There's a funny thing about my life... I'm not sure if this is comic, tragic, ironic or what...
I spent more than 10 years as a serious competitive powerlifter, football player, wrestler, and martial artist, and another few years as a just a hobbyist.
In that entire time, I never did a single "performance enhancing drug"... Never even tempted to do so.
Now I'm a broken down, fat, middle aged cripple... who the DEA looks at like I'm a drug dealer or abuser of "performance enhancing substances"... just to keep from getting fatter, more broken down, and more crippled.
I'm 8 years into the frank symptoms of chronic illness (which turned out to be a weird and rare kind of endocrine cancer, that almost killed me, and basically destroyed my endocrine system. I have been cancer free for almost 2 years now), and I am now on damn near the exact combination of drugs that "juicers" would traditionally use for such things.
I take more testosterone every week than most steroid abusers would even think of... and I don't cycle it, I take it constantly, deep muscle injection every week.
I take an aromatase inhibitor to keep all that testosterone from converting to estrogens and testosterone antagonists (and giving me all the nasty side effects that not cycling off testosterone injections give you). We're experimenting with that one right now, but we may end up adding an estrogen/estradiol antagonist to the mix on top of the aromatase inhibitor.
By the by... those drugs are normally what they give to breast cancer and ovarian cancer patients. They actually say in the interaction warnings "do not take if you are a man"... unless of course you're a man whose body is producing too much estrogen, or converting too much testosterone into estrogens and testosterone antagonists, and blocking his ability to produce and use testosterone properly. If you're not one of those men, it dramatically increases the effect of testosterone (and other steroid hormones) on your body.
I'm on enough primary thyroid hormone to quite literally kill a normal person... in fact, not just "enough", the amount I take is several times the lethal dosage. It's still may not be enough for me. The doc just increased it today, and will probably increase it again in 6-12 weeks when we sort out the effects of the new meds. Sometimes athletes abuse thyroid hormones for weight loss, increased energy, and to boost other performance enhancing hormones naturally.
For allergies, and for inflammation pursuant to the endocrine issues, I take two different other steroidal medications (a glucocorticoid and a mineralcorticoid), which act as bronchodilators and anti-inflammatories.
To deal with some of the unfun and nasty side effects and after effects of the cancer (to improve metabolic function, energy, mental acuity etc...) I'm also taking enough creatine to put a normal person into kidney failure... For me, it actually makes my kidneys work better.
Because of the aftereffects of the cancer, the endocrine issues, and the side effects of the medications, I'm on megadoses of vitamins and minerals. I mean MEGADOSES.
Between all of those, my growth hormone production and DHEA production should be elevated through the roof... as if I was taking illegal supplementation of HGH. It's not... because my endocrine system is so screwed up.
For my edema (another lovely endocrine side effect, which can be made worse by my meds), I take more diuretics than the most abusive wrestler, gymnast, or bodybuilder. I've lost 24lbs in 24 hours, and 48lbs in 7 days just from the pills.
For musculoskeletal pain and systemic inflammation, I'm on more and stronger anti-inflammatories than any athlete rehabbing after a major injury (I take 1000mg of etodolac twice a day). I also get periodic shots of antiinflammatory medications directly into my knees.
Those let me get out of bed and walk. Without them... I just don't.
Between my normal blood chemistry, the damage the cancer did, and the side effects of medications, I've got polycythemia, and I'm a hyperclotter. I'm basically naturally blood doping.
To counter the aftereffects of the cancer and make the other meds work better (adrenal and pituitary support), I'm on enough stimulant medication (which is also a bronchodilator) to make the DEA look funny at my doctor... until he explains all of the above.
In fact, the DEA looks funny at several of the drugs I'm taking above. My doctors have had to explain to my pharmacists, and both have had to explain to the DEA... no, I'm not a drug dealer or abuser, I'm not a steroid abusing weight lifter... I'm just a guy who needs this stuff to live.
I should be taking actual pain killers too... I've got enough musculoskeletal damage, neurological damage, and inflammation, that my baseline background pain is pretty substantial.
For those familiar with pain management, I live at about a 3-4 most days, with breakthrough to a 7 on good days, and 6 or 7 with breakthrough to 9 or 10 bad days.
That's with the meds. Without... there are no good days. There's just days I can get out of bed, and days I can't.
I simply refuse to take painkillers. They don't do a damn thing for me unless I take horse tranquilizer doses, and then they knock me out cold... or worse, leave me sami conscious and barely awake, but unable to think, or concentrate, or really actually sleep. Beside, I don't like the other side effects.
I've learned just to live with the pain, and take what pain reduction I can get with my other medications.
And by the way... this is a MASSIVE REDUCTION of the stuff I used to be taking, during the cancer. My primary care physician and my endocrinologist are both alternative and integrative medicine believers who hate drugs, and only prescribe the absolute minimum necessary.
I'm not overmedicated... if I go off of any of them, or all of them, nothing gets better and it all gets worse. We've done differential testing, going off one at a time and seeing the impact then going back on, then varying dosages... I'm definitely not overmedicated.
If anything, there are some other medications that might help me more. We're very slowly adding things in one at a time, so we can test and measure and adjust.
This isn't overmedication...
This is what happens, when your endocrine system completely loses the ability to regulate itself. It's trying to regulate through medication, what the body normally regulates naturally.
It's what I need to live, and be functional.
The worst thing is though... because of DEA actions, regulations, guidelines, and investigations... Several of my medications, that I need to live, and be productive, and actually be ME?
They're constantly short of them, or out of them entirely. Sometimes it's every pharmacy within 30 miles.
They don't stock them, they don't stock the dosages I need, or they don't stock enough to fill my scrips for a month.
I have to get hand written, signed scrips every month, I can't get refills, and I can't get more than a 30 days supply at once. If I'm caught with more than a 30 days supply, I can be charged with unlawful possession, and possession with intent to distribute.
I have to hand carry those scrips to the pharmacies, only for them to tell me that it might be a week, maybe two weeks, before they can fill the scrip; because the DEA production quota for that quarter had been exceeded, or the distributors orders were above the DEAs suspect threshold, or because they had sold out of all they could order for that month without the DEA investigating them, or because one scrip of mine was more than the DEA told that pharmacy they could keep in storage.
We won't even get into what the drugs themselves cost, or what they would cost without the regulatory and compliance burden to deal with these issues.
...And god help me if I actually took the painkillers I should be taking.
All this... because the medications that I need to live and function... are sometimes abused by other people to "enhance their performance".
... and somehow, some people still seem to think that the "drug war" is helping?
