Well, I’ve lurked around here for some time, off and on for a few years but since I wasn’t active in the gym and didn’t feel I belonged to the ‘over 35 crowd’ ( De Nial is just a beautiful river in Egypt) I never got around to posting.
My background is as follows, back in the old country (Iceland) I started in the gym when I was 12, by the time I was 14 I was 5’9’’ and around a 170lbs, lifted 180lbs on the bench, squatted 298 and dead lifted 298 4 months before I turned 15, had some help there Jon Pall Sigmarsson the world’s strongest man in the world at the time was the guy behind the counter, anyhow I kept at it and by the time I was 20 I was up to 218 pounds at six feet with ca 10% bodyfat and then I found out why my friends in the gym got so ripped.
They were actually using steroids !!!
Three months later I was 245 pounds and I had to walk through doorways sideways, I lifted weights and played fullback in our little American Football league, got offered a scholarship in the states and trained my ass off.
I did a few cycles and now when I look back we didn’t juice to heavily at the time, mostly Dianabol, Winstrol and Primabolan, six to eight week cycles and the amounts wouldn’t be considered sufficient today.
These times were the end of an era, Steroids were not illegal for personal use, you could go on a vacation in Spain, Greece or Italy, simply walk into a pharmacy and shop, once you came home the customs officers would look through your bags, lift up a plastic bag full of tablettes and ampoules and ask ‘what is this?’ and you would answer ‘steroids’, he would then ask if it was for personal use and one would reply that it was so and then he’d place the bag back and keep looking for any extra booze or cigarettes that you might be trying to bring through. Ahh…
As for needles and syringes you can still walk into any pharmacy and simply buy whatever you need.
Anyhoo, this being before the internet information was scarce, Clomid, Nolva and the likes were off the table, as a result my teenage gynecomastia went berzerk, I actually got milky drops out of my nipples within a few months, having universal healtcare I went and got surgery which wasn’t totally successful since they left some of the glands behind.
Shortly afterwards I chose a school in the states and since I was 23 by that time I figured I had missed the boat when it came to Football I chose palmtrees and a beach rather than running around with a football. Six months earlier they had banned steroids and I picked up mountainbiking instead when I got to California.
Through the years I would balance out at around 220lbs, 16’’ arms, no sixpack but still able to wear size 34 jeans, every now and then when I didn’t watch my weight I’d sidle up into the 230’s and size 36 was there, then I moved back home from NY at 28 and by the time I turned 30 something happened.
I looked in the mirror and I was 260 pounds, round as a beer keg, my G.E.R.D was so bad that I had to have surgery, everything that could go wrong went wrong, the doctor fucked up while I was on the table and 3 days later when I came home from the hospital my stomach ruptured and I had to go back in, Peritonitis set in and I was hanging on by a thread for 2 weeks, quite effective as a weigh loss method since I came in at 260+ and left at 212, the surgical wound got infected and stayed unhealed for almost 3 months, a third surgery followed and that time I got a morphine overdose and died for a while and the surgical wound got infected…
Fast forward a few months and I’m in Sweden with my new wife, I’m supposed to be happy having survived all of this but I just felt… Wrong somehow.
I went into that hospital and someone else came out. Every little scratch would get infected, I smelled strange, artificial, sick.
Constantly tired and moving around felt like I was swimming in molasses, my weight was around 240 or so and my belly was big, so I did some research, could it be the thyroid?
No your thyroid is fine… no numbers, it’s just fine.
Fast forward a couple of years, the smell went away, the infections stopped but my energy never came back, going to the gym lasted a few times then I would lapse for months, hiking, cycling all of that just wasn’t enjoyable anymore. Depression and divorce followed.
Fast forward to 2009.
My life is pretty great, nice place in the country, wonderful girlfriend, dogs, horses, sheep and chickens with a fantastic studio in the city but…
Still tired and the molasses although a little thinner haven’t gone away, every morning started in pain, felt like I ran a marathon before bed, libido long gone, insomnia but when sleep falls 12 hours is not enough, morning woodies are a distant memory and no SSRI or Wellbutrin helped with the depression and anhedonia and a complete lack of motivation so this february my girlfriend kicked me in the butt and I went to see a doctor.
Could you check my thyroid.
Well it was borderline, TSH was at 3.53
ref 0.2 - 4.0
I now take 100 mcg T4 and 20 mch T3 every day
Could it be the Testosterone ?
Voila!
I came in at 6.3nmol with is around 181 ng/dl I should be around 22.5 nmol and a 85 to 99 year old should be around 14 with a minimum of 10 this was in june
in july it was marginally better at 9.7 their reference is that men under 50 should be over 10
Been waiting for summer vacations to be over so that I can rectify this but now I’ve gotten impatient so I asked my father in law (conveniently a doctor) for a prescription for Tamoxifen (nolvadex) 20mg p/d, HcG 1000 iu 3 times a week plus 60mg Tostrex (testogel) p/d
This will probably drive the endo bonkers when I get there in the fall but I’m tired of only firing on a couple of cylinders, it’s my life that is passing me by and I’d like to take part in it.
I hope you haven’t fallen asleep reading this long ass post but I guess I’ve saved up a bit over the years… I’ll post my full lab results a bit later.
All the best from Sweden
B