Hi everyone,
I'm new here and don't know a lot about the topic of steroids by now, hence my incredibly creative username. English is not my mother tongue, but I hope i'll be able to communicate my questions properly. I'll try to provide all the information needed for a solid answering of my questions and apologize in advance for the length of this text.
The reason I've become interested in the topic of steroids is an injury. I ask myself, whether they could help me finally recover from what could not be improved by any measure taken so far. I've read a lot on the internet and this forum, but I'm still not sure what to conclude from it for my case.
Very brief history of my training:
I've been training in different combat sports very intensely since I was ca. 15y, I'm 29 now. I've thrown back by injuries multiple times and therefore I have never been able to reach the things I came pretty close to more than once. After very serious injury back in the days the doc even told me that I would never be able to execute my sport again. Thankfully I could prove him wrong, although it took me years to recover.
This time I do not seem to have an injury that bad, but it also does not improve at all(!). (And the time I have left to recover from that in order to get back into training and finally competition is, being 29y, not too much as I see.)
Now for the essential:
I have a severe pain in my right knee when I put weight on it. And an even greater pain, when I 'put it to the groud', meaning: when I e.g. do single leg squats with my LEFT knee, i basically cannot do them because of the extreme pain in my RIGHT knee. Seems like it has sth to do with the stretch of the tendons under load (I think).
Maybe the following (up until „Current status“)is not even really necessary to mention, but I'll just do so:
I tore (I guess that's the correct term in Englsih, not 'pulled' (which seems to be the 'lighter' version), if not pls correct me) a (quad) muscle back in NOV 2013 doing leg presses. You could see the hematoma along the mid-section of the quad and, of course, feel the pain.
I then started rehabbing it immediately, following Bill Starr's routine, as Mark Rippetoe advocates it, too. It had worked for my pec before. Using light weights/high reps, progressing from there, increasing the weights, lowering the reps.
It seemed to work for the quad. But then my knees started to hurt, although my squat-form was def ok. I stopped it, but the pain remained in my right knee. And it does so till today.
First guess of mine as well as my orthopedic doc was sth like patella/quadriceps tendon syndrome. Stretching of the quad, and foam rolling the living sh*t out of it did not work at all.
An MRI was taken: It (luckily) showed that the knee, that had been distorted before (partial ACL-tear, partial inner lig.-tear, partial menisc-tear 2009) was indeed ok. The lig's had even recovered!
But there was a little bit of water inside. Some swelling. And a tendinopathy of the quadriceps tendon (whether tendonosis or tendonitis was not clearly indicated). (And some minor other stuff that was not considered relevant.)
The quad seemed to be somehow 'off' it felt soft, chewy, not toned....
The cutaneous nerv is impinged, so the outer side is a bit numb, but I had that before on both legs, not sure whether that has sth to do with it at all.
Another orthopedic surgeon told me that he would like to do an arthroscopy of my knee, because it wold just have to be 'cleaned'. I've not done thta, because the argument was to vague in my eyes. Maybe I will have to do (or rather try) that. Not feeling too good about that.
I travelled quite some distances to visit a PT, who also couldn't help with stretching and triggering techniques. Visited other doctors, a chiropractor, osteopathy-practicioner etc pp
Last time I was at the doc, he did not even find an inflammation at the quad-tendon using ultrasound. Now getting an MRI of the quad at the end of july.
Another PT said I had to reteach the muscle how to act, because it had unlearned that due to the too soon return to training.
Current status: I still stretch and massge with a lacrosse ball. I also stretch using one of these voodoo-bands glenn pendlay or kelly starrett have mentioned (you probably know them). This actually relieves the pain for a few minutes afterwards, but after that: the same as always. When i stretch I feel some really mean needle-stitch-like sensations in the quad. At first this made me stop immedietaly, then I kept on holding it and it vanishes now, but the pain itself remains. I have returned to moderate single leg leg presses, which does not worsen it at all. It has improved the feeling and appearance of my quad muscle, but it is still a bit 'weird'. The pain during the exercise is minimal (in THAT position with THAT load) Apart from that the pain is still exactly the same!!
So all this is basically just to explain at least roughly where the problem is and that actually no one knows what it really is!
>>
So my very basic question is: Is there a chance that steroids could help me with this? And if so, what steroid(s) would help me?
My thoughts on this so far are:
In general:
People taking testosterone (prop, enanth, cypion) tell me about their improved abilities to recover from any stress, training, injury,... so far sounds like a - very general - argument for it.
As far as I know testosterone injections are also known to impede the collagen synthesis of tendons... sound like an argument against it. (although people using it tell me that it does not keep up with muscle growth, but that it is not impeded. Quite frankly I do not think they are a reliable source. The internet has told me contradicitng things on this so far.)
I can't see any kind of mechanical reason for my problem. So the pain might just be due to an inflammation not going away. It is 7 months now and I am literally in despair.
I'll keep the formulation of my thoughts on it this general, since most of what I think about it is based on very limited knowledge in this field. That's why I'm aksing you
So: Is this worth a try? If not: why? If yes: What do i need? How do I do it best?
(If it is no clear 'yes' or 'no', I'm really interested in the arguments for and against it!)
My stats if needed:
male
29y
175cm
93kg
BF: since restricted training now maybe 15% (guessed from your chart)
several smaller injuries, one massive shoulder injury
Thank you so much for your time!!
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Originally Posted by m314
