Hey,
I've been running tren e 400 and test e 500. It's currently week 6. Over the past two days, I been getting these slight headaches during the night after my work out. Not sure if it's from all the stress of school or if it's from the tren.
I went to the store and used one of the pharma cuff machines:
180/95...
I then went home and took my own readings using this machine and did it several times:
165/75, 135/45... I got a bunch of weird numbers too like this. It doesn't add up to me and I'm thinking the machine at home is junk.
Not exactly sure on what to do. I can't even confirm if it's BP cause the results keep varying, when is the best time do measure it and how can I get a accurate reading?
PS: I'm running 2.4g fish oil in morning and 2.4g fish oil at night + 1g garlic ED..
Also, I'm running .5 adex e3d. Last time I checked by bloods, During my 500mg Test PW cycle.. I ran .5 adex e3d and my est turned out to be about 64. So I'm assuming it's the same this cycle? Should I increase .5 adex to .75?
Would adding 81mg ED baby asprin help lower BP at all? I don't want to stack this IMO cause I do run oral accutane too with NAC.
Hey.. Just happened upon your thread...
180/95 is hypertensive and not something you should ignore..
It's difficult to take a manual BP by yourself, as you can't fit the cuff tight enough to obtain a correct reading..
BP readings do fluctuate throughout the day, and it is possible to go from 180/110 down to 128/82 just by sitting down and resting for 20-30 mins, in some individuals..
Manual PB is more consistent than a machine, if done correctly...
Aspirin is an antiplatelet, it doesn't do anything for blood pressure (no matter what you may read otherwise)...
Your headache could very likely be caused by elevated BP, when mine reaches the 160-180 range I experience similar to yourself... Over the long term elevated BP has serious negative implications for your health, especially to the cardiovascular system...
High blood pressure independent of AAS causes enlargement of the heart. AAS gives a second hit. The smooth muscle of the cardiovascular system is AR positive. At high AAS concentration those muscle cells will hypertrophy. The job of the smooth muscle in the musculature is to pump rhythmically in a wave like form to assist the movement of blood. With AAS induced hypertrophy of the smooth muscle that motion is compromised shifting more of the burden to the heart.
It's an inconvenient truth but just be aware of it and try to limit super high dose use and control blood pressure. One of the reasons that Diovan (Valsartan, which is an Angiotensin II receptor blocker) is so good for AAS users for blood pressure control is because it relaxes the smooth muscle of the vasculature opening the diameter and relieving some of the tension caused by hypertrophy...
Any medication that controls blood pressure (an inotrope) and to a lesser extent pulse rate (a chronotrope) while on AAS will reduce or prevent left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) - this includes diuretics, beta blockers, alpha blockers, calcium channel blockers, ACE inhibitors as well as ARBs. But LVH in itself is not necessarily an issue. It often reflects the fact that bodybuilders have developed the significantly superior heart function and strength required to shift large weights and feed powerful muscles - what would be called an 'athletic' adaptation.
The problem is when this coincides with fibrosis in cardiovascular tissues. In this instance fibrosis is the deposition of less flexible collagen not just in the heart but in arteries and veins across the body. This seems to occur directly and indirectly as a result of AAS use, and some AAS are worse than others - eg Deca is notoriously bad. This extra collagen makes the cardiovascular tissues a bit 'stiffer' and increases the pressure (force) required by the heart to pump blood through the body (increases the 'load').
As a result, a rather less healthy (and structurally maladaptive) deposition of new muscle (LVH) will occur in an attempt to overcome the strain of the increasing load, and once past a certain size, it begins to reduce the efficiency of the heart as a pump. But the fibrosis also affects things like the passage of nerve impulses across the heart (often resulting in atrial fibrillation or heart block, for example), and interferes with the essential growth of new blood vessels (angiogenesis) to the new cardiac muscle, potentially starving these tissues of oxygen, resulting in pain (angina), necrosis and scarring. And the scarring makes the heart even more inflexible, and is thus basically a very unwelcome positive feedback loop.
All these outcomes are incredibly unhealthy for the heart, and probably explain why some powerlifters/bodybuilders (anecdotally, and I suppose relative to their otherwise incredibly healthy looking bodies) seem to suffer disproportionately from heart attacks, afib etc etc. ARBs are unusual in their ability to reverse tissue fibrosis, and as a bonus can also reduce blood pressure, which is a major trigger for unhealthy LVH.
N-acetylcysteine has potentially been shown to have benefits in reducing fibrosis, but these unfortunately cancel out those of the ARB!
To clarify, fibrosis can be reversed, though it's unlikely to be fully, and not in everyone. And the damage to other tissues such as heart valves (due to fibrotic stiffness and years of elevated BP and raised PCV) is unlikely to be reversed.
Prevention is logically going to be a safer course of action. Unfortunately, though some compounds are thought to be harsher, there is scant human research (for obvious reasons).
BP medication should still be in everyone's arsenal though: even beyond the fibrosis aspect, controlling elevated blood pressure and the effects of
raised haematocrit (PCV) should be universally important for all AAS using bodybuilders.
This means giving blood on a regular basis would also be wise... (Elevated red blood cell count, causes a thickening in veins and arteries this means the heart needs more force to pump blood = ^BP)..
I think issues around lipids - since blood tests are cheap, easy and noticeable - have perhaps become a bit of a diversion from the less obviously visible/measurable risks. Lipids > atherosclerosis > clotting > thrombus formation (in tandem with blood thickening - raised PCV via EPO), are easily reversed post-cycle and/or relatively controllable on-cycle with a combination of venesection/donation, statins, niacin, dietary modifications, fish oils, hydration and aspirin, among others...
The kind of adaptations we want in the heart are the kind that high intensity cardio bring. It can basically 'enlarge' the capacity of the heart (the chambers) and also improve the ejection fraction. So the heart becomes more efficient per beat, and hence the pulse rate tends to fall - very low in very fit athletes. It does cause a very mild form of hypertrophy, but it arranges the cardiac tissue structurally slightly differently to the type that forms from heavy weight lifting.
So I would always recommend HIIT. LISS doesn't really do much good or bad for the heart. It's not intense enough to cause much positive adaptation, but if you have pre-existing heart conditions, it could aggravate those by drawing on cardiac oxygen capacity.
One of the other positives of HIIT is that it helps to stretch and (theoretically) break up the scarring/fibrotic tissue. We have to bear in mind that intense cardio pumps very large volumes of blood through the heart (unlike weights) which causes a nice eccentric stretch to the cardiac tissue, as opposed to more concentric-focus from weights...
Hope some of this helps...
