We must have crossed paths in the conversation (this happens about 10,000 times a day on internet forums so you’d think I’d be better at realizing I’m off talking about focus A instead of focus B). Also, this isn’t an argument as I think your position is reasonable and rational.
First, I don’t have a problem asking the Dr. about HGH on wound healing in orthopedics. I see him in just over a week for a follow up and will bring it up. Because I’d only ever thought in terms of testosterone analogs (or EPO) in terms of accelerated healing’ neither of which do anything for tendons, ligaments, or bones --and also a little bit because I don’t gear up or go to a geared up gym, the idea of PEDs never entered my head until I posted, which was post-injury, post-surgery, and post initial out patient follow up.
But…I was an EMT and an LPN (once upon a time and no longer). And suddenly, while suffering through a Hallmark Channel show my wife was watching (god help me, but love is grand) and right after the Activia yogurt commercial was one for Once A Month Boniva, a med designed to increase bone density (in this instance meant for postmenopausal women at risk for osteoporosis.)
Now, way, way, back in the 90’s or so when I worked at a Long Term Care facility I passed meds. And I passed Boniva and on different occasions I read charts and heard discussions of this med not only halting but (and this is the part that got me thinking) reversing osteo effects, i.e. producing knew bone, making them denser, stronger. It was/is gear for bones.
BANG! I start thinking, okay, if they can help muscle repair more quickly and they can grow thicker bones in little old ladies decades ago then maybe, just maybe, there’s something out there for tendons. But I couldn’t find it to open the dialog with my doc, which was the reason for my initial post. It was only after the other poster talked about GH that my mind went in that direction.
Now a couple of things. I did see the articles you referenced and read the one about the rats. I wasn’t overwhelmed by the structure of that lone study and the one suggesting that it could cause harm used very careful, non-adamant language (i.e. not like the kind of words you see on the back of a bleach bottle saying DON’T DRINK!) and that it was dose related. Because of HGH having a PED stigma the most research being done is just like that of juice–in sport locker rooms.
There were/are however quite a few anecdotal testimonies from that Steelers Doctor’s patients (and others) who had very good results. This immediately reminded me that all through the 1970’s and into the '80’s you had physicians claiming roids only worked as a placebo effect. Meanwhile Arnold and Columbo were blowing up like balloons and the dumb ass defensive tackle on your b-college football team was swearing by dinabol while Harvard MD’s were scoffing it off as sugar pills.
This memory then dovetailed with observations I made while in the nursing field. A very few doctors are research orientated, outside the box, creative problem solvers (YMMV, IMO) and very few are, by nature, rule breakers. I’m not saying they aren’t there–just that most I worked with (and also having much to do with which field of medicine they specialize in) they instead tend to be intelligent information memorizers type A beyond belief and conservative, cautious individuals; not prone to risking peer disapproval, and often quite satisfied with simply working within the parameters of what’s been normative in the literature.
All meant as a very, very general, personal experience.
So yes–I did trust this doctor to do the specific operation he spent 14 or so years learning to do. I trusted him almost implicitly to do the surgery he’d done a thousand times before correctly and set me down my months long path of recovery like he’s done with thousands of other patients.
But I don’t necessarily expect him to be be pro “anti-aging” hormonal treatments, or willing to use meds or procedures that haven’t had stamps of medical establishment approval that have around as long as Regan was president. Too many doctors just don’t seem to be built that way. They don’t do new (hell half the docs you see over 55 working don’t even want to learn to enter data in a computer, lol)
I will ask him. I expect him to say “no” and a small part of me thinks he might be a young enough to admit that like the example given above, he realizes the increased healing potential and might admit it–but still won’t write the script because as a PED the scrutiny a HGH prescription might bring.
Which I think was a rather long winded way of saying “I do trust him enough to ask” but I’m also a bit jaded about the medical establishment. Frankly now that I think about it, I’d probably have to pay out of pocket because my insurance wouldn’t cover it to save themselves $.
However, November seems a long way away. The cabin fever is growing and I’ve now come across personal examples of people using hgh to speed tendon healing… so from your lips to god’s ears “speedy recovery” indeed. ;-> I hope all that came across as conversational and not like one of the infamous T-Nation flame fests.