Do I have permanent damage from taking pro hormones?
Hey Marc,
I was wondering if I could get your opinion on wether or not I have permanent damage from taking pro hormones. My lifting career started out like most. I was 17 (i'm 24 now) and wanting to get bigger to impress girls. Worked out hard for about a year while not paying attention to diet at all other than knowing just to eat a little more protein than usual, but still managed to make some decent gains. About a year later a friend of mine that was a little older than me tried these things called pro hormones and got noticeably bigger from them. So, naturally, I wanted to get in on the action. And it being 2008 at the time, of course, I went right to a local "nutrition shop" and bought a bottle. I did lie and say I was 19 at the time but the guy still didn't blink and sold them to me. Sure enough.. they worked. Nothing crazy obviously but more than i had ever experienced at the time. I loved it and wasn't concerned or even aware of the side effects. From that point on I did about 1-3 cycles of them a year until my last one at the age of 21 years old. As you can imagine over the years of using them I noticed they really only benefited you while you were on them and started to notice some side effects. Like back cramps for example. This prompted me to start doing my research on them (finally). The more and more I read the less faith in them I had and it finally led me to the decision that they were complete bullshit, and basically I had been getting fucked all these years and probably only doing more harm than good. After doing the math in my head I got the number of total cycles (4-weeks each) I did to about 7-9 total. Some with just one compound, and some with up to 4. Some claiming to be extremely strong and some claiming to be mild. The first one when I was 17 and the last when I was 21. Another thing to take into consideration is that when i was taking the first 1-4 or so cycles I drank heavily a few times while I was on them :/. I cringe thinking about it nowadays but I was young and dumb. After doing that a few times and waking up the next morning with all these weird pains in my back and my urine being all discolored it prompted me to do my first bit of research on them which led me to learn that they were toxic for your liver. That was probably at the age of 19. By the way, yes, I did take a "liver support" along with all of these but yeah i'm aware they probably didn't do a damn thing to stop the damage. . Unfortunately, that didn't stop me from taking them but I did stop drinking while i was on them from that point on. Over the course of the years there were other parts that matured about me as well and may have played a factor. Around 19 i really started to get into eating healthier and drinking fuck tons of water. While I was still doing the occasional cycle of these false dreams my workouts and diet were getting more and more professional. Once I turned 21 and did my last and most extreme cycle of the pro hormones.. I decided to never take them again and basically take on a whole new attitude towards lifting. I should probably thank Matt Ogus for that one for example. He was a big mentor for me at the time. I learned the truth about steroids/pro hormones and what you can accomplish naturally if you put the work in and decided that was going to be me from that point on. Ever since then I have lived an EXTREMELY healthy lifestyle. I'm talking everything man. Well balanced diet with tons of veggies, drink nothing but water, track my macros daily, have a good set of vitamins I take, slamming probiotics, taking cold showers...etc. You name it man. And as far as alcohol goes it's basically non existent. I usually have about 1-2 beers maybe two saturday nights a month usually just because we're watching the UFC fights or something. Other than that I have zero interest. After my last cycle when I was 21 I had a shoulder and knee injury almost at the exact same time. I lost probably 70 percent of my gains over the course of 6 months of basically not being able to train. However as soon as I was healthy again I got right back in the gym and the kitchen with a well thought out plan and am now all the way back to where I was AND THEN SOME. And the greatest part is I did it all naturally. So I felt pretty proud.
Hope that's not too much background info but I thought it could help you answer my question more accurately. As far as things I've noticed that prompted me to ask this question...
1. I noticed my eyes are constantly a little red in the center of the whites of my eyes. Kind of straight across from left to right. Not the entire eye ball. Just a little on the sides of my pupils. I wouldn't say they're yellow in my opinion but they may look a little bit that way to somebody else (never really asked anybody else)
2. I'm 24 years old now and still can't grow a beard. I know that's probably a genetic thing, but that combined with still not feeling as good as I feel like I should even with my healthy lifestyle makes me wonder if I messed with my endocrine system or puberty processes when I was taking them from 17-19. Or if bare minimum I have surpassed levels of testosterone because of it. I notice people my age that are also natural are making the same if not better gains as me but not putting in as much effort. I know we're all different but I feel like I should be progressing even better than I am now. I don't exactly put on muscle or lose body fat easily I've just always attributed it to my ridiculously strict diet and training regimen.
Would love to hear your thoughts man
-Tanner
Pic of my eye if it helps
Customer support service by UserEcho
This is a medical question, have you talked to your doctor?
haven't felt the need to because I feel fine. Just super aware of my body
Bro, your eye is weird, just go get a yearly check up!
I just want to mention that I was shaving my whole face by the age of 18. I know some guys don't grow beards until later but if you couldn't grow one at 18 then it could very well be that you just don't have the genetics for it.