Am I too young??

[anabolicbruce]

Hey fellas, I am new to this forum, and find it much more intellectually stimulating than any other site!! I have been training since I was 16 (I am now 24), spent 3 years in the Marine Corps and now work as a nutritionist at an age-managment clinic. I cycled AAS since I was 20yrs old and competed in a couple of shows last year. Well, I have been getting my blood done through the clinic I work at and my levels have been consistantly low. Total test started at 405ng (I had been off juice for a year), then read 350ng in August, now it is 204ng as of last week. I am in the process of consulting with Swale, I just wanted to see what you guys think. If my level cannot go much higher than 400ng, am I too young for TRT?? Unfortunetly I never got a baseline before my use of AAS, possibly I have always been low-Ill never know. Just looking for some feedback and support. These numbers have me REALLY depressed. Thanks for your time-

AB

[Axl]

Mmmm, difficult to say. You tell so little about you. If you don't feel sick, and you don't have any problems, I would say: "Yes, you're too young". But then again, we just do not have enough info to make a good judgement on the matter...
Hang around, learn, get yourself tested a few times more, find a good doc in the meantime...and the answer will come by itself...
Sorry I can't give you a better answer.

[anabolicbruce]

Well. I don't feel as well as I know I could. I have done plenty of research on the subject along with a degree in physiology and the fact I work at an HRT clinic. I am looking for silmiliar situations and some positive feedback from my fellow bros. As a guy who all my life has been in tune with my body and always striving to improve my physique and performance, this can be rather depressing. I have noticed over the past few months that my drive and ambition has decreased.

[SPE]

If it's truly an issue(i.e. brain fog, no energy, no sex drive), then you should definately look into treatment further. I tested at 179, 302, 322 two years ago and was refused treatment(at age 23). I moved to Dallas due to a job and found a good doctor. In June I tested at 302 and my doc immediately put me on Androgel. I'm 25 now and although there isn't a great deal of long term studies on TRT for folks my age, I feel that I'm better off feeling normal and taking my chances, then feeling like crap and STILL taking my chances.

[anabolicbruce]

Thank you for your reply. I have the same attidude, why try to deal with a sub-optimal level rather than having a great testosterone level,

Do you find it inconvenient to have to apply the gel everyday?

[SPE]

I'm not on Androgel anymore, now on Test Cyp. No, the gel was pretty easy. Dries very quickly and very fast acting. My DHT was too high on it and I didn't like it making arms REALLY hairy. There are pros and cons with each delivery method. With the T Cyp, the cons are:

1) Levels tend to drop off a bit towards the end of 7 days

2) Injecting leaves ya sore for a day or two.

3) You have to rotate injection sites and worry about building up scare tissue.

But, I wouldn't go back to the androgel.

[piercj2]

Hey man, the same thing happened to me. I tried a three week cycle of m-ont-t and it has stunted my testosterone production for about seven months. Most people on this site are not honest about how bad the juice stunts your testosterone levels. Alot of the time, if you use them for more than six weeks at a time, your levels will be permanently lowered! These guys who are using steroids consistently have most likely permanently messed up thier testosterone levels. Another way to realize this, is too look around on these sites. Alot of the guys are in thier early twenties and are having sexual problems! I have never seen so many youngsters talking about sexual problems!!!! I am currently trying to tell people on sites like this not to even mess with the suff, if is a very complcated process trying to get your levels back up, and alot of people are not aware that thier levels are low. Using steroids is a good way to mess up your sex life big time!!!! I had to go on androgel after the cycle, and I am only 21. Going on androgel is not going do anything harmful. Your natural levels will rise while taking the drug. It really does not help with muscle gain or energy that much, if you ask me the stuff is kind of worthless.
Here is a good story explaining the harms of the juice


Strory 1



If I knew then what I know now...
Presented by: Todd Ganci

I grew up in a big family; I was the third of five kids, three girls and two boys. My father met my mother during World War II. My father was a Captain in the Army and my mother was a nurse in Germany.
My mother was, and is, a very hard worker. She's still into gardening and landscaping in her 70's. When she was in her fifties she leveled a huge hill in our back yard with a shovel. It was a hill large enough to take a bulldozer half a day to flatten; it took her the entire spring and summer. When I was a kid, she worked as a registered nurse, kept the lawn landscaped and manicured like something you'd see in Better Homes & Gardens. She always had great home-cooked meals on the table.
My father was an incredible athlete who made the Hall of Fame in high school football. He played pro baseball for awhile until he got hurt. He later ran marathons in to his 60s. He had me throwing a baseball when I was three years old. I remember playing eight-year-old Hash and pitching entire games without throwing a ball or allowing anyone to get a foul tip. Every inning was over in nine pitches. I played and loved many different sports. I was smaller in stature than other kids my age but I was always very strong for my size.
My brother, who was 4 years older than me, started hanging with the wrong crowd and began drinking and drugging at an early age. I remember seeing him drunk when I was 12 and he was 16, it shocked and saddened me. He was slurring his words and stumbling when he walked. I decided from that moment on that I wanted no part of drinking and recreational drugging.
I played baseball and hockey throughout high school. I started lifting weights after graduating from high school. I started with a plastic Kmart weight set in my room. I weighed 130 lbs and was bench pressing 150 lbs. Six months later, clueless about nutrition, without any drugs or supplements of any kind, I weighed 145 lbs and was bench pressing 340 lbs. I was working out three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, training only upper body. I knew nothing about nutrition, my diet was horrible and it was way before the age of any decent supplements of any kind. All that was available was desiccated liver tablets and clumpy egg protein that tasted like it was formulated on 3 Mile Island!
I entered a few local teen bodybuilding contests. I went in green, white as a sheet and totally oblivious. I didn't realize you had to diet and tan prior to entering bodybuilding contests - - it was ugly. The second contest I entered I was competing against bodybuilders who would later go on to win Mr. Universe.
I entered 3 more contests 100% natural over the next 2 years. I was pretty much the only natural competitor in the contests; it was before the age of drug tested competitions. My best placing at the time was 5th.
I continued training hard, drug-free for a total of four years. Most of the time I was training every day, four hours a day, seven days a week. I was working out at a gym where almost every guy was juiced to the gills. Even though I was 100% natural I was still stronger than most of them. Four years after I began working out I weighed 170 lbs, I was benching 370 and squatting 405 for 10 (all the way to down - not high chair squats). A couple of the guys who were juicing used to razz me calling me Mr. Natural. I used to say stuff like "You guys haven't been clean since the Pilgrims landed,” or “you guys must be helpful around the house breast feeding your baby brothers with that gyno!"
I started training even harder. Eventually I was constantly injured. My body couldn't recover from the intense workouts, over training and lack of nutrition. I got tired of limping around having people ask me “how’s it going old timer?”
I began to contemplate trying steroids, so I starting researching them. One of the books I read was the Underground Steroid Handbook which seemed to promote and glorify the use of steroids. In my opinion, if someone's on the fence about trying steroids reads this book, they'll most likely try them. (One of the author's of the book passed away in 2000 at the age of 48.)
I also ran the idea of steroids by my allergist. He told me I shouldn’t take them because if I ever had an allergy attack, I wouldn’t respond to steroids if they were already in my system. I believe he, like many others, was confusing anabolic steroids (i.e., Testosterone) with catabolic steroids (i.e., Prednisone). I did so much research and read so many conflicting reports, my head was spinning
After researching for close to a year, I finally decided to try steroids. I made an appointment to see a German doctor who wrote scripts for lots of the guys at the gym. This guy was a lunatic! I walked in his office and with no warning, he stuck a syringe filled with B12 in my arm, pulled it out of my arm and stuck it in my friend’s arm. The same syringe! I was glad he jabbed me first!
He then asked,” What can I do for you”? I asked “would you write me a script for Anavar and Winstrol”? (Two of the least toxic oral steroids).
He responded “That's it? Here, look through my book and this list.”
I ended up walking out with a stack of scripts. In the early 80’s steroids were inexpensive and available at most pharmacies. 100 – 2.5 mg Anavar were $14.
The first day I took steroids I was absolutely terrified! I started with it dose so low, most mice wouldn't kick off it. My first cycle consisted of 1 – 2.5 mg. Anavar per day. I told almost no one that I was on juice. Prior to cycling I was the same strength as my training partner who was juiced to the gills. We were both benching 370. The fourth week into my minuscule cycle I started to kick. During a chest workout I told my training partner I wanted to go for a max. He said, “You barely got 370 last week, there's no way you’re going to do more weight now.”
I put 380 on the bar and it went up like nothing. Then 385. Then 390. Then 395!
He was floored! He yelled, “You’re on juice!”
I replied, “No I’m not, it’s Shift Amino Acids.” Shift was an amino powder that mixed like sand in water. Soon half the gym was buying cases of the stuff. One friend of mine claims he still has a couple cases in his garage to this day.
Quality natural supplements, proper nutrition and information about steroids weren’t available back then.
If I knew then what I know now, I never would have tried steroids.
I had trained very intensely for four years without any drugs or supplements. Once I began cycling steroids I upped the intensity by 1000%! My current training partner was more interested in cracking jokes than getting in the zone I was in. I started working out with a freak who was 5'5" 240 and he treated every set like a life or death struggle like I did. We both started packing on mass and getting freaky strong working out together, we were doing forced reps on every set.
I did a few more cycles of Anavar and Winstrol. I would go on for 6 weeks and off for 6 weeks. I was growing like a weed and loved the transformation to my physique.
I entered my first bodybuilding competition on Anavar. The contest had an All-Star legendary judging panel including Danny Padilla, Robby Robinson and Mike Katz. After prejudging, a couple of the judges told me I looked great, I was psyched! I ended up winning my class. Finally after 3 years of taking 5th or 6th place, I won my class. I competed in 2 more contests a few weeks later and I took first in one and second in the other.
I tapered off the Anavar and stayed clean for the entire summer. I continued this pattern of staying off juice during the summer to clean out my receptor sites for years to come. I would stay off everything from June to January.
The following January I tried injectables for the first time - 200 mg. of Testosterone Enanthate. I drove 60 miles to a doctor's office once a week. 3 weeks in to the cycle it was snowing heavy so I was unable to drive to his office. I tried pushing 22 gauge, inch and a half needle against my right glute and it slid right in. I said to myself, "I've been driving to East Cupcake for this?" "This is easy!" I started injecting myself. I would start with 1cc of Test (200 mgs.) for 3 weeks and then added 1cc of Deca Durabolin (200 mgs) for 3 weeks. I increased my intensity even more. I got really strong. I was benching 500 and squatting 700 for reps. I used to love the attention I got when I was pushing massive amounts of weights, especially in front of power lifters who claimed bodybuilders were weak and all show and no go. I was doing 405 for reps on the incline, close grip bench 315 for 21, squatting 600 for 10 to the floor with my feet together without a belt or raps. I used so much weight on the hack squat machine, one day the bolts that lagged it to the floor snapped.
I continued cycling with injectables, 6 weeks on 6 weeks off. I usually used 1 Androgen (Test Enanthate) and 1 or 2 anabolics (Deca & Primobolan Depot). I tried a 6 week cycle once with a lot of different steroids for 6 weeks. I didn't gain any more strength or size on that cycle. I felt nauseous all the time; I was like a toxic waste dump. After that experiment I went back to my usual cycle.
I started winning every contest I'd enter. As usual, I'd totally go off steroids from June until January to totally clean out. I'm glad I did so because my body is still able to make it's own testosterone unlike so many others I knew who stayed on for years at a time. Their testicles are gone forever, they disrupted their metabolic pathways permanently and now they have to wear a patch or inject Test for life!
I used much less stuff than most of the guys I knew. My SGOT liver enzymes never went over 50, while other guy's SGOTs would go over 600. I also took silymarin (milk thistle) when I was on to help detoxify my liver. I also never took toxic orals like Dianabol, Anadrol or Halotestin. I remember a doctor I spoke with about anabolic steroids back then said "if you want to get big use injectables, if you want liver tumors use orals"
I knew guys that would inject 2400 mgs of Test at a time, that's 12cc's! They'd have 4 - 3 cc syringes lined up, inject the Test, unscrew the syringe, screw in the next one, inject that and so on. These are the same guys that would almost never get off and when they did get off, they wouldn't train at all. I trained with lots of intensity when I was off, I never missed a workout. I would always tell myself I was going to take time off after contests but I never did.
I remember my mother, who didn't know I was using steroids tell me, "don't ever take steroids because look what happened to Derrik Sanderson, he had to have his hips replaced." I responded, "hips replaced, like I'd ever need that.”
When I got off juice for the summer that's when I would really feel the strain I was putting on my body, steroids had pain masking property to them.
I remember in the midst of a cycle waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I could never sleep through the night without getting up a few times when I was on. Everything was quiet and dark and I'd say to myself, "what the hell are you doing to yourself?"
After each cycle I would be in more and more pain when I was off. I started taking 1 or 2 over the counter anti-inflammatories like Advil when I was really stiff.
During my next cycle I tried something that was supposedly the missing link to getting huge: Human growth hormone. It wasn't the synthetic stuff that's available today. This was real growth hormone from the pituitaries of cadavers. It cost me a lot of money and I purchased it from a pharmacy with a prescription so I knew it was definitely real. I was psyched to start. While I was on it I didn't notice anything positive. I wasn't getting any stronger, bigger, or more cut from it. Five weeks in to the cycle something happened. I had severe arythmia one morning. My heart was barely beating then it was beating at 150 bpm. My friend came over to pick me up to train. I had him listen to my heart through the stethoscope. He listened and said "what?" it's beating, let's go train!"
I said "It's beating but I don't think it's supposed to be doing a Neil Pert drum solo."
I went to the hospital and the cardiologist informed me that my right atrium wasn't working properly. He wanted to give me the paddles to try to jump start it in to working, but it started working again on its own after a while. He asked me if I was on anything, I told him I was and he replied, "I hope you don't think you're going to get out of this scot free, there will most likely be repercussions down the road." No truer words have ever been spoken.
Literally the day after I went to the hospital I picked up Time magazine and there was an article on Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease which can be contracted by taking human growth hormone and it can take up to 20 years to manifest itself. Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease is human mad cow disease. It took hundreds of pituitaries to make up one batch of human growth hormone.
After the hospital episode and the enlightening Time article I started contemplating pulling the rip cord on my bodybuilding career.
I tapered off everything, entered a contest and still won even though I was clean for 8 weeks. I stayed clean for the entire summer as I'd done since I'd started cycling 2 years earlier.
As time went on I was feeling stiffer and stiffer. My shoulders hurt so much I had to stop flat benching and hips and back were so bad I had to stop squatting. I knew I was finished with competition forever. I kept training by working around my injuries. I would only perform exercises that wouldn't aggravate my injuries, I used mainly machines.
I wasn't pushing the amount of weight I used to. I was working around injuries. I was off the juice. I started losing weight. Now, instead of weighing 220 I weighed 190 but I still looked ok. I got in the habit of taking an over-the-counter anti-inflammatory or two a day. One day I ran out so I didn't take any for a couple days. I felt so stiff I could barely move! Back then, I didn't know what I know now about sed rate. I thought I was getting addicted to Advil. I went without it because I couldn't bare the thought of "having" to stay on something to feel decent. I got worse, felt nauseous, didn't want to eat, I lost more weight. I then figured I had osteo arthritis from all the pounding my joints took. I tried every natural remedy known to treat osteo arthritis. I first tried shark cartilage. All that gave me was kidney stones - I was urinating out stones the size of peas. They looked like gold nuggets but they weren't worth $500 an ounce. I tried acupuncture, acupressure, DMSO, ems, nothing worked. Then I tried something really radical, bee venom therapy. I got stung by 20 bees a day down my spine for 6 months straight. I had my girl friend catch the bees with tweezers from the jar and then make the bees sting me on certain trigger points. I wonder why she bolted. Nothing worked. Finally a chiropractor looked at an x-ray and noticed that my SI joints were fused together. This is a sign of ankylosing spondilytis (a form of rheumatoid arthritis) which can be brought on by trauma. God knows I've had enough traumas!
I went to see a rheumatologist who prescribed Ansaid and Azulfidine. They gave me some relief but later the Ansaid was giving me bleeding ulcers so I had to stop that. I switched to a drug which is virtually identical to Vioxx which was pulled off shelves because of increased risk of heart attack and stroke. I'm also on Enbrel which can have serious side effects. I was prescribed 1 cc twice a week. I take 1/4 of a cc every two weeks. Even though I take such a low dose I still experience crippling migraines, nausea, numbness, feeling of pins & needles and vertigo. For years I wouldn't tell anyone who didn't know me well, that I had anything wrong with me. I'd meet a friend of a friend and they'd ask, "Do you have a stiff neck?" They'd ask this because I have no range of motion in my neck now.
I'd reply, "Yeah, I pulled it doing shrugs."
I would bump in to them a year later and they'd ask, "Your neck's still stiff?"
"Yeah, I keep pulling it."
If I don't take anything for my illness, please know that I'm in so much pain I don't want to live. If I take prescriptions I have less stiffness but I suffer numerous side effects like migraines, vertigo, pins and needles & numbness in my arms and legs, nausea and they're so dangerous I may die from the long term side effects. It's become a vicious cycle.
The real irony is in the fact that I've helped numerous people with their diets and ailments over the years but naturally I can't cure myself. I'm no longer pumping iron, I'm pumping irony.
When I was cycling, I used to humor myself by asking "If steroids are so bad, where are the bodies?" At that time I didn't hear stories about too many people that had serious health problems or any that died from steroids. It turns out the problems take years to manifest and many die prematurely, in their 30's, 40's or 50's instead of their 60's, 70's or 80's. The following are but a few of the many:
• Sonny Schmidt died at 46
• Scott Klein died at 30
• Ron Teufel died at 45
• Dan Duchaine died at 48
• Mohammed Benaziza died at 28
• Andreas Munzer died at 30
• Mike Mentzer died at 49
• Ray Mentzer died at 47
• Don Ross died at 55
• Dr. John Tristany died
• Don Peters died
• Ray Raridon died
• Dennis Newman (leukemia)
• Orville Burke (coma)
• Don Long (kidney failure)
• Tom Prince (kidney failure)
• Flex Wheeler (kidney transplant)
• Tom Prince (kidney failure)
• Ed Corney (stroke)
• Boyer Coe (heart)
• Danny Padilla (heart)
• Pete Grymkowski (heart)
• Mike Martarazzo 39 (triple bypass heart surgery)
The average US citizen lives to be 77.2 years old. The average citizen doesn't eat right or exercise enough, that's why the obesity rate is at the highest it's ever been. Athletes, especially bodybuilders eat great and exercise a lot. Why are so many dying 20, 30 or even 40 years sooner than the average couch potato?
Could it be the Steroids Vicious Cycle?

[youngBuilder]

Originally Posted by piercj2

Going on androgel is not going do anything harmful. Your natural levels will rise while taking the drug. It really does not help with muscle gain or energy that much, if you ask me the stuff is kind of worthless.

ummm no...androgel supposedly suppresses natty levels. It only raises serum levels via use a of transdermal application of testosterone. Any exogeneous introduction of testosterone suppresses natty T levels.

What was your PCT like after the M1t?? If you took no pct, then thats your reason for being shut down for 7 months. M1T is a steroid, and powerful at shutting down natty test. I know lots of steroids users who get their natty levels back to normal via proper PCT. Im not condoning the use however, im simplillustrating the power of PCT in restoring natty levels post steroid cycle.

[earthdog]

Originally Posted by anabolicbruce

I am in the process of consulting with Swale, I just wanted to see what you guys think. If my level cannot go much higher than 400ng, am I too young for TRT??

Dumb question maybe, but you work an an HRT clinic, yet you're going to Swale for help? Why not go to the docs that work there?

Regarding your questions, my opinion is, if you've done proper PCT and you're still low-normal, and you're dealing with symptoms, why suffer when proper treatment is available? Why go through the best years of your life with low T levels? Just my opinion.

Regarding gel vs. injections, the anecdotal evidence from guys posting on this and other HRT boards seems to favor injections. You see a lot of guys switching from gels to shots, but rarely do you see guys switching from shots to gels. One of the recurring things with gels seems to be that initially, guys feel great and have good T levels, but after a couple of months on the gel, their levels drop back down and they again feel like crap. You can only increase the dosage so much before you're bathing in the stuff. Then, there's the issue of the gel rubbing off on your woman or your kids. So you have to shower before you have skin-to-skin contact with someone else. Lots of hassle. Good luck with whatever you decide.

[anabolicbruce]

Actually I am working with my Docs here at the clinic AND Swale. Although the Docs at my clinic are great (John Hopkins, Mayo clinic, etc.) and are certified in Age-Managment Medicine, they are not to familiar with the effects of AAS. They actually recommend that I consult Swale. I am very fortunate to be in this situation.

I appreciate all your feedback, and look forward to learning from all of you in the future. I will keep you posted on my progress. Thank you.

BTW, I am not necessarily blaming AAS on my low test levels, I may have had low levels all my life. I have seen guys recover there testosterone to OPTIMAL levels after years of juicing. But who knows, if only I was smart enough to get a baseline before I ever took the plunge!