Marilia’s Powerlifting Blog

I have been thinking on how to answer your question regarding testosterone and mood. And you know why I had to think so much? Because I had to make a hard choice: either blabber along with technical arguments in favor of which there is almost no empirical evidence or finally reveal what I have been very careful about for quite some time, which is my own personal experience with androgens. And then I thought: WTF, I have already openly described my mental illness and suicide attempt. How much more scandalous could it be to admit to the use of steroids in a self experiment? So, here it goes.
First, the technical “intro. In the early fifties, a small set of articles appeared in the medical literature concerning the psychiatric use of AAS. It was the high moment of experimenting with hormones in mental illness: insulin was widely employed and even thyroid hormones were tried, with little success. I have compiled these articles on a post. It is unfortunately still in Portuguese, but the table containing the articles is pretty self-explanatory (http://mariliacoutinho.livejournal.com/27966.html ). Under a strictly technical observation concerning the dynamics of scientific production, this trend is somewhat suspicious. One decade of a modest production bluntly discontinued with no evidence of failure or lack of results. To those more acquainted with how research is conducted, it looks more like an “aborted agenda, for unknown reasons.
Soon after the last publication on steroid applications in psychiatry, the extremely profitable line of pharmaceutical technological innovation in psychotropic anti-depressives began: first, the MAOI (mono-amine oxidase inhibitors); then, the tricyclic compounds; then, in the eighties, the SSRIs and, finally, the “atypical drugs.
Today, there is again a modest number of publications concerning a restricted application of AAS supplementation for mood disorders in aging men and women (http://www.bodystuff.org/testoandmood.html ). There is also evidence that except for excessively large doses of AAS, where undesirable side effects are observed, these substances are shown to offer more benefits than harm concerning mood and general well being (see the article “testosterone and the brain).
All this said, let me tell you my story. As I wrote before, there is no “vacation from training for me if I want to keep my mood stable. Anything longer than three days without any workout triggers some suspicious symptoms. At a certain point (after the incidents described in the previous post), I decided I had enough basis to bet on androgen levels … and not any of the amine neurotransmitters … as the culprit or hero on my mood condition. So I decided to experiment with AAS supplementation. Based on what I suspected, I thought a mildly androgenic steroid should be my best choice. I discussed this with my physician and we decided to try mesterolone (proviron). After less than a week of use on 25mg/day, I experienced something I had never felt: the “shadow of the disorder was gone, like never before. This is a hard concept to explain to non-affected people, but it is similar to what epileptics feel: there is always a “shadow, a very subtle feeling that the origin of an earthquake is active, somewhere in your brain. Even when you feel absolutely in control and well. With proviron, this feeling was gone. For the first time in my life, I felt what probably could be called “normal.
I tried other AAS and none produced the same effect. And once, I discontinued its use for about a week: the result was a very nasty depressive state.
Mesterolone is, as I said, mildly androgenic in that dose and very little anabolic. The athletic advantage, I believe, is negligible. I have posted a few weeks ago a piece concerning anti-doping and my protest against this policy, and it largely reflects my own concerns with the health benefits AAS are delivering to people like me and so many others. I do not wish to go into this argument here, but the link is obvious.
By no means I recommend the use of AAS in mental illness (or in any condition), nor do I suggest a med-free approach to it. I am only describing my own experience and self-experimentation, for whatever it is worth. In this very well defined and limited context, the result could not possibly be more positive.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 26th, 2007 at 12:30 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.