What you’re saying is true for long term abuse of steroids, but a modest one month cycle of deca for recovery from surgery will not result in any of these side effects in the vast majority of cases. Sensible tapering would make them even less likely.

As others in this thread have pointed out it’s not necessarily a good approach for healing a tendon, and could be counterproductive.

Back in the day when designer “pro-steroids” (basically tweaked pro-hormones that metabolized into anabolic steroids in the body) were widely and legally available from supplement manufacturers, I had a bone graft surgery scheduled and wrote to the chemist who had developed one of the better products to get advice on a cycle for my recovery. This is anecdotal of course, but my surgeon told me that when she was fixing up the bone she realized it was in worse shape than the MRI had indicated and she puts the odds of success at 50/50. She was amazed at the speed and completeness of my recovery. I still have Frankenstein scars where the stitches were because my skin had “healed so quickly” that the stitches were difficult to remove and left gnarly holes.

I like to think that the supplement tipped the odds in my favour. Despite the well-established benefits of anabolic steroids on bone healing, the stigma around them means they are almost never prescribed even in bad cases. YMMV, but other than a few friends commenting that I a bit of an asshole while on the cycle (which could have just been the misery of post-surgery), I suffered no ill after-effects and actually put on a few pounds of lean mass despite being largely convalescent.

Not all steroids will immediately shut down your HPTA like test would. There are drugs like Oxandrolone (Anavar) which will not have this side effect assuming a low dose and relatively short term of use - it was originally prescribed for burn victims but nowadays you can get it prescribed in regular clinics for heavy injuries too.

Oxandrolone is amazing. It's such a same there's a stigma around these substances because this particular one could improve so many lives.

Am I missing something? Is there a stigma around using prescription drugs? I mean, sure there is a stigma for bodybuilding - but this drug is used for a variety of medical things. In other words, it is already used to improve lives.

And it seems there is good reason to have it be a prescription: Some of the side effects aren't wonderful and it would seem reasonable to at least get regular blood tests if you are taking it. It is just benefits sometimes outweigh the risks.

There's a stigma against prescribing anabolic steroids, sort of like how there's a stigma against prescribing opioids. They are prescribed, but doctors are wary that patients might just want the gear and aren't suffering enough to warrant it.

A stigma in recreational sports too.

See it come across as "I got 2nd place in a men's triathlon. I found out the winner is on TRT, which is not allowed. How do I get them DQed so that I can rightly claim my medal?"

Which to me makes sense, but age groupers don't get any blood testing done, so it's a bit of a he-said she-said thing.

>As a result, when you end your cycle, your body needs to restart its natural test production. There can be a delay while this happens and it leads to unpleasant, though temporary, side effects, like weight gain and a loss of sexual appetite.

Why not just slowly taper it off?

Test is injected into muscles, usually once every 2-4 weeks. It can't be taken orally. This makes dosage control difficult. The long half-life also means that your body's control systems are slow to act (if they reacted quickly then you'd risk ending up with too much, and be unable to get rid of it).

There are plenty of other anabolic steroids. Some are oral, and many have the same primary effect with fewer side effects. There's even a new class of drugs that can work for women.[1]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_androgen_receptor_mo...

IM injection is one of the best ways to get correct dosage control (apart from IV controlled delivery of course).

Also there are several steroids with different half-lives, so you can pick the best for your case.

It has been recently found that you can inject it subcutaneously using insulin needles, which makes taking it much easier. Works just as well as intramuscular.

more current test treatments are recommending much more frequent injections to more closely mimic the 'constant' production your body actually creates. Rather than injecting once a week, injecting multiple times a week eliminates a lot of the really highs and lows from injecting on schedules like you recommend.

The issue is compliance - nobody really wants to inject themselves every day or every other day.

I’m surprised that doctors are prescribing TRT, with testosterone enenthate, but then only having the patient inject once a week. That half-life is really sputtering out by the end of the week.

(Well, I know why—like you said, compliance. But c’mon, left cheek on Monday, right check on Thursday, easy enough.)

I think a lot of it has to do with Doctors relying on old knowledge and not investigating too closely.

Exogenous testosterone in any quantity will make the body stop producing natural test. If the goal is to have the body produce natural testosterone again tapering off will only delay and make it more difficult for that to happen.