You see them in spam and ads everywhere. Can someone tell me what they do exactly? Does a man who take these pills become more “manly” (i.e. your voice becomes deeper, you are more aggressive, you grow more hair on the arms and legs etc…) and what happens to females who take it? Also why the hell would anyone need to take it in the first place???
AKA steroids.
No such thing, really. What they’re peddling in pill form is testosterone “precursors” - chemical building blocks of testosterone.
Real testosterone is not available in an oral form as it apparently doesn’t survive the stomach. Instead, it’s done either in an injectable version, or one of two transdermals - a gel that is rubbed into the skin, or a patch that contains pretty much the same stuff as the rub-on. Each format has problems - the patches crinkle and crackle as you move and sometimes fall off. They also need hair-free skin, or the skin will become hair-free. The gel smells bad and tastes much worse. The injectable is well, delivered by a needle. It’s also very thick and difficult to inject - giving someone a dose of the stuff takes about 30 seconds to get in unless you use a fat spike of a needle.
Where are you getting these ads? They are probably used for birth control, HRT or increasing libido
If they are prohormones, they probably do more harm than good. Anabolic Steroids are testosterone molecules that have been altered to be harder for the body to break down. Normal, unaltered testosterone has a half life of about 10 minutes. Not enough time to have a masculinizing effect, but enough time to be converted into estrogen by the aromataze enzyme. So a man who takes those pills will probably just grow a set of breasts as his side effect.
AHHH!
No
Bad
Avoid!
the testosterone production in the body works on a negative feedback system, so an exogenous excess will lead to the body shutting off it’s own production.
and the testosterone production could get shunted into oestrogens.
so no, unless prescribed in an individually tailored dose by your doctor, don’t do it.
Trust me gentlemen, you don’t want to know why I take testosterone. Really you don’t want to know.
I went for a period without the stuff and gained weight and began to assume a pear shape. My libido crashed (like that mattered, trust me you don’t want to know) and my attitude became less like me, more passive. Less “male” if you will.
I soon started on testoterone patches and gel. They worked fine, my total and free testosterone went to mid-range normal levels. (BTW “normal” is a huge range). I resumed my formerly piss-poor attitude and became my same old self. I also resume loosing my hair and my voice dropped down to a more normal register.
As my agression returned, I began to swim everyday. The patches itched when wet and were expensive anyway. I went to the locally-available pills. They kept my T1 and T2 in place, put my US doctor hit the roof when I mentioned them to her. She warned my about liver damage.
My wife forbade the gel since she could not touch my tummy when I had it on. Testoterone is nasty for women and downright dangerous to unborn children.
Now I am on the needle. Every two weeks i shoot myself up with testoserone in oil, it is thick, but it is doable. Here it is available without a prescription and it seems to be widely used by bodybuilders.
DOn;t even think about monkeying with this stuff. It is quite dangerous (Hell, it caused WWI as near as I can tell.)
The gentlemen may now uncross their legs.