Raiders789
Member
Hey bro I'm dealing with pretty much what you described -
Morning bp of 90/60, lightheadedness whenever I would stand up, horrible brain fog, etc. During lifts if I pushed myself too hard I'd get tunnel vision and things would start to fade, id see bright starts, and wound have to take constant breaks. Was dealing with this during my cruise 2 months ago, then started a cycle of 550 test 200npp 4-6IU gh and had no change in sides, and cut my cycle way short to get this sorted out. I've been cruising on true trt(125mg test) and sides have not changed.
You could try taking the GH out as people have suggested; I tried the same thing mid cycle and completely took out GH for 10 days, and had no change in symptoms. But things that have(sorta) helped me was literally consuming as much salt as possible, keeping water intake up(im sure you already do tho), and wearing compression socks/compression tights. But those barely did anything for me.
I'd say it's pretty likely that you have some kinda POTS/orthostatic hypotension/orthostatic intolerance. Next time you do your bp, take it sitting then stand up and immediately take it again and see if there is a significant drop. Also check your heart rate when you do that too. I'll see my bp drop by 15 systolic and my hr jump up like crazy.
How does your bp/hr change when you lift? For me I get bad issues with venous pooling. Like for example, I did back the other day and after doing a few sets of rows, id get my back pump and depending on my posture I'd experience different sides. Like if I just hit a set of rows and have a good pump going and stood up, my hr would stay ~130 and I'd feel lightheaded. and if I sat down it would drop to maybe 120 and id still feel lightheaded. but if I orient myself in a way that im sitting and leaning forward so that my heart is under the pumped muscle(my back in this case) my hr would drop to like 80 and id be fine. but then right back up to 130 if I stood up and id feel lightheaded again. Same with chest, except I'd have to like lay on my back to get that effect. and its the worst with legs, if I was deep into a leg day with a good pump, and I hit a set and stood up right after my hr would stay at like 140-150 and Id get the worst lighheadedness/see stars.
Have you ever had an echocardiogram done? See if your doc will get you one. If you feel like you need to, you could say you're on testosterone replacement but don't give them exact detains of your cycle. and if you have recent bloodwork show your doc your electrolytes, hematology, iron studies, kidney function, CRP, etc. I showed all that to my cardiologist but just took the test readings off my bloodwork report.
I got an echo done last week and found that everything was normal(for ref im 20, have been on AAS/gh for 8 months which consisted of 2 blasts/2 cruises) but my ejection fraction was on the very low side of normal at 51% and my end systolic/diastolic volumes were high normal. No lvh or heart changes typically seen with just AAS use. Cardio said it was more characteristic of high performance athletes like olympians and he diagnosed me with athletes heart. I'm very in shape and have been playing sports throughout my childhood, and lift almost every day along with 20-40mins cardio but I'm doing no where near the amount that Olympians do. So it's a little uncharacteristic that I'd be experiencing these so my cardio is having me get a cardiac MRI to rule out any fibrosis/scar tissue.
Interesting tangent - my younger brother(18, no PED use) has the same exact symptoms as me and they started at the same time, and he got an echo a few weeks ago too and got almost identical results(low EF, high ESV/EDV, normal everything else). He plays football and is pretty active but again not doing anything close to the caliber you'd expect with his echo results. We don't have a history of heart problems in our family.
I have a theory that covid has something to do with this - we were both triple vaxxed(which did fuckall because we both got covid and I got it twice). There's ties between covid and POTS and the vaccines causing myocarditis. I won't know until I get the cardiac MRI but I think it's possible I had short lived myocarditis and now have fibrosis thats causing these issues.
But regardless a few weeks ago I got fludrocortisone prescribed, and taking that has helped a bit. It helps your body retain more sodium so you will hold more water, raising blood volume and boosting your basal bp. I found that it helps a bit, on 0.1mg I saw my systolic jump by like 5ish after a week of consistent use. But would still get all the low bp symptoms when I'd run or lift. So I've been taking midodrine too on top of that and thats been the game changer. It constricts your blood vessels so that you get a direct bp boost, which literally alleviated all the symptoms I was having once I nailed the dose. I'd definitely recommend you ask to get on that, it's a little expensive but I just got my india pharma shipment of a bunch.
@Astralized if any of my symptoms sound familiar let me know! because I know how much dealing with this sucks. And ask your doc about midodrine!
sorry for the really long write up
I took 200mg modafinil a few hours ago and didn't even realize how long this was getting. But I made a thread on this a few days ago and I'd really appreciate if you guys could check that out and offer advice if you have it bc apparently this is becoming a more widespread issue.Results from echo - time to put down the needle??
