From Ars Technica · · 3m
Secret steroid use nearly destroyed his heart
A Massachusetts man spent 11 years hiding his use of veterinary-grade anabolic steroids, leaving doctors baffled as his heart repeatedly failed.
In brief
A Massachusetts man spent 11 years hiding his use of veterinary-grade anabolic steroids, leaving doctors baffled as his heart repeatedly failed. A man's undisclosed use of trenbolone, a steroid approved only for livestock, caused repeated heart failure over eleven years before doctors discovered the cause. Originally…
Eleven years of mystery illness
A Massachusetts man spent eleven years with severe health problems, including repeated heart failure, hospitalisation, and life support. Doctors could not find the cause.
The hidden cause revealed
He had been secretly taking powerful anabolic-androgenic steroids, including trenbolone, a synthetic testosterone derivative approved only for use in animals, primarily for livestock.
A growing public health crisis
Between two point nine and four million people in the US, mostly male athletes, use anabolic steroids. This exceeds the number of Americans with HIV infection.
Doctors warn of rising cases
Clinicians should expect more patients with long-term steroid effects including cardiomyopathy, atherosclerotic disease, and anabolic steroid-induced hypogonadism, doctors wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“Clinicians should be prepared to encounter increasing numbers of patients presenting with the long-term effects of AAS exposure”
First crisis at age thirty-nine
Returning from the Caribbean, he arrived at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston with fever, chills, and breathing trouble. Tests showed kidney injury, liver damage, and a failing heart.
Heart function at critical level
His left heart chamber was pumping just twenty-one percent of its blood per beat. Normal is above fifty percent. He was placed on ECMO life support within hours.
Years of specialist visits
Over five years, he saw specialists in cardiology, nephrology, rheumatology, general medicine, sleep medicine, and psychiatry. None discovered the steroid use causing his problems.
Second crisis at age fifty
Now fifty, he returned to Massachusetts General with heart failure again after another Caribbean trip. His left chamber was pumping just twenty percent of its blood.
The confession
When doctors asked about steroid use, he confessed to intermittently taking high doses of anabolic steroids to boost his muscles, with his most recent dose before his Caribbean vacation.
Testosterone levels off the charts
His total testosterone level exceeded one thousand five hundred nanograms per deciliter of blood.The test's maximum measurable range was twelve to one thousand five hundred ng/dl.
Heart improves, recovery stalls
Four months after stopping steroids, his heart function improved to forty-nine percent. But recovery from steroid-induced hypogonadism was lengthy and difficult, with symptoms including erectile dysfunction and loss of sexual desire.
Long road to recovery ahead
Six months into recovery, he still had significant hypogonadism symptoms. Doctors warned recovery could take up to three years. At eight months, he remained off steroids with no heart failure symptoms.
At a glance
A man's undisclosed use of trenbolone, a steroid approved only for livestock, caused repeated heart failure over eleven years before doctors discovered the cause.
