Androgen/anabolic insensitivity with steroid use

[mrrobot]

I know this may be steroids 101, but I would like to ask you for some help understanding something very basic to using these substances.

Is it the case that in using test, and other substances, that your body responds less and less to them, so that you must use more and more to maintain the same effect?

I'm sure there are finer distinctions but is this basically true in general? And specifically that your body desensitizes in how it responds?

The particular context of this is that I intend to replace some of my trt dose (200mg, quite liberal and probably a bit much as "TRT" for a borderline low T like me-- not complaining!) with a portion of deca, for more muscle growth and joint support. Maybe take away 100mg Test and replace with 50mg or 100mg Deca.

My question in this specific case is, would this potentially mean that if I returned to original 200mg test protocol, would that 200mg Test protocol no longer be as effective as it was before, because of using the more potent Deca for some time?

Seems this question applies to the general question I have above.

Thanks for your real science facts about insensitivity and/or your experiences!

 

[Whisky]

My understanding is that no, you don’t get an insensitivity to androgens - you have a lot of receptors and if you ever took enough to saturate them (which would be a massive amount of gear) then your body produces more.

so imo no, you wouldn’t see a difference

however, this isn’t to say that you won’t find it harder to maintain your physique over the years but that would be due to other age related factors rather than the gear being less effective if that makes sense.

 

[mrrobot]

I understand what you are saying. And in fact it sounds great to me if one's body produced more receptors as a result of steroid use.

If high doses did not create insensitivity in the receptors, then that would be very different than just about any other substance.
But rather than think about the logic of that, I wonder what studies and evidence this idea that there is no insensitivity could be based on.

Despite thinking I found that steroid use created insensitivity on just about every "don't do steroids" type webpage, when going back searching for this, I can't seem to find studies on this question, one way or another. I'll keep trying.

Anyone have any evidence about this?

 

[KvanH]

No evidence, only practical thinking. I believe the body can desensitize to androgens, but the biggest factor is the dosing. I think you would have to take a lot of exogenous hormones for that to happen, at least on a practical level. Otherwise we would get desensitized to our natural hormones that our bodys produces all our lifes. I've heard about switching up the gear you use, because of the body not reacting as strongly to the same substance after a lot of use. So the theory is there, but that right there is broscience if anything is. That doesn't mean it's not true. Broscience is correct many times on a practical level, even if the details of it are not completely accurate.

But most importantly with the doses you mentioned, I bet no such thing is happening. And even if we humor this theory, I'd say the androgen receptors are not 'one size fits all' kind of receptors for all the androgens in the world. What I mean by this is that inserting Deca to your body won't make your androgen receptros less sensitive to other androgens, like test. So by this theory, when looking from the other direction, the 200 mg test should work better than before, since you dropped to 100 mg for awhile and your receptors sensitized to it while getting less test.

The only thing more broscience than the desensitizing of the androgen receptors is this post I just wrote. So do what you wish with it = )

 

[mrrobot]

I'm not convinced about desensitization, and I'm wary of how much people want to believe in the things they are doing, but I did find a study that makes a good case for why, at least for muscle building (which isn't everything to do with androgen sensors) you could actually expect more result not less from increasing doses: a reorientation of fat building mechanisms toward muscle building mechanisms. Or that's my dumbass takeaway. It's like the aas lays tracks down, and nutrients go to muscle building instead of fat, and then those tracks are still there and ready:

https://academic.oup.com/biomedgerontology/article/58/12/M1103/591636