How Bad is Prop Pain?

OK guys I’ve got my first cycle planned and am debateing the use of prop to start and end it as compared to a couple weeks of orals. I have 3 concerns with Prop. First the half life is still a little long to take right up to the end of cycle. Secondly, the lag time before it starts adding size isn’t that much better than enanthate (and alot slower than dbol or anadrol). Third, in my research here it sounds like alot of users experience alot of discomfort. I’m ok with discomfort. Hell I’m ok with pain. I have no problem with injections (used to self administer shots of b-12 daily). HOWEVER, I recently got a tetnus shot in my shoulder and I couldn’t train shit for like 4 days due to the pain. I don’t mind a painful injection but if due to soreness I can’t sit down or train legs for a couple days every time I shoot (which would be eod!) I really don’t want to buy the stuff. I know everyone reacts differently just curious in hearing lots of responses. Also, anything that makes it less of a problem?

It took my body 2 weeks to adjust to the pain. During that time, quad shots were the worst because of the difficulty in walking. First day of week 3 the benefits outweighed the temporary pain of prop, also switched my shots to PM after workout rather than AM shots…worked for me.

Why is it too long acting to run till the end? I’m running about a gram a week of prop right now and I’m only going to have to wait 2 weeks from my last shot to start PCT. . .

Second, it does kick in faster than enanthate I really don’t know where you got that idea. That’s the whole point of the short half life. I usually feel it on thursday if I started shooting Monday.

Third, the pain varies from person to person and brand to brand. You really have to try it and see what it does for you. Personally I find the pain is worse at the beginning of a cycle and as I get used to the prop it hurts less and less, it’s never really interfered with my training.

STU

[quote]Sturat wrote:
Why is it too long acting to run till the end? I’m running about a gram a week of prop right now and I’m only going to have to wait 2 weeks from my last shot to start PCT. . .

Second, it does kick in faster than enanthate I really don’t know where you got that idea. That’s the whole point of the short half life. I usually feel it on thursday if I started shooting Monday.

Third, the pain varies from person to person and brand to brand. You really have to try it and see what it does for you. Personally I find the pain is worse at the beginning of a cycle and as I get used to the prop it hurts less and less, it’s never really interfered with my training.

STU[/quote]

It depends on the brand. Some prop is barely noticeable, and some is so bad you can’t shoot it.

No need to wait more than 3-4 days after your last prop shot to start PCT.

That’s a load of BS. Generally you want to wait until your blood levels of test drop below 100mg or you won’t be able to get your own test production up and running again. If I’m taking a gram a week of test propionate that takes about 2 weeks from the time of my last shot (I have a handy little spreadsheet to show me).

If you start too soon your test production won’t resume due to the high levels of exogenous test in your system.

STU

[quote]Sturat wrote:
No need to wait more than 3-4 days after your last prop shot to start PCT.

That’s a load of BS. Generally you want to wait until your blood levels of test drop below 100mg or you won’t be able to get your own test production up and running again. If I’m taking a gram a week of test propionate that takes about 2 weeks from the time of my last shot (I have a handy little spreadsheet to show me).

If you start too soon your test production won’t resume due to the high levels of exogenous test in your system.

STU[/quote]

Your test production won’t restart automatically. It’s the nolva/clomid and HCG that does that. And it doesn’t matter if you still have slightly higher levels of testosterone while starting PCT. As a matter of fact, I believe Cy Willson once stated that it’s helpful to start PCT while still having some steroids in your body. And plenty of other gurus recommend this as well.

I could start nolva/HCG treatment DURING a cycle and still increase my natural testosterone production.

hate to jack the thread but i got a buddy who has some orbit brand test prop. He can’t use it because he says it is way too painful. He thinks i might have better luck with it, anyone out there tried it, is it quite bad? He couldnt even work out?

Orbit’s pretty bad for prop. Try to replace it with something else.

[quote]Sturat wrote:
That’s a load of BS. Generally you want to wait until your blood levels of test drop below 100mg or you won’t be able to get your own test production up and running again. If I’m taking a gram a week of test propionate that takes about 2 weeks from the time of my last shot (I have a handy little spreadsheet to show me).

If you start too soon your test production won’t resume due to the high levels of exogenous test in your system.

STU[/quote]

This is not right. 100 mg is an arbitrary number. Everything that I have read, and every one I have asked say start PCT 3 days after you last prop injection.

If you have data the supports waiting two weeks after your last prop injection, I would be VeRY interested in seeing it.

As for the original poster - My first cycle of prop (85mg ed 12 week) was pretty much pain free. I had some initial discomfort on some days, but never any lasting soreness or swelling.

I am on my second cycle using test prop now(100mg ed), and the discomfort is worse than it was in my first cycle. I have had soreness for a couple of days, and some occasional swelling. Nothing that would stop me from hitting the gym, or make it hard to move.

I think it depends a lot on the individual and the brand of prop you use.

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So what level should we be starting PCT at? saying 3 days after your last prop shot is a lot more arbitrary than giving a blood level. Afterall my blood levels will differ pretty strongly depending on my dose and you can’t tell me that my PCT will be the same if I was running 400mg/wk, 800mg/wk, 1200mg/wk if I started 3 days past my last injection. . .Perhaps for the lower dose cycles that would be okay but not for the 1200mg/wk, hell I’d still have better than 600mg of prop in my system.

STU

And some references for your PCT protocol would be appreciated too. I’d hate to think I’m the only one capable of meeting the burden of proof in regards to what he preaches.

STU

I’m with Stu on this. Not that I’ve got the experience you guys have but how could you possibly be talking about cureing the suppression caused by extraordinary test levels while you still have extraordinary test levels. You would be wasteing your pct gear and going bare when you really need it (a couple weeks later). We are not alone in this opinion see my prior post titled “hpta suppression” in particular responses to Anthony Roberts pct recommendations. As for the figure Stu threw out re getting levels down to under 100 before pct I can’t opine. I myself have been attempting to determine how much is suppressive, to no avail. I can tell you this if you actually care to compute out the half life progression (which apparently very few people here actually do) your levels are shockingly high for quite some time. Even with prop which is comparatively short lived. Consider if half life is I think 4.5 days and you are shooting eod you’ve got some big build up.

Stu, the reason I am thinking of going oral to close cycle is the plan was to use prop and enan first couple weeks then go to enan only. If it was prop all the way I think your 2 week estimate is good. But I really don’t want to have to wait even 2 weeks for pct.

To be honest I think you’re best to frontload the enanthate and use the prop at the end to close out the cycle.

If I’m running 1000mg/wk of enanthate it will take approximately 6-7 weeks after my last shot to reach the 100mg blood level. If I’m running 1000mg/wk of prop it only takes around 2 weeks. For those two weeks it’s great to use something like d-bol as a closer.

The reason I’ve mentioned the 100mg level is simply that the references I provided show that 100mg of testosterone cypionate administered to a healthy male has little effect on his test levels and doesn’t seem to cause any suppresion thus it seems a good level to begin PCT at. The fact that it’s also very near HRT dose means that everything downstairs should still be working just fine when you start your PCT and hopefully will remain that way.

STU

Stu -

One of your sources is referring to test enanthate. That is entirely irrelevant to test prop. I am assuming you know the differences in the esters.

I will whole heartedly agree that long esters such as enanthate, and cypionate require waiting several weeks before beginning PCT.

But test prop has a halflife of around 3 days. The shorter the halflife, the shorter that wait between the last shot and the start of PCT.

If you want proof from me, all you have to do is ask.

I totally agree that enanthate and prop are different beasts, there’s no question of that.

This is why I’m picking a blood level of test prior to beginning PCT, obviously you have to wait longer with enanthate than you do with propionate.

The thing is that the reference shows that when 100mg of test enanthate is administered it results in little change in blood test levels and since it’s also the level at which HRT is begun it’s a nice balance between being low enough to start PCT and high enough to keep everything working so you don’t “crash” any harder than you have to.

STU

First off, different products will vary in the amount of benzyl benzoate (BB) and benzyl alcohol (BA) that they use to dissolve the hormone powder into the oil. Painful injections are indicative of high BA use, >5% and low or no BB. This is because BB is expensive relative to BA. Also the amount of BB used will slightly increase the halflife. The 3 day halflife given for test prop is the high side. If it is higher concentration and little BB, the half life is shorter as these factors will change the rate at which it releases from the oil. I suspect that most people estimate the halflife on the high side since most steroids available are underdosed and this would extend the halflife slightly meaning that people were right in their estimate.

Another way to decrease pain is to only inject 1ml at a time. Need to put 3ml in an ass cheek? Use 3 pins, this way not all of the oil is in one spot.

If you feel injection pain with a quality product, you may be sensitive.

I have heard that Orbit prop hurts from the same person who used another brand and said he barely felt it, on the other hand, he also used Orbit enanthate and found it to be overdosed by about 25% with no pain on injection.

As for waiting for blood test results to fall below a certain value, all i have to say is if you do not notice when your test level is back to normal and you are in need of pct, then sure go for it, but really this is something one can feel quite frankly.

When to start pct? I would agree that 3 days after a prop cycle may be soon if the dose was high and the cycle longer, but any longer than a week after is pushing it. The whole halflife thing has been overextrapolated, the curves fall off quicker than you think. Try testing the 6-7 week hypothesis with the enanthate or any other long ester. By week 2-3 for enanthate and perhaps 3-4 for deca or eq you will feel the lack of androgen in your system. Trust.

My 2 cents on injection and pct start: for prop i would say inject EOD at a minimum, ED is better, though a pain in the ass, some do every 36 hours. With enanthate every 3-4 days, deca or eq every 5-6 days. If you want to do a longer test cycle, start with enanthate and finish with prop. As for pct, for prop 4-5 days if shorter cycle at moderate dose (500-700mg/week) and a couple days more if the cycle was heavier or longer, say 7-8 at most.

I kinda browsed over the responces and I’m in a bad mood so I’ll offer my quick suggestions. First off try cutting it with sterile oil. I had a friend of mine who ran t-400 (same time as I did) and he said it was the only way he could walk after a shot. I on the other hand took a different approach and shot it in my biceps. YES it hurt REALLY bad then nothing else seemed so bad…in other words if you can’t take the pain maybe you’re not cut out for the game. If you asking my opinion I like the pain prop causes (it’s a nice swell) and I got used to it real quick.

BB is more expensive than BA? The amount of BB will slightly increase half-life? Where do you get your facts from…

“I suspect that most people estimate the halflife on the high side since most steroids available are underdosed and this would extend the halflife slightly meaning that people were right in their estimate.”

WTF? The only way to change the half-life is to change the ester…

Don’t post BS like this here.

[quote]ubl0 wrote:
First off, different products will vary in the amount of benzyl benzoate (BB) and benzyl alcohol (BA) that they use to dissolve the hormone powder into the oil. Painful injections are indicative of high BA use, >5% and low or no BB. This is because BB is expensive relative to BA. Also the amount of BB used will slightly increase the halflife. The 3 day halflife given for test prop is the high side. If it is higher concentration and little BB, the half life is shorter as these factors will change the rate at which it releases from the oil. I suspect that most people estimate the halflife on the high side since most steroids available are underdosed and this would extend the halflife slightly meaning that people were right in their estimate.

Another way to decrease pain is to only inject 1ml at a time. Need to put 3ml in an ass cheek? Use 3 pins, this way not all of the oil is in one spot.

If you feel injection pain with a quality product, you may be sensitive.

I have heard that Orbit prop hurts from the same person who used another brand and said he barely felt it, on the other hand, he also used Orbit enanthate and found it to be overdosed by about 25% with no pain on injection.

As for waiting for blood test results to fall below a certain value, all i have to say is if you do not notice when your test level is back to normal and you are in need of pct, then sure go for it, but really this is something one can feel quite frankly.

When to start pct? I would agree that 3 days after a prop cycle may be soon if the dose was high and the cycle longer, but any longer than a week after is pushing it. The whole halflife thing has been overextrapolated, the curves fall off quicker than you think. Try testing the 6-7 week hypothesis with the enanthate or any other long ester. By week 2-3 for enanthate and perhaps 3-4 for deca or eq you will feel the lack of androgen in your system. Trust.

My 2 cents on injection and pct start: for prop i would say inject EOD at a minimum, ED is better, though a pain in the ass, some do every 36 hours. With enanthate every 3-4 days, deca or eq every 5-6 days. If you want to do a longer test cycle, start with enanthate and finish with prop. As for pct, for prop 4-5 days if shorter cycle at moderate dose (500-700mg/week) and a couple days more if the cycle was heavier or longer, say 7-8 at most.
[/quote]

[quote]lmjudek wrote:
BB is more expensive than BA? The amount of BB will slightly increase half-life? Where do you get your facts from…

lol I gotta love my fellow Canadians calling BS when they see it. Thats exactly what I would do if I had more time these days, anyways just to knock down a few myths BB is not more expensive than Ba, and it doesn’t slow down the halflife of a drug.

The fact is some labs just throw some chemicals in a bottle along with powder, and as long as it suspends, they put their label on it and ship it out the door. If you take the time to play with the ratio’s of BA and BB you can come up with a more userfriendly product. Anyways ORBIT LABS is very notorious for their painfull products.