Are complications due to roids overexaggerated?

[llbeastcd]

I have no experience with roids, but I just wanted to know your opinions on this...

Are the latent medical problems associated with roids overexaggerated? What percentage of users ACTUALLY develop problems? I know a lot is dependent on it's use, abuse, and overuse, but generally speaking... is this blown out of proportion by mainstream America?

[contraction]

I would think, I would say, I would have to-YES

look at it like this, steriods in general have been around longer than some of the other legal shit out there like creatine (I know that it's in meat-but you don't consume several grams a day from the meat)
androstendione-that's only been on the market for about 10years-I think
steriods have been around for about 40 years

the long term effects of gear are exaggerated
it pisses me off that when someone who is big gets sick or something, everyone automatically blames it on the gear
"that's what happens when your on that stuff"
bodybuilders get sick just like everyone else-we are still human
just really big ones
as soon as someone on say Viagra gets sick nobody says shit

[GenuinePL]

Yes it is.

The only people that I know personally that have problems of side effects are those who overdosed on it.
I have few friends that used it properly and no problems what so ever. Use it, don't abouse it. Play safe.

[bortort]

I agree, I think someone who over does it can run into problem. You have to learn and know what your doing.
You hear of someone that has a heart or liver problem, and its dismissed as a bad heart or liver. But as soon as someone has a bad heart or liver and has done AS. Then its blamed on the steriods. Not even knowing if it was caused by them or if it was some other problem that was going to happen anyway. There are a large number of guys doing AS and only very few and far between problems. So IMO I think its very over exaggerated.

[NightOp]

i have never done a cycle and may never, if i do it will be done correctly with just enough doses to get the job done, i will take the required vitamins, milk thisle, cranberry extract, glucosomine, and drink a crap load of water. I do believe that yes the mainstream media overexaggerate (sorry for spellin) when the subject of roids is brought up. However with the rampant use of roids by people that do not know what they are doing and the many possible incorrect and dangerous ways to abuse these drugs (such as no use of the before mentioned milk thisle, etc... and no use of anti-e's...) people are hurting themselves which will prolly catch up with them one day. A quote i heard and actually thought long about was this > (dont know who said it...) "you never realize how important good health is until you no longer have it.." Sometimes its just best to play the card that you're delt... (meaning the body God gave you), anyways, my answer is still yes to the thread question, but i do not think that roids are "harmless" as some would say... btw, im new to the forums (week or two) and never have said hey to everyone, im 19 years old, been workin out for about 2 years serious, bout 2 more years before that loosely.. just my thoughts on all this

[TNT]

Originally posted by llbeastcd
I have no experience with roids, but I just wanted to know your opinions on this...

Are the latent medical problems associated with roids overexaggerated? What percentage of users ACTUALLY develop problems? I know a lot is dependent on it's use, abuse, and overuse, but generally speaking... is this blown out of proportion by mainstream America?

This response is going to serve as a counterpoint to some of my other bro's, but for what it's worth: No, no one can tell, and nope. Next questions?

Alright, since y'all want to be serious about this . . . I do not believe that problems associated with AS are overexaggerated at all. If anything, they tend to be under exaggerated. Why? Because most of the people out in the real world that want to try AS are stupid as shit. (Yes, you may applaud now.)

Seriously, bro's and bro'ettes, if you hang out solely at Anabolic Review, you're seeing the best of the bunch. Intelligent questions (with some exceptions) and intelligent answers (with some exceptions). But the exceptions here are much less than on any of the other AS boards (which, in keeping with AR's sound policy of diplomacy, we'll leave unnamed). And even here, we see all too often the mentality of, "I just scored some ___________. What is it, and how do I use it?" That is not an intelligent mentality when it comes to doing AS.

As far as problems from roids, every drug which requires a prescription has a "product description" - a technical term that means, for all intent and purpose, the official prescribing literature that has been filed with the F.D.A. (the Food & Drug Administration here in the U.S.). The P.D. must include basic information ranging from chemical composition of a drug to its "indications" (purposes for which it may be legally prescribed), "adverse reactions" (side effects), and any warnings about the drug's actions on specific conditions or interactions with other drugs. And every drug has potential complications, whether or not we're talking about AS.

The problem, as you might imagine, is that when we talk about AS, we're talking about drugs - many of which are legitimate and legally manufactured prescription drugs - that are not being used with a prescription and under a doctor's care. You're not being monitored, you're not having lab work done to see how the drugs impact you (although this is changing a little among intelligent AS users), and chances are that you don't know what the side effects of a drug are anyway.

Moreover, most AS users, at least here in the U.S., are buying their gear from other countries - gear that has not been manufactured according to F.D.A. standards of quality and purity, much of it coming from countries that do not have the best reputation in terms of pharmaceutical products. And they're often not getting the gear from legitimate sources in those countries, but rather through black market sources.

Finally, a lot of the guys who start a cycle do so in a totally unprepared way. And as they move toward completing what they have planned poorly in the first place, they realize that they're high-and-dry with regard to the icing on the cake. They're heading toward impotence but never bothered stocking Clomid, they're starting to experience gyno but never bothered setting up a source for Nolva, etc. Hell, that's like a surgeon starting an operation and finding out when the patient is opened up on the table that there are not enough instruments to complete the surgery - and that's dumb, just plain dumb.

So, are the medical problems associated with roids overexaggerated? Not a bit. In fact, I don't think we even begin to hear about many of those problems. And while we might prematurely presume that, say, a AS-using 25-year-old guy who has had a heart attack had it because of roids, I do not think that is necessarily off the wall. Why? Because 25-year-old guys normally do not have heart attacks unless they have a predisposing condition.

Might we be wrong? Of course - such a guy may have had a predisposing condition. A few months ago, a cousin of mine died. He was 50 years old, gay, and lived in New York City. So what caused his death? (All together now . . . Yep, we're talking about the "Big A" here.) But . . .

Wrong! He died of pancreatic cancer, a fast-acting cancer which had nothing to do with AIDS. In fact, he wasn't even HIV positive. But you see the problem with presuppositions: Because he was gay, we all assumed that he was HIV positive, got full-blown AIDS, and died of an AIDS-related complication. Just as we might assume that any medical condition that hits someone who uses AS is because of the AS. Stereotyping will always take place, whether we like it or not, and that applies to AS users as much as anyone else (not to mention all the natural bodybuilders who don't use AS at all - but people presume they do).

Now, what percentage of AS users actually develop problems? We'll never know. Why? Because AS use is a lot like masturbation - many people do it, but few talk about it. To try to get an accurate database on AS use at all would result in the same type of whacked out statistics that Kinsey ran into when he tried to estimate how many people were gay. The target population was skewed, and many of the subjects were, by nature, not being honest with the researchers. Face it, if a strange researcher you didn't know showed up at your gym, approached you, and attempted to administer a survey regarding your AS use and any medical sequelae, would you answer honestly? (Rhetorical question - the obvious answer is that you would probably not.)

To your final question, is the AS issue blown out of proportion by mainstream America? Nope. If a set of parents has, say, 18-year-old Johnny living at home who starts shooting AS because of the social pressure to become a bulked-up GI Joe, and if Johnny is as ignorant as the average 18-year-old when it comes to using AS, I don't think tha parents would be blowing it out of proportion if they allowed themselves to freak out a little bit (preferably in a constructive way rather than a destructive way).

But when it comes to mainstream America, it is a different issue: For the most part, people don't give a rat's ass about AS or the folks who use AS. It's not an out-of-proportion issue, it's simply a non-issue. Take our hypothetical parents from the last paragraph, for example. Unless they have a definitive indication that Johnny is on roids, their minds won't even begin to conceive of AS. They'll be more concerned about whether Johnny is drinking, smoking, partying, and doing weed, coke, Ecstasy or other drugs. The average family never taps into roids as a possibility - until there is a reason for them to do so. Even if Johnny is getting big and bulked, Mom and Dad are going to assume that it's thanks to working out and the gallon bottle of protein powder he bought at the local GNC (or by some other legal means). Unless they open his drawer and find a stack of B-D syringes and needles under his socks, AS simply wouldn't occur to them (except, perhaps, on the rare possibility that Mom and/or Dad were juicers at one time).

Let's bottom line it: There are two ways of using AS - intelligently, or like an ignoramus. And most people who use them fall into the latter category. With the growth of cyberspace, there is a lot more information available about AS, and we can only hope that people will tap into it before they try AS. Even then, we can hope that they'll tap into a sensible board like AR before they go to some of the more whacked-out boards out there. Until then, IMO, society can raise as big a stink as it wishes about AS - if it makes one person careful enough to investigate what roids are about before trying them, I have no problem with any degree of overexaggeration. It's simply part of the baggage that accompanies AS use in the first place, and if it makes any of us more careful about what we're doing, then no harm, no foul.

[arthurb999]

TNT, I always enjoy reading your posts. Bravo!

[NightOp]

lots of good points there

[Ironweb]

Tnt your analogy of AS is right on. I believe the key word is intelligent use. Any drug a person selects to take has its adverse side effects. Aspirin, ibuprofen are just a few OTC drugs that do. However the side effects are skewed if you plan and understand what you are doing first. The biggest risk IMO is poor planning and bad gear.

[bravo11p]

IMO AAS use/abuse is blown out of proportion. Kudo's to TNT for another well written post. I think the general public gets a lot of it's misconceptions from the idiot users. The "roid rage" cases. They feel that if one guy freaks out and destroys his wife in the local Wal-mart and then claims roid rage then EVERYONE must get it. That is why boards like this... actually, just this board are so invaluable. Thats why is is do important to educate those that choose to use AAS. Both the pros and cons.

[Grant]

excellent post TNT, great AIDS analogy

[gymnut4u]

Great post tnt , A little thing that i hate about the roid rage hype out there ,is I have seem it happen,but it is like some drugs out there if u are an ass then they will make u an even bigger ass wile on them.

I myself and a few of my close bro's get a happy layed back feel when on them .It is person by person how it will efect your mind.