# FITNESS and NUTRITION FORUM > INJURIES, REHAB & SPA >  Chronic pain and muscular wasting - Steroid treatment - Advice needed badly

## Swe_Viking

Hi!

I hope this mail finds you well?

I´ve got chronic pain in my lower back as a result off two broken discs that wouldn´t heal correctly. I had to get surgery 2 years ago since one of the leaked a lot and pressed against the big body nerve that runs through the body pressing on it so bad that I developed ischia’s that kept me from even walk more than a couple of yards when it was worst. 
It had succumbed a lot when the day of the surgery finally came but I still felt it. The doc said they removed about a little more than half an inch of tissue that pressed against the nerve.
Now to get to the point. I was told that the pain could remain in my back for up to a year before it had disappeared completely. But with proper physiotherapy it should go away since it´s extremely uncommon that it doesn´t.
Well. It didn´t. I love training and being active in many ways but now I’m basically handicapped to a point. I can´t put heavy pressure from above so that it presses against my spine yet, I have trouble lifting heavy stuff and at the really bad days I can barely bend over to pick up my kids. 

That said training saved both my body and my sanity without a doubt!
The problem is that I’m such a hard gainer other that I have what the doc called a "problematic back” That’s their way of not knowing what´s wrong with me except that my discs were permanently damaged. That doesn´t explain the pain that should have subsided a long time ago or its intensity. Opiates is their only solution of all the doctors I’ve spoken with. That doesn´t seem too healthy either.
Recently I got in contact with a person that works in an underground group that all has an education and/or a job in these areas of expertise.
Funnily he had another client with the exact same problem as I that through steroid treatment and training had managed to almost out all addictive and strong pain meds in favor of CBD and sometimes some over the counter pain meds. He still had to resort to the morphine on occasion but that might be because of his work or something.

So, I gave it a try since I’m anyway at the gym 4-6 times a week. 
I have no experience of “real” steroids even though I’ve been gone to the gym for at least 10 years with some periods when I haven´t been able too. (Severe injury, military service etc.)
I was not really sure what I expected but I had not expected what happened. The first weeks I could lift more and easier, recovery was faster, I already eaten so much so I maybe ate an extra snack sometimes. When I train my body, I lose all cravings of trash food and candy somehow. Don´t ask me why since I could live of cheese and beer when not working out for a while. No mental issues or aggression, no extreme libido, no hair loss or gain etc. Basically, it was just another Wednesday the first weeks. 

After a couple of weeks my balls had shrunk and I started get acne on my upper body. Not the face or arms but the torso. I noticed some joint pain a couple of day after administration but nothing severe. I had been prepared for worse frankly. I was even calmer than usual. That might have to do that I kept an extra check on my temper just in case it should turn sour against someone I cared about or just as likely someone else that didn´t deserve it?
Then the water retention came in faster than Usain Bolt outrunning a lion... My feet, ankles and hands swelled like crazy! I barely got of my wedding ring in time. Now this was the HGH I took each morning that was the culprit. I ended it immediately but it took weeks before things started to return to normal. It was bizarre. I´m still a bit swollen and I haven´t touched the stuff in over a month. 

Before I continue, I must mention that your website is a goldmine of information. I would have done a lot of mistakes if I hadn´t been able to fact check things tried to convince me about here.

I even changed my first vendor because of what he suggested went so against what you teach. Take pride in your work. I bet you save the health and lives of thousands every year?
I live in Sweden and pretty much everything stronger than Creatine is banned here. That means risk. The ones that have buy directly from legit pharma labs and those that sends their every batch to an independent lab for testing costs at least 3-5 times as much as those who hasn´t. Testosterone is probably the cheapest part of the cycle in most cases. 

I started out with:
Testosterone Enanthe 250mg once per 5 days.
5IU HGH daily
2 caps of SARMS daily
1 was a stacked combo of:
10mg ostarine
10mg gw501516
10mg mk677
3mg lgd

*1 was just Cardanine*

Since it was my first time, I started cautiously but at week 3 had landed on my planned dose:

*525 mg Testo E - 5 days
7IU HGH - daily
3 caps of SARMS
2 Cardarine
1 YK-11*

The guy I was in contact with suggested that I should take a break from the SARMS in the middle of the cycle and just experience the testo and HGH on its own and the continue with the SARMS when there was a month or so left of the cycle.

This is when the water retention came. It was so massive that it worried me a little bit in the beginning since it hurt and was in the way of everything but I continued working out and kept going with the Test. Some weeks later I started get enormous amounts of acne. But it´s winter and it didn´t was anywhere visible with clothes on. so, it didn’t bother me that much.

I was quite fit already before the cycle but the results sure showed. As I said I’m an extremely hard gainer but the levels in strength and the extra muscle in combination with the loss of the fat I had visible made me look better than ever. I even noticed that my six pack that have been MIA the last couple of years was returning.

Sadly, my mother died around here and I haven´t been at the gym for a little more than a month now. My nipples started to get sensitive around here but they have always been that in periods so I’m not convinced it had something to do with the cycle? I couldn´t feel anything beneath them but since I wasn´t going to the gym anyway I started my PCT as a safety measure. The sensitivity has disappeared since and this was barely a week ago.

I would really appreciate some advice here if you got the time and feel like helping a rookie out?
Just to be clear I had been working out for years totally natural before turning to the steroids.

I’ll just number the questions I have:

*1. should I take a full PCT treatment even though I aborted the cycle midway? I use Nolva 40mg/day week 1-2 and 20mg/day week 3-4. (I bought a bottle of Clomid too just to be safe but I don´t want to use it if not necessary) If not I would really like to save some of the Nolva until next time since it was extremely expensive compared to many other things.

2. Should I give it another try since it really worked and my pain diminished and with that my need for popping oxy like candy? The CBD kept inflammations away and in combination with the training I felt so much better. Clearer in my brain and not highly addictive every day in my body.

3. I´ve been at I least 10-15 doctors and specialists to days date and no one knows why I’m still in pain and all they can come up with is strong opiates and physiotherapy. 

4. Out of 5 physiotherapists I’ve seen only one has been good. 2 of them has put directly harmful exercises in my program. Now I’m no expert but has picked up a thing or two in those years I’ve been working out and when I asked polite about it, they couldn´t really give me an answer. They had just checked of a couple of the standard exercises. The last one didn´t understand why I didn´t do a ridiculous number of reps on some big muscle groups that wasn´t even the problem. She believed the muscle grows faster depending on how many reps you do. When I tried to explain the difference between muscle growth and developing muscle stamina, she just looked at me weird. In her defense she was probably just out of school and 99 % of her clients was in their 80: s and over.

5. I don´t think the SARMS stack I did in the beginning was either as strong as described or fake altogether. The Cardanine worked and I used YK-11 for a short while before my SARMS brake instead of it and felt much better results.
I´m thinking a stack of these for next time if it isn´t too much?

Cardanine
MK-677
YK-11
(Maybe Ostarine?)

There are several I haven´t tried and only read about that has become available not long ago. Is there something I missing? Should another combo give better results? I have chosen these partly because of the healing properties they possess in the farfetched hope that they should repair something in the process even as there has passed so much time since.

6. Testosterone - I couldn´t get ahold of the top-of-the-line Cypionate that I was recommended so I bought Enanthe from as different source instead. Now I’m a little bit torn here. I now believe that I got hold of an inferior form of Testo from the other source. I can get the "real thing" again but I heard that many prefers Enanthe in order to keep the balance in the body as even as possible. Is there any difference for an amateur as me that use it for medical reasons? Do you also the acne or other side effects are "nicer" if I get higher quality cyp next time?

5. Should I leave out the HGH and is there another substance with similar properties? It´s the speeding of fat burning that was the reason I was recommended it as I understood. Some SARMS have the same properties and if not, I just have to wait a little longer, I guess.

6. I can start the next cycle if you think it´s a good idea the last week of march IF I do a full PCT after just half a cycle of testo? What should I use in your opinion since I want to keep as much muscle as possible and not just retain fluids and I’d like to get rid of some fat until mid/late summer when it´s hottest and bathing season for real if possible? It´s a little tight but can I shorten alternative combine both bulk and deaf somehow. It doesn´t get hot in the water here until sometime into June anyway so if I could be somewhat ready at the beginning of July it would be awesome! This is the least important issue just to be clear. If I could put on the muscle I lost and add another 5-10 kg (about 9 – 18 kgs) then I´m happy. The pain is the culprit.* 

Those were all my questions -and I would be eternally grateful if you could help me out. You are one of the leading community of experts in the field and I understand that your time is very limited.

It´s just that the last doctor started talk about methadone treatment against the pain since the pills don´t do much on their own. Training the muscles so that they grow and has stamina is the only thing that has actually worked on me and I really don´t want to put myself into an addiction willingly. I´m no junkie and the only times I have briefly forgot about the pain is when I was working out, eating and sleeping like I should. Sometimes it went days, even weeks without anything more than something like an aspirin but a little bit stronger now and then.

Two weeks after I stopped working out in order to take care of my mother’s funeral I sometimes couldn´t get on my clothes by myself. Not to talk about why my kids wonder why I won´t play with them like we use too. It’s as depressing as much as it is physical painful.

Thank you so much for reading all this and I can´t exaggerate when I say that the right advice will probably be the difference between a long and happy life as supporting husband and father compared to the road with depressions from the constant pain, medicines that will damage my internal organs beyond reparation, unable to give my family and friends what they deserve and instead just be a liability to everyone. 

I´m just 36. I need to be able to work and provide for at least as long time still. I need to be there for my kids and not be a drugged-up zombie. I need to help my wife that works full time and then comes home and does basically everything at home too because I can´t even stand for more than a couple of minutes because of the pain.

And I sure as hell don´t want to be an addict sponsored by the medical community just because they don´t see a fix that ins-t quick. Every time I meet a new doctor it ends with me being sent somewhere else with a bag full of pills and half the time, they don´t even tell me where I should turn to.

Steroids works!
Maybe there is a treatment in 10 years. But for now, I need help with the only thing that has worked so far.

Thank you so much in advance for your time and patience!

You guys are my light in the stormy ocean that easily draws you under if aren´t careful.
It may be more or less tolerated but it can inflict such terrible damage without the right knowledge.

Again.. I´m so grateful for enery grain of knowledge you can provide me.

Thank you!

Best Regards

Swe_Viking

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