoking minus the weight gain. Frankly I am surprised they said I look great despite the fact i weigh 75 pounds more than before and can walk short distances without my chair. My blood pressure has gone down since I started smoking and taking roids to manage my pain. I use to have below normal pressure till the pain kicked in a few years ago. I use to heart my heart beating in my ears and it times i could not hear too well at least quit noises.

Nothing relieves my neck pain from being over a desk or book than to light up. Considering the alternative of pain killers that make you too tired to function, likely to cause damage to your liver and what not.

Seriously, think about the next time you visit your doctor. Did he really help you, or did time heal you?

Only major medical things that I've seen a doctor for lately:

-- irregular heartbeat. Gave me a beta blocker, told me to get off my fat *** and lose weight and stop taking caffeine. I did. It went away and I stopped using the beta blocker.

-- LASIK. A machine cut my eye open, then lased it with a UV laser. Now glasses are a distant memory.

All doctors don't know everything about every condition. The heart doctor I went to wouldn't know the first thing about LASIK. The eye doctor probably only has an elementary understanding of hearts. No one doctor is all things to all people. And I doubt either of them knows too much about marfan. In the end, humans are only human.

gotta do what you gotta do Cobb /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif There are Steroids that a doctor can give you that will be a lot less toxic than the anabolic ones, but if you don't feel any problems from them then you're not likely to bother doing that.

Since you're a triple threat from high blood pressure (or maybe worse if earlier use of pain meds damaged your kidneys) then you really do need to monitor it. Sounds like you're doing that. Hope you're also monitoring it for spikes after dosing and smoking cause those are at least as dangerous as your overall resting levels, if not more so.

What good are a few more years if you're so miserable now that you won't be sane when you get there? If the smoking is so much help for your pain, and if you take the time to make sure that it's not bringing you closer to sudden death due to an aortic aneurism then do what you want to do.

You might want to consider some regular pain meds once in a while too. Tylenol/alieve are metabolized through different paths and you can actually take them together once in a while as long as you don't overdose on any single one. And it's perfectly safe to take ibuprofen too as long as you keep the dose reasonable, or if you need to higher dose then take a break from it. You've got enough choices to rotate your solutions. Not being a doctor though I don't know if that will help your overall mortality chances though.

I've got no idea what any of that will do to you long term or short term. If you're going to decide that doctors are no use to you then you need to take care of yourself. You might want to try some study of those things somewhere other than a flashlight bbs so that you can be better informed, though it sounds like you've made up your mind about them /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif but that doesn't mean that you should fish around to find others who agree that, steroids won't hurt you, smoking wont hurt you and doctors are no use just to make you more comfortable with your choices. For most people those are false assumptions, for you personally there might be some merit to it.

Good Luck!

Come on guys, I can understand the generic warning, but none of you take HGH or any known form or a steroid? Ive met a few guys at GNC when I shop there that take it and read about people taking it in those muscle magazines. Its not like its a strange chemical to most males.

Yes, I assumed having MVP that my cardio doc was one to run smoking and steroids by. He said they were ok, but did not wanting me to take diet pills or anything with that phenfan(SP?) in it. Besides my condition I am healthy. Basically my muscles take a while to rebuild. So, a walk around walmart with a cart as awalker results in my back aching to the point i can not stand up and i need 4 days of bed rest to recover. Problem is, I have maybe a day a week to sleep in, so I need some outside help and pain killers do not cut it, they fade you need more and more and while taking them its harder to think and stay awake. With steroids I get by with 5 hours sleep, work out twice a day work and attend class and feel great to a jerk or ten years younger, I am currently 27. I do not feel any ill effects like i do with caffeine, red bull, etc.

James, Ive said that before I started. I rather die of my heart ripping apart in my sleep or working out, than to slowly fade away in a nursing home. My 65 year old man spends his days with hip pain, back pain, shoulder pain, popping pills that you see ads for on the nightly news for cholestrol, frequent use of the bathroom and what not. He spends his day sleeping, napping, eating, snacking. My mom is a year or so younger, she was riding go carts at 40 and at 60 her hands do not work, they are like flippers. She too had hip and back pain and take celebrex and what not. Several years ago we use to compare symptons, however my folks were just older than me, while I had this condition.

Ive lived at 2 different rehab centers and with my folks and currently depend on a wheelchair to get around. I can walk short distances, but not long ones and my 11 hour days are a bit much for me without roids. I do not take the full dose half the time and i cycle them as recommended or more.

Well, I asked.