1st time injecting

[wifor]

Well, finally I got a script for a 10ml bottle of test cyp at home. I am taking 100 ml of test cyp/week. Injecting for the 1st time was scary. The problem I had was watching the needle go into my thigh the whole way. That gave me the ebee jebees. So concocted a plan to not look at the needle as it was going in. I covered my thigh with toilet paper and then tore a hole in it at the injection spot. Then held my breath and pushed it in.....it did not hurt at all. But then I could not push the plunger in. I paniced and pulled the needle out....without getting the dose. Crap, now i'd had to do it again! So I did the same thing with the TP and then changed the way I gripped the syringe. I held it at the top with my 2 fingers and then pushed with my thumb. It worked....no problems and didn't hurt. Next time I am going to yell, 'No, my name is Fraunkenstien! Dr. Fraunkenstein!....not Frankenstien!' and plung it into my thigh.

[dino1013]

u will get the hang of it no problem,...its so easy.......

[wifor]

Now I want to focus on diet and working out to get this fat off of me. I need a plan! I want to incorporate running and light weight training. I am going to have to do some research on this and get my head around it if I am going to succeed. I am 5'10" and 245 lbs....fat as hell!

[flatscat]

Now I want to focus on diet and working out to get this fat off of me. I need a plan! I want to incorporate running and light weight training. I am going to have to do some research on this and get my head around it if I am going to succeed. I am 5'10" and 245 lbs....fat as hell!

Wifor I am in the same boat as you. 5'10 and 240 with about 21%bf. I have been taking 200mg test c/week, hcg and arimidex .5 eod for 6 weeks. My last blood work came in great with total around 1400 and free at 34.

Now I need to take advantage of this and get rid of this fat!! Trying to get my E2 down to 20-30 from 48 now (sure the fat is the big problem here).

Good luck to you - hope the good bro's on here will give some advise.

[THORSZ]

It would help if you look away. I do my glutes and delts. I line up the needle and then look away. I would get rid of the TP and read up on injecting to make sure you are being sterile. Hang in there, you will get it.

[natureboy]

I started out injecting in the glutes, then I started injecting my thighs. Its a whole lot easier in the thigh IMO.
You definately want to take Thorsz advice, you need to keep it as sterile as possible.
Good luck.

[wifor]

Honestly, I don't I will need the TP anymore....It was so simple. After I did it 2 times in a row, I am used to it now.

[keithdolby]

Edited and warned...

[british bulldog 1]

i wouldnt inject anymore until you do your research. if you inject a vain by accident you are in major trouble!!!

[ironaddict69]

I remember my first inject...I was just as nervous as you. Just a couple quick tips.

Change needles after you draw out your drugs, so it is completely sharp it will go through your muscle no problem.

If the plunger does not allow you to push the oil in, literally pull the needle out a hair, and re-try.

Aspirate. Although I have injected plenty of times when blood came into the needle, and nothing happened except I continued to gain...I don't know what people think will happen, I have heard it will make you cough, gear is wasted...None of that happened to me.

[run_n_fool]

what size and gauge needle did you use?

[Juice69]

I use 22g 1 1/2" in the butt!

[ENraged]

I found going nice and slow to be almost painless, I use 23 gauge needles in my thigh.

[ZonaDave]

i prefer a 23g 1.5" glute shot. i tried using 25g before but i found it hard to aspirate and to inject. i find 23g works better in both cases.

[ENraged]

Yea haven't tried a glute shot yet I really don't see how I am going to be able to aspirate correctly. Just so fat and stiff I cant work it, I am going for arm injections next.

[ZonaDave]

Yea haven't tried a glute shot yet I really don't see how I am going to be able to aspirate correctly. Just so fat and stiff I cant work it, I am going for arm injections next.

i see what you mean. i'm not fat (5'11" -230lb.) but i'm not very flexible either. i have to lay on a couch and turn on my side. then i pin myself and aspirate with one hand. that's why i like the large needles. it doesn't take alot of forced to draw up blood if i hit a vessel. it appears right away in the tip.

when i was in the marines they use to line us up and give us shots with a pressure gun. it would shoot a high pressure stream of medicine through the skin and into the muscle. no needle required. they would tell you not to move and you'd always get some idiot that would flinch and the stream cuts you like a knife! too bad they didn't make an affordable version of that.

[ENraged]

You know aspiration is the key element I worried about, after thinking about it blood should draw up considerably easier then gear though. It probably wouldn't be that big of a deal i will give it a go on my next round.

[ZonaDave]

You know aspiration is the key element I worried about, after thinking about it blood should draw up considerably easier then gear though. It probably wouldn't be that big of a deal i will give it a go on my next round.

oh ya for sure...blood is 90% water. you don't have to use alot of force to draw it up. keep an eye on the translucent base of the needle where it screws into the syringe and you'll see it there really fast. in 6 months it only happened to me once. i was using a 1.5" needle so i just pulled it out a little and i was good.

[whiteowl]

I still have the flinch and tightening of the thigh. Have even had it pop out when i start the plunger. Still don;t have a knack for it but fortunately my wife does not mind...she says it's the pokin she does for the pokin she'll get so everyone is happy.

[ENraged]

Next on my Poke schedule is my Bi's little scared of that one and I would like a smaller needle for that.

[clozto50]

Im with iron addicted been stkn myself for 15 yrs,Never asperated never had a problem.

[ottomaddox]

Even though its a small amount you're injecting, I think you're asking for trouble by injecting in your Bi's. Why not shoot the Quad's.

Next on my Poke schedule is my Bi's little scared of that one and I would like a smaller needle for that.

[ENraged]

Even though its a small amount you're injecting, I think you're asking for trouble by injecting in your Bi's. Why not shoot the Quad's.

Per my research mixing up injection sites gives your receptors better uptake.
I already shoot .5 in to my thigh I figured Bi's didn't look that difficult?

[ZonaDave]

Per my research mixing up injection sites gives your receptors better uptake.
I already shoot .5 in to my thigh I figured Bi's didn't look that difficult?

is that medical research or something some guy said on another board?

[ENraged]

Been reading things like this,
"by Bill Roberts

One of the most common beliefs concerning anabolic/androgenic steroid (anabolic steroids) usage is that the androgen receptor (AR) downregulates as a result of such usage. This has been claimed repeatedly in many books and articles, and it is claimed constantly on bulletin boards and the like. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times. If it were just being stated as an abstruse hypothesis, with no practical implications, with no decisions being based on it, that might be of little importance.

Unfortunately, this claim is used to support all kinds of arguments and bad advice concerning practical steroid usage. Thus, the error is no small one.

We will look at this matter fairly closely in this article. However, in brief the conclusions may be summed up as follows:

• There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that AR downregulation occurs in human muscle, or in any tissue, in response to above normal (supraphysiological) levels of anabolic steroids.

• Where AR downregulation in response to anabolic steroids has been seen in cell culture, these results do not apply because the downregulation is either not relative to normal androgen levels but to zero androgen, or estrogen may have been the causative factor, or assay methods inaccurate for this purpose were used, or often a combination of these problems make the results inapplicable to the issue of supraphysiological use of androgens by athletes.

• AR upregulation in response to supraphysiological levels of androgen in cell culture has repeatedly been observed in experiments using accurate assay methods and devoid of the above problems.

• AR downregulation in response to anabolic steroids does not agree with real world results obtained by bodybuilders, whereas upregulation does agree with real world results. (A neutral position, where levels in human muscle might be thought not to change in response to high levels of androgen, is not disproven however.)

• The "theoretical" arguments advanced by proponents of AR downregulation are invariably without merit.

The belief that androgen receptors downregulate in response to androgen is one of the most unfounded and absurd concepts in bodybuilding.

While this may seem perhaps an overly strong condemnation of that view, please consider that the claims for downregulation seen in books such as Anabolic Reference Guide (6th Issue), World Anabolic Review, Underground Steroid Handbook, etc. are presented with absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support them. The authors merely assert downregulation. They have done it so many times that by now many people assume it is gospel. In this paper you will be provided with evidence, and the evidence does not support their claim.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Overview of Regulation

Meaning of regulation

"Regulation" of a receptor refers to control over the number of receptors per cell. "Sensitivity," in contrast, refers to the degree of activity each receptor has. It is a possible in many cases for the receptors of a cell to be sensitized or desensitized to a drug or hormone, independently of the number of receptors. Similarly, it is possible for the receptors to upregulate or downregulate, to increase or decrease in number, independently of any changes in sensitivity.

If sensitivity remains the same, then upregulation will yield higher response to the same amount of drug or hormone, and downregulation will result in less response.

So if we are discussing androgen receptor regulation, we are discussing how many ARs are present per cell, and how this may change.

Changes in regulation must, of necessity, be between two different states, for example, levels of hormone. In the case of bodybuilding, we are interested in supraphysiological levels vs. normal levels (or perhaps, a higher supraphysiological level vs. a lower supraphysiological level.) In most research that is done, the comparison is often between normal levels and zero levels, or the castrated state.

We may describe regulation with the two levels being in either order. Upregulation as levels decrease from normal to zero is the same thing, but in the reverse direction, as downregulation as levels increase from zero to normal.

The term which would be used will depend on context, but does not change meaning, so long as the direction of change in level of hormone is understood.

If upregulation occurs as levels decrease from normal to zero, as is probably the case in some tissues, this would imply nothing about what may happen as levels increase beyond normal. It does not prove that downregulation would occur. It would be a serious error to take a study comparing normal levels and zero levels and use that study to argue the effect of supraphysiological levels. Unfortunately, such mistakes are commonly made by authors in bodybuilding.

Forms of regulation

Broadly speaking, there are three things that control the number of receptors. To understand them, let’s quickly review the life-cycle of an individual AR.

There is a single gene in the DNA of each cell that codes for the AR. In the transcription process, the DNA code is copied to mRNA. The rate (frequency) of this process can be either increased (promoted) or decreased (repressed) depending on what other proteins are bound to the DNA at the time. Increase or decrease of this rate can be a form of regulation: the more AR mRNA is produced, all else being equal, the more ARs there will be. However, all else rarely is equal.

If efficiency is 100%, each mRNA will be used by a ribosome to produce an AR, which is a protein molecule. The process of making protein from the mRNA code is called translation. In practice efficiency will not be 100%. Changes in efficiency of translation can also be a form of regulation.

The third contributing factor to regulation is the rate of loss of ARs. If the cell produces x ARs per hour, and their half life is say 7.5 hours, then the number of ARs will be higher than if ARs are produced at that same rate but the half life is say only 3.3 hours. Thus, control of rate of turnover, or change in half-life, can be another means of regulation.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Arguments for Downregulation

Arguments from the por literature

I am indebted to one of my former colleagues at Dirty Dieting for contributing these first several arguments, which are from one of his published articles. I could never have thought of them myself:

"Users of anabolics certainly have elevated levels of androgens, but they have very few testosterone receptors in their muscles…The paradox for natural bodybuilders is that they have plenty of receptors but not enough testosterone."

Response: there are no studies in the literature demonstrating any such thing. The above statement is an assertion only, and therefore cannot be accepted as evidence that anabolic steroids use in athletes downregulates the AR.

"Users of anabolics, on the other hand, have more androgens than they need, so their training should be oriented exclusively toward re- opening the testosterone receptors."

This statement deals with the issue of sensitivity, not of regulation, but again the claim is unsupported. Users of anabolics find value in the increased doses of androgen, and advanced users may well need all that they are using simply to maintain their far-above-normal mass, let alone gain further mass. The reference to "re-opening" the testosterone receptors is dubious at best, since the receptors are not closed, nor is their any indication in any scientific literature that such could possibly be the case, or that some given style of training will remedy any such (nonexistent) condition.

"One group [natural trainers] needs more testosterone, the other needs more receptors. Each group needs what the other has-which is the very reason that the first cycle of anabolics has the most effect."

The statement that the first cycle has the most effect is true, in my opinion, only by coincidence. More accurately, the cycle starting at the lowest muscular bodyweight will have the most effect. This may be because the closer you are to your untrained starting point, the easier it is to gain.

Let us look at the example of a person who achieved excellent development with several years of natural training and then has gained yet more size with several steroid cycles. He then quits training for a year and shrinks back almost to his original untrained state.

If he resumes training and uses steroids, will his gains be less than in his first cycle? Hardly. So what that it may be his fifth or tenth cycle, not the first? There is no counter inside muscle cells counting off how many cycles one has done. In examples that I know of, the gains in such a cycle have been greater than in the first cycle. (No, that does not prove upregulation, but it is strong evidence against the permanent-downregulation-after-first cycle "theory.")

The greater the gains one has already made, the harder further gains are. This is true under any conditions, regardless of whether anabolic steroids are involved or not.

Thus the "first cycle" argument proves nothing with regards to AR regulation.

In any case, regulation is a short term phenomenon, operating on the time scale of hours and days. But if it were permanent or long-lasting as this writer believes, then if steroid use were ceased for a long time, one ought to shrink back to a smaller state than was previously achieved naturally, despite continuing training. After all, one would have fewer receptors working, having damaged them forever (supposedly) with the first cycle.

That is, of course, not the case. Which is not surprising, because the "theory" is medically ridiculous.

"Various bodybuilding publications have recently featured articles stating that as a bodybuilder's level of androgens increases, so does the level of testosterone receptors in his muscles. In other words, testosterone is said to be able to upregulate its receptors in the muscles. Needless to say, the more testosterone receptors you have, the more anabolic testosterone will be. The result of the above reasoning is that it gives license to a11 sorts of excesses."

Whether it "gives license to all sorts of excesses" or not has nothing to do with whether it is true.

"First of all, if the theory were true, sedentary persons using androgens -- for contraception, for example -- would become huge. The extra testosterone would increase the number of testosterone receptors. The anabolic effect of testosterone would become increasingly stronger. In reality, untrained people who use steroids have very limited muscle growth. hey rapidly become immune to testosterone's anabolic effect. That doesn’t sound like androgen receptor upregulation, does it?"

First, no one has claimed that weight training is not needed for the steroid-using bodybuilder. This is a strawman argument. Resistance training is demonstrated to upregulate the androgen receptor, for example, and also stimulates growth by other means. Therefore it is not surprising that those who do not train do not gain nearly as much muscle as those who do. The argument that anabolic steroids use alone, without training, will not produce a championship physique proves nothing with respect to how the androgen receptor is regulated. It does not even suggest anything, to any person with judgment.

And the concept that upregulation could only exist as an uncontrollable upwards spiral is entirely incorrect. Rather, for any given hormone level, there will be a given AR level. There is no feedback mechanism, not even a postulated one, where this would then lead to yet higher hormone level, leading to yet higher AR level, etc. In fact there is negative feedback, since upregulation of the AR in the hypothalamus and pituitary in response to higher androgen would lead to greater inhibition of lh - leutenizing hormone - /FSH - follicle stimulating hormone - production, and therefore some reduction in androgen production.

In the case of sedentary subjects, let us use the subjects in the NEJM study, who received 600 mg/week testosterone, as our example. While I do not know if these subjects did experience AR upregulation in their skeletal muscle tissue, if their receptor numbers had let us say increased by some percentage, there would come some point in increased muscle mass where catabolism again matched anabolism, and further growth would not occur. No runaway spiral of muscle growth would be expected either. Thus, my colleague is arguing against non-issues.

Lastly, such persons do not, as he claimed, become immune to testosterone’s anabolic effect: they maintain the higher muscle mass so long as they are on the drug.

"After all, the heaviest steroid users are found among bodybuilders. In those heaviest users there should be upregulation of androgen receptors. If that were true, here's what would happen. The androgens would cause their receptors to multiply and get increasingly more potent as time went on. If androgen receptors were truly upregulated that way, steroid users would get their best gains at the end of a cycle, not the beginning, and professional bodybuilders would get far more out of their cycles than first-timers."

There is no reason to think that upregulation would become "increasingly more potent as time went on." Control of regulation is fairly quick.

The concept that AR activity is measured by "gains" is simply ridiculous. The function of the activated AR is not to produce gains per se, but to increase protein synthesis. That will only result in gains if muscle catabolism is less than the anabolism. As muscle mass becomes greater, so does catabolism. At some point under any hormonal and training stimulus, equilibrium is reached, and there are no further gains. With high dose anabolic steroids use, that point is at a far higher muscle mass than if androgen levels are at only normal values. The concept that the steroids are "not working" for the

bodybuilder who is maintaining 40 lb more muscular weight than he ever could achieve naturally, and who might even still be gaining slowly (but not as fast as in his first cycle) is, at best,an example of poor reasoning..

Moderate dose steroids, even though they are sufficient to saturate the AR, don’t take one as far as high dose steroids can. The difference cannot be substantially increased percentage of occupied receptors, since almost all are occupied in either case.

What does that leave as the possibilities? More receptors, or non-receptor-mediated activity.

Is there evidence that muscles are more responsive to the same level of androgen after having been exposed to high dose androgen? That would be the case, at least temporarily, if upregulation occurred. The answer is yes, there is such evidence, anecdotally. If a brief cycle (2 weeks) of high dose anabolic steroids with short-acting acetate ester is used, there can be substantially increased androgenic activity, relative to baseline, in weeks 3 and 4 even though the exogenously-supplied androgen is long out of the system. This is what would be expected if upregulation occurred. It could not be the case if substantial downregulation occurred.

"The longer a course of treatment lasts, the more users are obliged to take drugs to compensate for the loss of potency."

This is simply untrue. I know of no cases of steroid users who found that they began losing muscle mass while remaining on the same dose. The illogic here is confusing cessation or slowing of gains with cessation of effect. One instead should look at,. What muscular weight set-point is the body experiencing with this hormonal and exercise stimulus?

With higher dose anabolic steroids, that setpoint is higher. Once it is nearly achieved or achiever, of course gains slow or stop. And besides this, even if the body has not yet fully achieved the higher mass that may be possible with a given level of anabolic steroids, it is harder for many reasons for the body to grow after it has recently grown a fair deal. It needs time before being ready to again grow some more. This is observed whether steroids are involved or not.

The illogic of people who correlate rate of gains with AR level is amazing. I suppose they would have it that the AR downregulates after the first 6 months of natural training as well. After all, gains slow down then.

"Androgen upregulation would take place in every single muscle, not just in the exercised muscles. Consequently, a user of anabolics who only trained his arms should see his calves grow. That's not the case, however, even for the professionals. I wish it were true, as they wouldn't look so silly with their huge arms and puny calves. I don't have to keep demonstrating that the theory is just plain stupid. It is refuted daily by the experiences of bodybuilders who use anabolics, as well as by the research."

Again, no one claims that training is not also required for muscles. No one ever said that anabolic steroids use alone is sufficient to induce muscular growth far past the untrained state. This same logic used above could be used to argue that steroids do nothing whatsoever. After all, if they worked, then you would not need to train your calves, you could just train your arms.

The assertion that upregulation is refuted daily by the experiences of bodybuilders, or by research, is just that: an assertion.

"The fact is, excessive androgen levels induce the rapid loss of muscle testosterone receptors."

The fact is, the author had to cite some utterly obscure journals in the Polish language to support his claim. I rather doubt that were I able to read Polish that I would find the actual article to support his claims.

"There is absolutely no increase. The muscle fights the excess and immunizes itself against androgens, which is the reason steroids become less potent as time goes by."

The statement that the body immunizes itself against androgens is medically incorrect. The statement is severely enough in error that one must doubt the competence of the author to discuss any medical or physiological matters, and casts grave doubt on his judgment in such manners. Thus his statements cannot be accepted by his authority: he has none. Nor are they supported by any facts.

Conclusions from Bodybuilding Observations

I find it rather unreasonable to think that the most likely thing is that athletes who have been on high dose anabolic steroids for years, and are far more massive than what they could be naturally, and who are maintaining that mass or even slowly gaining more, could possibly have less androgen receptor activity than natural athletes or low-dose steroid users.

It might, hypothetically, be possible that their AR activity is the same, and the extra size due to steroids is due entirely to non-AR mediated activities of the androgens. However there is no evidence for that and it seems unlikely.

I believe the most logical possibility is that these athletes are experiencing higher activity from their androgen receptors than natural athletes, or low dose steroid users, are experiencing. Since the majority of androgen receptors are occupied at quite moderate levels of anabolic steroids, the explanation cannot be simply that a higher percentage of receptors is occupied, with the receptor number being the same. That would not allow much improvement. In contrast, upregulation would allow substantial improvement, such as is apparently the case (unless non-AR mediated activities are largely or entirely responsible for improved anabolism, which would be an entirely unsupported hypothesis.)

Upregulation in human muscle tissue, in vivo, is not directly proven but seems to fit the evidence and to provide a plausible explanation for observed results.

I leave the matter, however, to the reader. Weigh the evidence, and decide if downregulation, as porly advocated, is supported by science, or by what is experienced in bodybuilders."

While I may not believe this 100 percent it would seem logical to me that switching up injections sites has more benefit then simply lessening injection site scarring.
I could be off base and am very open minded so if you have something I should read toss up a link I played hookey today and have nothing better to do.

[ZonaDave]

i would stick with quads and glutes. keep things simple. i've been doing glute shots for 7 months now without any problem.

i'm not all that flexible so i can understand why some guys prefer quad shots over doing self-glute shots.

i don't understand the pec, delt, trap, bicep shots though. when i hear this i often wonder if someone thinks the injected muscle will grow faster.

[ENraged]

Nah for me they are just easy to get at lol. I did a calve injection once and tweaked a nerve I will never try that one again. I am in the process of training my lady to give me pain free injections so she will take over the ass poking soon.