The Effects and Why We Do It....

      By: Eric Cogovan

      For this blog I am going to take a different route on steroids. I've talked before about steroid use in High School students and beyond. This time I'd like to give you some info on the why people use steroids and what some of the effects are.

       One of the typical reasons for steroid use is of course to get ahead with a persons sport performance. Among athletes, steroid abuse has been estimated to be less that 6 percent according to surveys, but anecdotal information suggests more widespread abuse ("Anabolic steroid abuse," ). There are testing procedures for athletes that choose to abuse this drug and wish to cheat their way through their career. New designer drugs are continually becoming available for athletes who want to fly under the radar of testing. There is hope that with future technology, there will be no way for an athlete to use any steroid and not get caught.

       There are three popular ways that most abusers use steroids. Those three are called cycling, stacking, and pyramiding. Cycling involves taking multiple doses of steroids over a specific period of time, stopping for a period, and starting again. Stacking is when users frequently combine several different types of steroids. Stacking is abused by taking two different types of steroids. Such as using a gel and injecting the steroid at the same time to achieve a desired effect. Pyramiding is a process in which users slowly escalate steroid abuse (increasing the number of steroids or the dose and frequency of one or more steroids used at one time), reaching a peak amount at mid-cycle and gradually tapering the dose toward the end of the cycle ("Anabolic steroid abuse," ).

       There are many effects on a persons health by using and abusing steroids. They range from something physically happening to it being life threatening. Although the life threatening effects are mostly reversible, the signs may go undetected. Steroid use has effects on both men and women. For men, there are curable and incurable side effects. Men have been shown to have reduced testicle size and reduced sperm production. These two are curable things. Men who use steroids tend to develop breasts, which is an irreversible side effect. For women, there are also side effects. Those include male-pattern baldness, and excessive growth of body hair. The use of steroids have effects on the musculoskeletal system. Normally, this is an effect if taken by adolescent users. Abusing has also been linked to cardiovascular disease. There are also risks for infections. People may use illegally packaged steroids or they may share a needle with someone while injecting there drug. Using the drugs this way can lead to many viral infections and some life threatening. Sometimes people may not see the risks of their choices until it is too late.

       People need to be very aware of the effects of steroid use. I believe that most people may feel invincible to the drug and may think that it is only helping them. When in fact, it is destroying their body and causing long term and life threatening effects.

Anabolic steroid abuse. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.medicinenet.com/anabolic_steroid_abuse/article.htm