SARMs. Will they cause hair loss?

[Aames]

I'm making this topic primarily for WarLord. I can't write on his wall and I have no other way of talking to him. WarLord, if you're reading this, can you please tell me what you know? You said they destroyed your life, didn't you? What happened? I'm interested in trying S4 now that I have a source.

If any of you other guys know about them, please feel free to school me. It would be greatly appreciated.

[TO YOUNG TO RETIRE]

i v heard of stories loosing eye sight and cant drive at night, stay away

[Aames]

i v heard of stories loosing eye sight and cant drive at night, stay away

Are you talking permanent loss of eye sight? I'll endure anything as long as it is temporary/reversible.

[Kayman]

Are you talking permanent loss of eye sight? I'll endure anything as long as it is temporary/reversible.

I'm not so sure you should mess around with your eyes, in my opinion messing with your eyes in exchange for quick muscle growth is a trade off I wouldn't be willing to make.
Check out this video on youtube, I usually go to this guys channel when I have training questions, he gives his account on his personal experience of steroid use, I enjoy his videos because he's a very level headed logical thinking guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHOm89QUchk

[Aames]

I'm not so sure you should mess around with your eyes, in my opinion messing with your eyes in exchange for quick muscle growth is a trade off I wouldn't be willing to make.
Check out this video on youtube, I usually go to this guys channel when I have training questions, he gives his account on his personal experience of steroid use, I enjoy his videos because he's a very level headed logical thinking guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHOm89QUchk

Thanks for the link, brah. I agree with you but if the eyesight troubles don't persist after discontinuing use, I wouldn't be too worried.

[WarLord]

I'm making this topic primarily for WarLord. I can't write on his wall and I have no other way of talking to him. WarLord, if you're reading this, can you please tell me what you know? You said they destroyed your life, didn't you? What happened? I'm interested in trying S4 now that I have a source.

If any of you other guys know about them, please feel free to school me. It would be greatly appreciated.

Well, I must illuminate it a bit: First of all, I think that SARMs are not as revolutionary as some people think. They are basically comparable with the mildest steroids like oxandrolone and nandrolone. To sum up my experience:

S4 (Andarine): Can be used primarily for strength endurance (incredible!), less for strength. Usually, the effective dosage is around 50 mg/day. The only side effect that I am aware of is the worsened night vision. It can be annoying, but it is not dangerous.

Ostarine: Is used for strength at lower doses than S4, usually 15-25 mg/day or so. But personally, I noticed that this drug is pretty hepatotoxic. My liver enzymes were always through the roof. And I was taking only 10-15 mg/day! Certainly, this is not a drug that I would like, although one of its positive effects is high libido. The strength increase was not much impressive either, at least at the doses I was taking. (And I was combining it with S4).

An interesting thing is that taking SARMs (Ostarine and S4 together) with finasteride and minoxidil probably initiated a sudden hair regrowth in me (in August 2012). I really have no other explanation: I added finasteride to my minoxidil regime in late June 2012, hoping that I would achieve some regrowth in temples. At the beginning of July, I started to use SARMs, and one month later, I was already experiencing a very promising regrowth. But when I stopped using SARMs (in late August 2012), the regrowth quickly stopped. What is worse, two months later (in late October 2012), I started to suffer from incessant shedding in my temples. At first I thought that it was only a temporary "finasteride shed", but it seems that it wasn't, because the lost hair still hasn't regrown back. In other words, my hair loss began to exacerbate after long 17 years again - and I can tell you that the last winter was the worst period of my life. My thoughts were sometimes borderline suicidal.

I suspect that the quitting of SARMs must have caused some negative reaction in my body. Perhaps, my androgen receptors were upregulated. I don't know. It's really mindboggling, because before this incident, I was using minoxidil alone successfully for 16,5 years, and I was not experiencing any problems even on relatively harsh steroids like stanozolol. But suddenly, I couldn't stop my hair loss with minoxidil+finasteride!!! Fortunately, I lost patience very early and I jumped on dutasteride - which works excellently!

With regard to this mysterious renewal of my hairloss, I will never touch SARMs again.

[Aames]

Thanks for posting your experience, WarLord. I'm sorry to hear your misfortune. I'm glad that you have halted your loss again with duta. By the sounds of it, I should probably stay away. I just hate being natty, brah. It will be years before I have a decent physique.

[WarLord]

Thanks for posting your experience, WarLord. I'm sorry to hear your misfortune. I'm glad that you have halted your loss again with duta. By the sounds of it, I should probably stay away. I just hate being natty, brah. It will be years before I have a decent physique.

I wouldn't want to discourage you from SARMs. But that what I said had really happened, although in theory it shouldn't be possible, and it remains a big unexplained mystery for me.

In any case, the primary reason of this winter shed was a relatively high DHT level in my body: 25-32 ng/dl. This is low, when viewed in the context of the normal DHT range in adult men (30-85 ng/dl), but about twice higher than in men on finasteride. Unfortunately, I don't know my initial DHT levels before the start of finasteride. I would say that finasteride must have lowered it, but apparently not too effectively. It basically did nothing.

It is known that SARMs bind competetively to androgen receptors and work as antagonists of DHT. Hence they decrease androgenic activity in the body. This is one of their most beneficial effects in comparison with traditionally used steroids. I saw studies done in lab rats, where Ostarine and S4 decreased prostate weight approximately by 20%, which is roughly one half of the effect seen in finasteride. Another SARMs, S1, even surpassed finasteride in this regard, but it is a very weak anabolic.

With regard to the weaker effect of Ostarine and S4 on prostate weight, I supposed that they would compromise the efficiacy of finasteride, but it seems that the opposite was true, probably because they work by different mechanisms. My testosterone levels in late July were actually only 50 ng/dl (roughly 10% of the normal level), so DHT must have been very low as well and finasteride must have suppressed these residual DHT levels by more than 50%. In short, I had very low testosterone levels and virtually zero DHT, and those slightly androgenic SARMs occupied my androgen receptors. This may explain the sudden explosive regrowth along my hairline. But what happened after quitting SARMs... That's utterly baffling for me...

One could understand that the benefits of this fin+SARMs combo would disappear, but why should my hairloss exacerbate after 16+ years again? Why should it suddenly turn by 180 degrees, within mere 2 months?! It's simply perplexing. And consider that I was taking SARMs (S4) even before, as a sort of PCT after steroid cycles, but I have never experienced any problems. Perhaps, my androgen receptors were really upregulated during the use of fin+SARMs, and when I quitted SARMs, they were shocked by the rapid increase of DHT. In any case, as I said, this wouldn't happen, if fin did its job well. Obviously, it did virtually nothing. So you could avoid this unpleasant experience very easily, by sufficiently high doses of dut. But it depends entirely on you, if you want to undertake this risk.

[WarLord]

And as for the use of other anabolic drugs, you probably know that with dut in your veins, you can't use virtually anything.

There are two steroids that don't exacerbate hairloss: Oxandrolone and nandrolone. But in the case of oxandrolone, you must reckon with that this drug won't increase androgenic activity in your body above the normal level, which is a "hairloss level". You can use oxandrolone with minoxidil, because the androgenic stimulus that minoxidil counterbalances will remain the same. Your hair won't feel any change. However, 5-AR blockers will save you only from DHT, not from other androgens. Therefore, the androgenic attack on your follicles will be similar to the state like if you were taking no 5-AR blocker. It is true that on oxandrolone, it may not be too dramatic, but I wouldn't risk it. In fact, after the dreadful winter experience, I sold all my stores of oxandrolone powder to my friend. LOL

Nandrolone is probably an even better choice for hairloss sufferers, because it is converted by the 5-AR enzyme into a much less potent steroid. However, if you take a 5-AR blocker, you will prevent this conversion, which will almost certainly lead to a disaster.

So, what to do? It seems that science offers a new solution: Ursolic acid. It was tested very successfully in lab rats as an anabolic with excellent fat-burning properties. But as a sports supplement (sold as "Ursobolic"), I think that it has rather failed so far. Nevertheless, the dosages used in rats would correspond to ca. 1.5 gram/day in humans. And the dosages recommended by the producer of Ursobolic are only 0.5-1 g/day. Furthermore, Ursobolic is very expensive. Therefore, I ordered ursolic acid from China, for a much smaller price. But I haven't used it yet. Perhaps during this summer. One interesting thing on ursolic acid is the fact that it has certain benefits with regard to the stimulation of hair growth. Actually, I have already read at least two internet reports about a sudden hair regrowth during the use of Ursobolic.

http://anabolicminds.com/forum/supplement-reviews-logs/183747-truthornothins-ursobolic-log-13.html

Well, that's all I can offer to you. I am not aware of any other anabolic drug that you could use - except IGF-1 and the growth hormone. But these are pretty expensive drugs and the probability that you will buy a fake is very high. In fact, the reality is such that you can quite safely order steroids from China, but a growth hormone can easily turn out to be fake, even if you ordered it from your reliable steroid supplier.

[Aames]

WarLord, you really seem to know a lot about this. Thank you for sharing this information with me. At the end of the day, I would rather be a stick with a full head of hair so it probably isn't worth the risk for me to even use the gentlest of steroids. I guess I will just be patient and who knows? Maybe I will have good results now that I have learned a lot more about nutrition and proper lifting. Be sure to let us know how your experiences with ursolic acid go.

What's your current regimen? Has your loss completely stopped again with the addition of duta? Did you ever order duta powder from Kane? I was considering adding another 0.5mg topically and I would likely get it from him or just squeeze out a gel cap.

[Kayman]

Thanks for posting your experience, WarLord. I'm sorry to hear your misfortune. I'm glad that you have halted your loss again with duta. By the sounds of it, I should probably stay away. I just hate being natty, brah. It will be years before I have a decent physique.

Come on man natty isn't so bad, lets say you put on 1b a month bulking, at the end of 12 months you cut, 6lbs of that weight gain was muscle, repeat twice, 2 years or so and you got 12lbs, that's a whole lot of muscle right there man. Okay sure it's not the 3 months that roids will do it in, but 2 years isn't so bad.
I wouldn't even know where to begin trying to find a source. There was a gym near me that had a rep for it and thus people would join it for said reason but it cleaned itself up over that past couple of years.

[WarLord]

WarLord, you really seem to know a lot about this. Thank you for sharing this information with me. At the end of the day, I would rather be a stick with a full head of hair so it probably isn't worth the risk for me to even use the gentlest of steroids. I guess I will just be patient and who knows? Maybe I will have good results now that I have learned a lot more about nutrition and proper lifting. Be sure to let us know how your experiences with ursolic acid go.

What's your current regimen? Has your loss completely stopped again with the addition of duta? Did you ever order duta powder from Kane? I was considering adding another 0.5mg topically and I would likely get it from him or just squeeze out a gel cap.

I also reconsidered my priorities. I won't risk any anabolic drugs anymore. I realized that I couldn't handle being bald. I would get mad.

And as for my current situation, I said that my hairloss had stopped ca. 1 month after the addition of Avodart (during March). I began with very low dosages, though - 0.5 mg every 4 days. After 5 weeks, I was already using 0.5 mg EOD. And in mid April, I further increased my dosage up to 0.375 mg/day (1.5 mg every 4 days). Since late May I have been taking 0.375 mg Avodart/day+0.375 mg dutasteride powder/day. This, together with 1.25 mg fin/day, would roughly correspond to 0.85 mg dut/day. But I am still not sure about the identity of the powder and I sent it to a lab.

In any case, my current DHT levels (from late May) are very low - 7.3 ng/dl. This is 4-times lower than my DHT levels on finasteride, and exactly what you would expect in an average dutasteride user. I suppose that if the powder is legit, DHT will drop even deeper. Other hormones are O.K.: Moderate levels of testosterone, low estradiol. So I am really not afraid of gyno.

I started to experience some regrowth in late May, but so far it's been rather pathetic. If I am not satisfied, I will futher increase my dutasteride dosage and perhaps I will also add topical RU. If the dutasteride powder is legit, my supplies are virtually unlimited.

[Aames]

Come on man natty isn't so bad, lets say you put on 1b a month bulking, at the end of 12 months you cut, 6lbs of that weight gain was muscle, repeat twice, 2 years or so and you got 12lbs, that's a whole lot of muscle right there man. Okay sure it's not the 3 months that roids will do it in, but 2 years isn't so bad.
I wouldn't even know where to begin trying to find a source. There was a gym near me that had a rep for it and thus people would join it for said reason but it cleaned itself up over that past couple of years.

Agh I know, brah. Just such a long road ahead.

I also reconsidered my priorities. I won't risk any anabolic drugs anymore. I realized that I couldn't handle being bald. I would get mad.

And as for my current situation, I said that my hairloss had stopped ca. 1 month after the addition of Avodart (during March). I began with very low dosages, though - 0.5 mg every 4 days. After 5 weeks, I was already using 0.5 mg EOD. And in mid April, I further increased my dosage up to 0.375 mg/day (1.5 mg every 4 days). Since late May I have been taking 0.375 mg Avodart/day+0.375 mg dutasteride powder/day. This, together with 1.25 mg fin/day, would roughly correspond to 0.85 mg dut/day. But I am still not sure about the identity of the powder and I sent it to a lab.

In any case, my current DHT levels (from late May) are very low - 7.3 ng/dl. This is 4-times lower than my DHT levels on finasteride, and exactly what you would expect in an average dutasteride user. I suppose that if the powder is legit, DHT will drop even deeper. Other hormones are O.K.: Moderate levels of testosterone, low estradiol. So I am really not afraid of gyno.

I started to experience some regrowth in late May, but so far it's been rather pathetic. If I am not satisfied, I will futher increase my dutasteride dosage and perhaps I will also add topical RU. If the dutasteride powder is legit, my supplies are virtually unlimited.

Excellent. I'm glad to see you have everything back under control. Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge with me. One final question: do you think ephedrine has any implications in hair loss? A google search finds a lot of paranoia but it is like that for almost any drug. If so, would any hair lost grow back? I swear I notice increased shedding when on it but it could just be my imagination. It really helps with my appetite and energy whilst cutting.

[Aames]

Also, thoughts on hair loss from severe dieting? As long as the follicles have not succumbed to DHT, it should grow back, yes?

[WarLord]

Agh I know, brah. Just such a long road ahead.


Excellent. I'm glad to see you have everything back under control. Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge with me. One final question: do you think ephedrine has any implications in hair loss? A google search finds a lot of paranoia but it is like that for almost any drug. If so, would any hair lost grow back? I swear I notice increased shedding when on it but it could just be my imagination. It really helps with my appetite and energy whilst cutting.

As for ephedrine and hairloss, I won't help you. I don't know, how ephedrine could exacerbate hair loss, but I am really not acquianted with this topic.