Thread: **Results of blood test**

You need to do a little home study on liver function, its relation to adrenal glands and the impact of steroids. Everything is not 'good to go'; you might want to find out why. Could be you have a viral problem, but there are indicators for that which should have been checked. I'd say there are other factors involved. Diet, stress, drug or alchohol use, improper pct, or too heavy or long a cycle.

Cholesterol is taking a nose dive (downregulated), and thats sucking down DHEA because cholesterol is the starting point for sex hormone biosynthesis. Your test is below par, and enzyme indicators of liver health are not rosey. Plus your courting prostate issues at a very young age.

There are no drug or alcohol problems (other than AAS obviously), Diet is pretty clean (better than most), stress is VERY high as I am getting ready to close on a house, change careers, and starting a business at the same time.

PCT should have been pretty good if everything was real, I did have some serious doubts about the validity of the product as it came in all liquid form, labels made from a home printer - He assured me it was good, he is a good friend and has been in the game a long time so I trusted him.

Suppose that the supplements for PCT were not legit, would there be any point to supplement anything right now so late? What would you reccomend?

I was doing 200mg of anadrol ED AND I was running accutane with it, which scored me 25% over normal with both AST/ALT. This created a side effect of itching, and I could feel my liver from time to time.

Despite running all that shit, your liver values are worse than mine were. Something is up and you need to fix it. Diet affects liver too, something to remember.

I've seen 18-20 year olds who have never cycled score in the 200s for testosterone, so dont feel like you are abnormal there.

I am 99.9% sure I don't have hepit., and The cycles I have done have always been fairly mild/short respectively speaking to what is done on this board. Any other posibilities, I am reading every article i can on high values, but nothing is really helpful.

Do these numbers mean problems, or will I be able to get them back down with proper treatment?

It might mean you have genetically high values, which would mean you have to be extra careful. It could mean a LOT of things though.

Are you taking anything at all in pill form, sleeping pills, niacin, kava kava etc? Do you drink frequently?

I dont drink ever.

I had my blood drawn the morning after a very hard workout, I have read that can raise your values... I just dont know by how much. I also JUST started working out after a 2 month break, so my body was sorta in shock from the workouts...? (grasping for straws).

I also slacked from my diet a little during those 2 months...

How much of an impact does stress have on this whole get up? I usually don't sleep much more than 4 hours a night with all the work I am doing lately, could this also be a factor?

Lots of caffiene in the diet (3 lo-carb monsters a day)??

To complete the snapshot

BUN: 24 (5-26)
Creatinine: 1.2 (.5-1.5)
Bilirubin: 0.9 (.1-1.2)

I keep reading that the SGOT and SGPT are not tottaly indicative of liver problems as they could be from hard training. Mudge I just read a post you made back in 03' that quoted a study saying a value of 75 for SGOT was not cause for alarm if the other values were fine, which I think mine are. They are on the higher end of the spectrum, but does this lessen the severity, should I get retested?

Got it. My observations follow, you will want to follow up on this your physician.

"stress is VERY high as I am getting ready to close on a house, change careers, and starting a business at the same time. "

What we have is case presentation of a classic stress syndrome, primarily expressed in liver, and carrying over into other organs, most notably the gallbladder.

The chain of cause and effect.

Stress elevates cortisol. Cortisol is glucocorticoid, produced in the liver, at the expense of some 30 or so other hormones. This is a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, you can't feed both of these pathways (stress hormone and medullary corticohormones) at the same time. One is reduced, and since you have cut back on your test production by reduced LH in the brain, you are paying a price in reduced androgen output. This also feeds back to liver, and so you have reduced cholesterol output as well (the liver is being tricked into sensing that sex steroid precursors that feed the adrenals are in excess, which they are not).

Elevated cortisol is affecting neurotransmitter production in both brain and liver - one in particular that is the key pull (as in pull back) in push-pull regulation of excitatory neuroreceptors throughout the body. That is GABA, gamma amino butric acid. It has too relatives which are excitatory. The first is an amino acid drivative, glutamate and the second, its metabolite, NMDA.

In the case of excess stress, GABA is repressed. NMDA goes down in certain parts of the brain, and up in the body. The steroids you take enhance this problem.

Elevated NMDA activates fibers in the spine that connect to the gut and the gallbladder. It increases secretion of bile acid. At the same time, excess NMDA is causing very rapid gut muscular contraction, resulting in rapid movement of matter through the food processing tract. Over time, this will cause the stomach to also spasm, and cause regurgitation of bile and stomach acids into the esophageal tract. This is acid reflux (GERD) disease, and its endemic in the population, affecting fully half of the American adult population by age 50 and nearly 2/3rds by age 65.

Bile acids are detergents, soap if you will, that are powerful dissolving agents for cutting grease (dissolving fats) and so aid in digestion. However, this is bad karma for our gut lining and the bacteria that protect it. To this end, your body alters these powerful detergents by adding one of two amino acids through a chemical reaction called conjugation.

Stress reaction causes taurine to be depleted in both brain and body. Why? Taurine has many roles other than bile acid conjugation. It includes reaction to hypoxia (low oxygen) and to high ion concentrations in cells (hyper-osmolarity). Under high stress load, you take up the body's supply of taurine.

At the same time, since taurine is no longer helping to reduce bile acid corrosive action, the gut lining is being damaged and helpful bacteria killed off. You're ability to absorb nutrients is dwindling, and that will eventually halt mass gains, even under anabolic chemical conditions.

Do you understand this connection?

The reduced gut absorption is limiting access to certain vitamins, and these are important for liver production of taurine. Also another key stress combat agent, called glutathione.

You sir, are very glutathione depleted (as are many here).

That, in a nutshell, explains the lower cholesterol, slow elevation of bile acids and some of the unusual liver health results.

You probably don't have viral problems and you don't drink nor consume other drugs habitually.

Your problem is stress and the effect of steroids on the neurochemistry of stress reaction, as well as liver and adrenals.

Understand, I have provided you here a very abbreviated accounting of the full chain of connection; its a thumb-nail sketch of the situation.

Fix your stress response. Find active solutions to release its grip on your body and brain, and refrain from another cycle, until you can repair liver damage and correct neurotransmitter balance.

I hope this explanation helps you comprehend your situation. Please see my posts in the Brain and Steroids thread started by Tha Don, to better understand the complications of steroid use under high stress conditions.

wow.

Originally Posted by skaterdude

wow.

My thoughts exactly... Trouble is ridiculously smart.