What Happens When You Quit Steroids?

three million people currently use steroids to build muscle mass in the U.S alone and one survey found that 30 percent of gym users were currently taking steroids taking rides to get gains in the gym is clearly very popular but what happens to your brain body skin and testicles when you decide to quit steroids after 24 hours of quitting steroids you will feel extremely tired and fatigued because of how the steroids have messed with your hormone systems specifically your gonadotropin releasing hormone GnRH is released from the hypothalamus and through a series of chemical Pathways stimulates her testes to produce testosterone and maintain size steroids block the release of GnRH this is why steroids can shrink your testicles and why now with a lack of steroid consumption your body is lacking testosterone production on its own the steroids that you were consuming were mimicking the testosterone so now without the steroids you have lower testosterone this is known as hypogonadism and you start to lose energy at 48 Hours of quitting you are extremely fatigued because of how low testosterone now affects the red blood cells in your body your body relies on red blood cells to transfer oxygen as a source of energy throughout your body testosterone binds to cells in the kidney to stimulate the release of erythropoietin epo which promotes red blood cell production with the lack of testosterone from quitting steroids your body has less red blood cell production which means less oxygen and less energy for cells you might remember the discussion with Lance Armstrong and how he used EPO to increase his red blood cell count to win the Tour de France here's a clip of him admitting it to Queen Oprah did you ever take banned substances to enhance your cycling performance yes yes or no was one of those bad substances EPO yes Live Strong baby especially if you're on EPO so again at 48 hours you have a lower EPO less testosterone and less energy from quitting steroids at 72 hours your sleep is now affected by the low testosterone the exact mechanism that testosterone affects sleep is not known but there have been plenty of research showing that poor sleep can reduce testosterone levels and vice versa one study showed that for every hour of sleep loss there was a testosterone drop even people with obstructive sleep apnea which affects their quality of sleep have been shown to have lower testosterone levels so when testosterone levels are low this makes it harder for you to get a good night's sleep not get a good night's sleep make sure testosterone levels lower so you might notice that quitting steroids has affected your ability to sleep after a week of quitting you will feel muscle aches and joint pain because testosterone usually promotes the release of anti-inflammatory cytokines from your immune cells this protects against inflammation now since the steroids affected your hormone system and you have lower testosterone the inflammation can accumulate in muscles and joints this is also around the time you may see that muscles are reducing in size because testosterone is less present to help with the maintenance of muscle so it is after a week that the gains start to noticeably go away at one month you may notice erectile dysfunction again since the steroids decrease natural GnRH production this by proxy decreases the follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone which help chemically message the testes to produce testosterone the lack of testosterone is now affecting these hormones to the point that it may be hard to maintain and get a boner is that the scientific term I don't know erection moving on after two months the acne that has been building up all over your face and body will finally start to disappear testosterone stimulates the growth of sebaceous glands in your skin which produce acne the low testosterone would reduce the acne's presence after three months of stopping steroids depressive symptoms and mood changes may get worse without testosterone replacement therapy some Studies have shown a higher suicide side rate and those that have previously used steroids and withdrawal can make suicidal ideation worse this has actually been shown to be the main reason why people start to use steroids again it's not to get their muscles back it's to deal with the depression and anxiety that they are now feeling at seven months you might notice that things are looking up as your boners erectile dysfunction begins to improve because the testes starts to produce testosterone on its own seven months baby and the testes are back they never left they're just uh getting back to creating testosterone on their own you know what I mean I mean they did shrink does that mean they left existential question the quality of your sperm now starts to improve again because the follicle stimulating hormone and the luteinizing hormone are again being able to message to your testes to create sperm in a more significant way but it has been seen that erectile dysfunction can take up to a year to improve but for many people it starts at seven months so just keep an eye on your boners okay again moving on after a year is when you start to see your testes begin to grow again after shrinking one study showed that after 15 months the testes size in former steroid users was 5.2 milliliters larger than current steroid users but the former users still had testes 4.9 milliliters smaller than non-steroid users which means it could take well over a year for your testes to get back to normal size clearly steroids have a negative effect on your body this video is important to understand what happens when you finally decide to stop using them because say you're sick of the acne or the tiny balls but it also explains why stopping steroids immediately could create many issues it doesn't really give your body the chance to start creating testosterone again on its own there may be ways to slowly reduce your steroid use in order to not create such a strain on your body again you need to talk to a doctor about this or you just never start taking steroids in the first place and you don't have to worry about this as much or this trend is just going to continue to grow because one recent survey found that 70 of steroid users were aware of the negative impacts .