High doses make my muscles "cold, clammy and crampy," kind of hard to explain. Like my electrolytes are off or something and the muscles don't feel right, movements don't feel fluid. Like if I sit for a period and then get up my muscles don't feel right, like I lose feeling. I remember Matt Porter talking about himself doing a higher dose of tren here on promuscle, playing video games and then kind of losing normal feeling in the muscles, can't recall exactly how he explained it but remember thinking I get exactly that feeling. For some reason I don't get this same thing if I megadose orals, my body still feels okay, maybe because the levels go up and down and don't stack up over time like with injects? Large doses of orals can increase strength acutely more the more you take in my experience, like with Anadrol, I feel like a coiled spring ready to explode with a lot of Anadrol in my system and my muscles don't feel off in the same say as with a lot of test or tren. In general steroid results don't increase linearly with increasing doses, obviously, and you get close to the ceiling rather quickly. Some big freaks apparently do respond well to megadoses of steroids, maybe it's genes, maybe higher gh doses improve response to escalating steroid doses, I don't know all the possible factors but I'd have to think someone like Nasser probably "benefited" from the 5 grams of test as he was just so "meaty." Maybe not, maybe he'd been the same size on considerably less? Someone reputable here said they heard Kai Greene had done up to 13 grams total for a while and Kai was one of those who was breaking new ground as far as mass and being a freak. I'd like to know how much Roelly Winklaar did at his peak as that is one guy who in my opinion just looked like he was doing some very unhealthy doses.
Always speculating on what you can do with more drugs, I once saw Patrick Arnold mention a drug used for "intermittent claudication" that might help the crampy muscle feeling if you were to megadose steroids for whatever reason. Perhaps, I don't know, never tried it. I think the drug was pentoxifylline? Propionyl-l-carnitine was shown somewhere to help against intermittent claudication but I never got around to trying it.
TRENTAL
This month, I am going to discuss a drug. It is not a steroid or anabolic peptide hormone, or anything like that. As far as I know, it is not currently banned by any athletic organization, but just like any drug out there, that does not mean it cannot be added to the list at any time and acted on retroactively. It's just a drug that I find intriguing and although it has been written about in regard to performance enhancement here and there in other forums, it is still relatively unknown, so I thought I would take the topic on and share the wealth with MD readers.
The drug is called pentoxifylline (brand name Trental). Chemically, it falls into a class called methylxanthines, which includes caffeine and its chemical cousins, theophylline and theobromine. Unlike those three natural compounds, though, pentoxifylline is synthetic.
The main use of pentoxifylline is to treat a condition known as intermittent claudication. Intermittent claudication happens when a person's peripheral arteries become obstructed, which can lead to poor blood flow to muscles during physical exercise. The most common manifestation of this is painful cramping and fatigue in the calves when walking. Pentoxifylline can reduce the viscosity of blood, which can improve blood flow to the limbs and ease the symptoms of intermittent claudication. Pentoxifylline also has been studied, and occasionally used, as a treatment to fight the catabolism due to infection or cancer. It has been shown to reduce whole-body protein loss in a variety of catabolic conditions.
So it is mainly these two properties— the ability to improve blood flow to muscles and the ability to suppress protein catabolism— that makes pentoxifylline potentially useful for athletes.
Improving Blood Flow
Efficient blood flow is obviously of paramount importance to athletic performance. It is also vital to proper recovery from training. Oxygen, as well as nutrients necessary for contraction and growth, must get to working muscles. Unfortunately in some athletes, a variety of conditions (some natural and some drug related) can conspire to impede optimal blood flow. Now I assume that most people reading this are relatively healthy people who don't suffer from serious, age-related vascular disorders such as peripheral artery disease. However, some of you might be into bodybuilding pretty seriously and your body may possess a formidable amount of muscle mass and body water. You may find that when you are on your bulking stage, you cannot perform certain exercises without experiencing a substantial amount of cramping and pain. Maybe you find that you cannot walk too far without your calves feeling like they are gonna explode. Or maybe certain exercises provoke that dreaded condition we refer to as the "back pump," where your lower back seizes up in a massive cramp that has you lying on the floor writhing in pain. As you have probably guessed, these are all variations on the condition I described above called intermittent claudication. However, the culprit is not blocked or hardened arteries. The culprit is muscles that are so massive and/or overtoned that the small blood vessels that feed them are being pinched shut.
The use of drugs can also lead to conditions that threaten proper blood flow to the heart and skeletal muscles. The use of anabolic steroids and the use of synthetic EPO can lead to the condition known as polycythemia vera, which is an overproduction of red blood cells (erythrocytes) by the bone marrow. An excess of erythrocyte production can increase the percentage of blood cells in your blood (called the hematocrit) above levels that are safe. This dangerously elevated hematocrit may be present at rest, or in some cases, excessive dehydration due to exhaustive exercise may take a borderline hematocrit and put it over the safe threshold.
Whichever the case, the result is overly viscous blood that cannot easily circulate. Blood that does not easily circulate requires the heart to work harder and the blood pressure to increase— conditions that can precipitate a heart attack or stroke. Furthermore, an increased tendency of blood to clot can occur, potentially leading to dangerous embolisms which can be life threatening.
Now you are obviously waiting for me to tell you if and how pentoxifylline can help these conditions. Yes, it potentially can help and I will explain how by telling you in minor detail the mechanisms behind pentoxifylline's effects on erythrocytes. As you may already know, erythrocytes are concave, disc-shaped cells that circulate throughout the blood and deliver oxygen to tissues. Like many other tissues in the body, erythrocytes contain an enzyme called phosphodiesterase, which regulates the levels of the important biochemical messenger cAMP. The particular form of phosphodiesterase in erythrocytes (erythrocyte phosphodiesterase) is inhibited by pentoxifylline, and by inhibiting the enzyme levels of cAMP in the erythrocytes are increased. Administration of pentoxifylline will increase cAMP in the erythrocytes, thereby increasing their flexibility and ability to deform as they pass through narrow passages such as capillaries. As a result, an increase in what is known as "microcirculation" is achieved and tissues such as skeletal muscle will gain greater access to circulating oxygen, glucose, amino acids and other vital factors. Additionally, pentoxifylline increases the breakdown of fibrin (fibrinolysis), which is an important protein involved in the development of clots.
So, for those athletes who suffer from the aforementioned occlusive conditions, the combination of increased erythrocyte flexibility and increased fibrinolytic activity can reduce blood viscosity, leading to substantially increased blood flow to working muscles. The "back pump" may be alleviated and complications due to elevated hematocrit may be partially minimized.
End part 1
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pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
www.pharmaindustrial-india.com
