Illness on cycle

BobDigital

New member
Hopefully this isn't a repeat question and maybe the answer is painfully obvious, but here it goes.

Twice while on cycles (in my case, on blast), I've gotten sick (cold/flu type illness) and it has seemed harder to shake than typical. It just made me wonder... do anabolics in any way feed or strengthen viral infections (or, conversely, weaken immune response)?

If yes, is the prevailing wisdom to taper off (or go back to cruise) or just ride it out? I plan my 12 week cycles pretty far in advance both in terms of what I stock and when I start/stop, so aborting mid-mission feels very undesirable.
 
I don't have a concrete answer. But I would say no. I dont believe it to be true. Maybe if you're using way more gear than you can handle All that extra gear that's being wasted might be stressing out your body and making you sick. Also nobody tapers off. It's actually a bad idea because it just extends your cycle way longer. And it takes that much longer to bring your hormones back down into the right range. When your cycle's over, you should pin nothing for 3-4 weeks if going back to trt or starting pct.

In a pct situation You might need some hcg in the begining before your serm
 
Possibly your training harder, expecting more than your body can recover from, maybe not eating or drinking enough, support Supps off? All these things can contribute to getting worn down and finally getting sick.
 
It is widely believed that either high Or low Testosterone effects the immune system in a non-positive way.

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Literature has been all over the place in regards to testosterone and the immune response. I tried to dig in to this a while back and it was nightmarish because there’s a lot of moving parts and things that are impacted in ways we can’t comprehend yet. But here’s a rundown of the important stuff I found.

DHEA (the precursor to testosterone) has been shown to promote inflammation through the activation of regulatory T cells, which suppresses the Th17-type response. Testosterone does the opposite.
The Th17 response is as follows:
“Th17 cells and their effector cytokines mediate host defensive mechanisms to various infections, especially extracellular bacteria infections, and are involved in the pathogenesis of many autoimmune diseases.”

DHT however, a metabolite of testosterone has been show to reduce inflammation by “significantly suppressing the expression of numerous immune-related genes in HMGECs, such as those associated with antigen processing and presentation, innate and adaptive immune responses, chemotaxis, and cytokine production.” BUT “in males, high levels of dihydrotestosterone were associated with higher 6-year mortality.” In addition another paper stated “We observed that a physiological level of DHT promotes an inflammatory response in cerebral arteries in the absence of another inflammatory stimulus.”

So to summarize, we don’t know enough about what they do overall but it’s not unlikely that super-physiological levels of testosterone cause some degree of inflammation in ways that we don’t understand.

As far as tapering, I would follow the above advice by Smont.

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Renew1 said:
It is widely believed that either high Or low Testosterone effects the immune system in a non-positive way.

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Im not arguing, this is just a question and something to consider. Have you ever looked at the sample pools of most of these studies. I find many of them to be on senior citizens and unhealthy older people in general, and not many of them to be on healthy young men or even middle age men who fit our Cohort for lack of a better word. I didnt open the link you posted but il check it out when i have time
 
Smont said:
Im not arguing, this is just a question and something to consider. Have you ever looked at the sample pools of most of these studies. I find many of them to be on senior citizens and unhealthy older people in general, and not many of them to be on healthy young men or even middle age men who fit our Cohort for lack of a better word. I didnt open the link you posted but il check it out when i have time
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Ive read a fair amount on this recently because I got super sick starting trt (obviously do your own research). Generally it seems like the effect androgens as a whole on the immune system is immunosuppressive but the research honestly really sucks out there for it. Testosterone is being looked in to for immunosuppressive therapy treatment though so that somewhat sets it in stone for me however, the wide range of stuff testosterone impacts makes it near impossible to predict what will happen with this.
 
Smont said:
Yeah this is also another thing everyone needs to take in a consideration, For the last 3-4 months half the planet has been sick it seems like
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This is helpful because we did have houseguests from out of country that arrived sick... and then another from across the United States that also arrived sick. I think I was doomed from the start, haha.

That being said, I'm good now... it just seemed like it took forever to fight it off compared to my typically robust immune response.
 
ChocolateClen said:
Literature has been all over the place in regards to testosterone and the immune response. I tried to dig in to this a while back and it was nightmarish because there’s a lot of moving parts and things that are impacted in ways we can’t comprehend yet. But here’s a rundown of the important stuff I found.

DHEA (the precursor to testosterone) has been shown to promote inflammation through the activation of regulatory T cells, which suppresses the Th17-type response. Testosterone does the opposite.
The Th17 response is as follows:
“Th17 cells and their effector cytokines mediate host defensive mechanisms to various infections, especially extracellular bacteria infections, and are involved in the pathogenesis of many autoimmune diseases.”

DHT however, a metabolite of testosterone has been show to reduce inflammation by “significantly suppressing the expression of numerous immune-related genes in HMGECs, such as those associated with antigen processing and presentation, innate and adaptive immune responses, chemotaxis, and cytokine production.” BUT “in males, high levels of dihydrotestosterone were associated with higher 6-year mortality.” In addition another paper stated “We observed that a physiological level of DHT promotes an inflammatory response in cerebral arteries in the absence of another inflammatory stimulus.”

So to summarize, we don’t know enough about what they do overall but it’s not unlikely that super-physiological levels of testosterone cause some degree of inflammation in ways that we don’t understand.

As far as tapering, I would follow the above advice by Smont.

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There are variations, of course.
... And the effects of DHT, and DHEA are also varied, to a degree. But this is a Testosterone study, and it's results are based upon that.
 
ChocolateClen said:
Testosterone is being looked in to for immunosuppressive therapy treatment though so that somewhat sets it in stone for me however, the wide range of stuff testosterone impacts makes it near impossible to predict what will happen with this.
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Brother, it's always near impossible to predict what is going to happen. ... With this, and anything else.

I (and those that use any useful information, or predictors... basically everyone) just use information to make better decisions, and take better precautions with things.

I look at it kinda like gambling...

Nobody knows who's going to win that match, or game, or meet, or whatever....
But the people who gamble (almost all of them) use information and predictors to make the best picks possible for themselves.

Who almost always does the best at gambling?
The professionals. Not because they're better at guessing what will happen, but because they gather the Most, and best information and predictors available, and study them.

I don't gamble, but know that the professionals do the best (overall) in predictions.
So I look at the odds and points, etc. that they present, and that makes me better understand the odds of a certain outcome.

I can't count the number of times that I've seen a prediction of (say) 3 1/2 points (for instance) ... I used to look at those 1/2 points, and laugh. But not now....
Because I literally can't count the number of times that the 1/2 point has made a difference.
... And not because those guys are psychic or something, but because they used all the information and predictors Available to them, and almost all of that information and predictors are skewed, or different situations, or incomplete, or whatever.
But they use it, and they Win, overall.
:)
 
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BobDigital said:
This is helpful because we did have houseguests from out of country that arrived sick... and then another from across the United States that also arrived sick. I think I was doomed from the start, haha.

That being said, I'm good now... it just seemed like it took forever to fight it off compared to my typically robust immune response.
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First week of december i got Bronchitis and covid back the back. Took about 3 weeks total to get back to normal. And I lost like seventeen pounds during that time. I was on cycle. But also during that time, I had a ton of ppl i know say That half their families been sick for about month. I had a few jobs get moved around Because customers said they were sick didn't want people in their house and i still see a lot of random sickness going around. Its weird, I don't get sick often. But I do get sick. Probably two times a year and it happens pretty much every year around the same times. Once in thevwinter and once in the summer. A good thing is that when I do get sick it's usually not that bad. I'll usually feel c***** for a day or 2. And then I can go back to work
 
Smont said:
Im not arguing, this is just a question and something to consider. Have you ever looked at the sample pools of most of these studies. I find many of them to be on senior citizens and unhealthy older people in general, and not many of them to be on healthy young men or even middle age men who fit our Cohort for lack of a better word. I didnt open the link you posted but il check it out when i have time
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Of course, man.
I try to look at all of the information available.
The median age in this study is 50.
 
Renew1 said:
Brother, it's always near impossible to predict what is going to happen. ... With this, and anything else.

I (and those that use any useful information, or predictors... basically everyone) just use information to make better decisions, and take better precautions with things.

I look at it kinda like gambling...

Nobody knows who's going to win that match, or game, or meet, or whatever....
But the people who gamble (almost all of them) use information and predictors to make the best picks possible for themselves.

Who almost always does the best at gambling?
The professionals. Not because they're better at guessing what will happen, but because they gather the Most, and best information and predictors available, and study them.

I don't gamble, but know that the professionals do the best (overall) in predictions.
So I look at the odds and points, etc. that they present, and that makes me better understand the odds of a certain outcome.

I can't count the number of times that I've seen a prediction of (say) 3 1/2 points (for instance) ... I used to look at those 1/2 points, and laugh. But not now....
Because I literally can't count the number of times that the 1/2 point has made a difference.
... And not because those guys are psychic or something, but because they used all the information and predictors Available to them, and almost all of those information and predictors are skewed, or different situations, or incomplete, or whatever.
But they use it, and they Win, overall.
:)
Click to expand...
This is really what it boils down to, You gotta collect all the little bits of information that you can and see what does and doesn't apply to you and then use it to form your opinions. For pretty much everything. I come from a family of bookies lol. You're gambling analogy was spot on
 
Im good at poker not because im good at gambling or im lucky. I win more then i loose because i know the odds, i pay attention to what others do and i wait Told the cards and the odds are in my favor before I make a move. Most of the time it works, sometimes it doesn't. But I have a hell of a lot better odds than someone who just goes in and plays every single hand
 
Smont said:
This is really what it boils down to, You gotta collect all the little bits of information that you can and see what does and doesn't apply to you and then use it to form your opinions. For pretty much everything. I come from a family of bookies lol. You're gambling analogy was spot on
Click to expand...

LOL...
It's funny that I use the odds that "bookies" (and others) make to help me to better understand the more likely outcomes .... And I (at least currently) don't gamble.
 
Renew1 said:
LOL...
It's funny that I use the odds that "bookies" (and others) make to help me to better understand the more likely outcomes .... And I (at least currently) don't gamble.
Click to expand...
The less you gamble the more you have already won. I gamble, not excessively but I do it. But i've seen gambling destroy people's lives pretty bad. When i was a kid i watched my uncles win about 300k in 2 months (taking bets)and then loose 200k on 1 lions game that they bet on. 1 fukin game lol.
 
Renew1 said:
There are variations, of course.
... And the effects of DHT, and DHEA are also varied, to a degree. But this is a Testosterone study, and it's results are based upon that.
Click to expand...
For sure, I mostly posted to show that we still don’t know how everything in the body works, and the effects of everything. Some of those studies used younger populations as well which was supposed to help since most of the older studies are on old people.
Everything is a gamble when you mess with stuff you don’t fully know. You gotta weigh the pros and the cons like yall said. I was just posting to give some more info
 
ChocolateClen said:
For sure, I mostly posted to show that we still don’t know how everything in the body works, and the effects of everything. Some of those studies used younger populations as well which was supposed to help since most of the older studies are on old people.
Everything is a gamble when you mess with stuff you don’t fully know. You gotta weigh the pros and the cons like yall said. I was just posting to give some more info
Click to expand...

I Always like more info.

(y):)
 
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