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Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

trevorklee.com

51–60 of 128 posts

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#51
This article says weightlifting can add skeletal muscle cells to make it hypertrophied. Wrong. Hypertrophy occurs by making existing muscle cells bigger. No skeletal muscle cells creation can exist, except in very few precise contexts.

Also, studies show that weightlifting actually fight or even prevent sarcopenia. Same for steroids.

(sarcopenia = muscular distrophy)

Obviously the author just doesn't like sports........

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#52
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone here used it? Or TB-500? I have a tendon/pulley injury that doesn't seem to want to heal and I've been researching it. At least one relevant study. There is one Dr. in my area (a gyno of all things) that has a website promoting his practice using it. So has at least a sheen of professionalism. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21030672/

Climber? I've had three pulley injuries and returned to sport. What, specifically, have you been doing to rehab it?

yup!! hang boarding, micro needling, some finger/arm exercises from PT.

i climbed seriously as a kid until like 22 ish. then didn't for 7 ish years. it's now close to 2 years back (sep 24). I think that's the main issue, my skill/strength is higher than my fingers. Though I'm still decently strong just have pain/days I can't do much and fingers are weak compared to what I used to have.

what about you?

I've been thinking of seeing if this local Dr. has any ideas, it sounds like you have to get the peptides injected near the injury which freaks me out. Don't mess with my fingers!

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#53
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ll, for one it’d ruin sports. If it’s legal and up to the athlete to decide — then in order to remain competitive all athletes would need to take steroids. You’d basically be telling athletes that they’d need to subject their bodies to the side effects of steroids if they wanted to remain competitive in their sport. That seems like an unfair obligation to place on athletes.

I heard an interesting ethical discussion about this; considering natural levels of testosterone vary considerably between humans, couldn't it be considered fairer to allow steroid use provided total levels are below a particular level? It's interesting considering that NSAIDs are used in pretty huge amounts to keep (for example) football players on the field despite injuries, so what you're talking about is already…

In women, they tried to go opposite way and disallow natural production that is too high.

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#54
Well if you're speaking from an incentive point of view. The incentive of society is to keep men as docile as possible. Testosterone is not the best hormone to achieve this effect. On the other hand estrogen is quite freely given if you want to go the other way. Giving testosterone to people dying from dystrophy would open the discussion of steroids and it would counter the narrative that steroids are the worst drugs in existence, designed to kill you the moment you take a miligram.

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#56
post #22
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As a result, when you end your cycle, your body needs to restart its natural test production. There can be a delay while this happens and it leads to unpleasant, though temporary, side effects, like weight gain and a loss of sexual appetite. Why not just slowly taper it off?

Test is injected into muscles, usually once every 2-4 weeks. It can't be taken orally. This makes dosage control difficult. The long half-life also means that your body's control systems are slow to act (if they reacted quickly then you'd risk ending up with too much, and be unable to get rid of it).

more current test treatments are recommending much more frequent injections to more closely mimic the 'constant' production your body actually creates. Rather than injecting once a week, injecting multiple times a week eliminates a lot of the really highs and lows from injecting on schedules like you recommend.

The issue is compliance - nobody really wants to inject themselves every day or every other day.

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#57
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climber? I've had three pulley injuries and returned to sport. What, specifically, have you been doing to rehab it?

yup!! hang boarding, micro needling, some finger/arm exercises from PT. i climbed seriously as a kid until like 22 ish. then didn't for 7 ish years. it's now close to 2 years back (sep 24). I think that's the main issue, my skill/strength is higher than my fingers. Though I'm still decently strong just have pain/days I can't do much and fingers are weak compared to what I used to have. what about you? I've been think…

I did it and it worked wonders for my shoulder injury. Not giving you medical advice, but it's easy and not expensive so I would go for it if i were you.

And subcutaneous injections are so easy you dont even feel them, I pin daily every morning with my coffee and it takes me 20 seconds using a super-slim insulin needle.

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#58
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or BPC 157.

Has anyone here used it? Or TB-500? I have a tendon/pulley injury that doesn't seem to want to heal and I've been researching it. At least one relevant study. There is one Dr. in my area (a gyno of all things) that has a website promoting his practice using it. So has at least a sheen of professionalism. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21030672/

i am not a climber but I had a pulley injury that didn't really go away until I got cortisone to kill the inflammation it was causing. But repeated cortisone shots is supposed to be bad for connective tissue.

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#59

I don't really understand. Clearly the muscles work to some extent, so isn't making more a lot better than doing nothing? > It’d be like if you had a construction project, and you found out that all of the wooden beams you were receiving from a supplier were rotten. Would you order more beams from that same supplier to fix the problem? If my other option is shrugging and doing nothing and being sad as the house falls…

To use your metaphor, quadrupling up all the rotten beams would only increase the burden of said beams without proportionally increasing their strength.

You're just making the house obese and the structure will collapse under its own weight because your building materials are trash.

Re: Why can't we just give steroids to people with muscular dystrophy?

#60
One problem is, it would have to be permanent, once the steroids are stopped, the extra muscle will mostly fade away and the natural testosterone production will be inhibited, this is the worst effect, the people end up with a lower testosterone production than before. But it's true, so long enough calories are given, they would gain some muscle, even without training at all. An alternative might be hgh , but that comes with other issues. Last but not least, all steroids are not equal, they're all testosterone derivates, the tablets are very toxic to the liver, and some derivates come with some more side effects than plain testosterone. Science tried to develop a mild steroid with great anabolic effects , but all of them are not powerful without adequate androgenic properties. The androgenic properties is what makes a steroid strong and....causes most side effects and hormonal imbalances post going off. To this day, testosterone seems to be the choice of medicine and by no means it's a weak drug, it simply upsets the body bit less as it's the same thing that the body produces. There might be more points on why not give it to these patients, but that's the steroid side of things.
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