Anavar / Oxandrolone for TRT? Reddit AMA Answers

In this AMA response, we'll be answering questions about the use of Anavar and Oxandrolone for testosterone replacement therapy (TRT).

If you're looking for advice on using Anavar or Oxandrolone for TRT, check out this video or feel free to join us for a consultation to clear up any questions.

This editable transcript was computer generated and might contain errors. People can also change the text after it was created.

Garrett Soames:  Hey everybody, it's Garrett with Alphamd. I'm one of the medical providers. I have my doctorate in medical science. We've been doing men's health now for several years and we're basically trying to do these videos to get more information out there. Help answer people's questions and because knowledge is power. So, we've been doing these online reddit amas. And we have our most recent one. So, we'll go ahead and get started. So we got a request or request to get an answer regarding use of ancillary medications and in men's health In particular, they were talking about medications like Anavar and Decador Bowlin. So when are these prescribed? When are they not prescribed? Can they be prescribed? So yeah, let's get down to it.

Garrett Soames:  We'll start with the first answer is Yes. These medications are entirely legal to prescribe in the United States of America. now again Anavar is is prescribed traditionally In wasting disease, neanderlone. Also known as decadura bowling has is, is typically prescribed in Patients who have joint related issues. So we'll kind of break them down individually. So we'll start with Anavar.

00:10:00

Garrett Soames:  Anavar is also known as OXANDRALONE, It's been around since the 60s. It is a medication that is actually derived from DHT, has a similar chemical structure to that, but basically, the way it works, is like any androgen, it helps increase nitrogen, retention muscle mass things like that. Um the interesting thing about Anavar is that it has a pretty high androgen to anabolic to androgen ratio. So testosterone is kind of the the gold standard and it's what everything's measured on. So testosterone's ratio as far as anabolic to androgenic ratio is one to one. It's just again, what we measure everything against Anavar has a significantly higher.

Garrett Soames:  Anabolic to androgenic ratio anavar is a tendulum ratio, which means it is 10 times, stronger than testosterone is, as far as basically muscle growth and nitrogen retention, and then it has a similar ratio as far as androgenic. So again, androgenic is things like hair growth deeper voice those, you know, masculinization properties. So it's about equivalent to testosterone in that. Knowing that again the people who are looking to put on additional muscle mass, this is significantly stronger than testosterone. In medicine. Yes, we can prescribe this. It has traditionally been prescribed for a post-surgical patients. You know, you lose, you're in, you're in bed because you're in recovery.

Garrett Soames:  You lose a lot of muscle mass that way it has been. One of the primary medications used in HIV wasting and is very very commonly prescribed in that population. We also prescribe it in burn patients again. Recovery from burns can is, especially extensive burns can take years and a lot of times these people can't exercise or do anything so they're prescribed to ANAVAR to prevent wasting, so to hopefully increase the recovery. uh, in regards to patients with hypogonadism, they are also sometimes prescribed The benefit in TRT patients and adding ANAVAR in addition to again the additional muscle mass. What it does do is it kind of

Garrett Soames:  ties up some of that sex hormone binding globulin and so it makes the remaining testosterone more effective. You basically get a better effect from the testosterone because this competing agent is is being basically absorbing up any excess sex hormone binding globulin, So we do prescribe it and it's, it's used again. I wouldn't say Commonly Most men, do just fine with just testosterone replacement therapy, but there are a few select patients who benefit from adding antibar to their treatment regimen. I know Brian has had some experience with with use of Anavar maybe he can speak on the topic with a little more, You know, clarification. So Brian. What's been your experience?

Brian Mckinley: Yeah, so at a certain point it was was appropriate for me to get prescribed at a bar and You know, on top of that, we kind of wanted to be able to speak from speak, from experience, for our patients, to kind of, tell them how it's going to feel because, you know, we are on trtr ourselves here. So we know exactly how that is. And so for other products that we might want our patients to have, you know, it's been very beneficial to speak to them. So we went ahead process that and I tried a cycle with Anavar that

Brian Mckinley: Probably six ish weeks or so. And I would say that the way that it makes me feel was well rested. Energetic. I was at the time eating very clean. you know, I wasn't doing any kind of additional hyper calorie stacking. I wasn't having any kind of alcohol. I was just, you know, trying to be trying to be healthy and even though I was being very healthy, typical things that I would do, while I was, you know, trying to die it or something. I was maintaining muscle mass in certain cases. I was, you know, gaining muscle mass. Even while I was dieting,

Brian Mckinley:  Or under like similar dieting kind of experiences and I would say that it helped with some of my abdominal fat. While I was still gaining the muscles, I was working on at the time so that was a very interesting normally, you know, normally that's not possible. You're not normally supposed to be able to lose a little bit of fat while you're still gaining muscle. So that was like a very strange experience for me. The only like negative side effect that I encountered from that was probably that You know how? I don't know if you wake up in the middle of the night or not, and go to the bathroom, that kind of thing. For me, I have a really hard time, falling back asleep. If I woke up at all during the night, while I was on Anavar, But it wasn't bad because I woke up and felt rested. So it's a weird combination of. I wasn't sleeping as much but I still felt like good.

00:15:00

Brian Mckinley:  But overall it feels like a very safe substance for our patients to be engaging in. It feels like I don't know, it doesn't feel. I was expecting more negatives for something, that was not just testosterone overall good experience healthy. Maybe, you know, I wouldn't do it in like the long term or if I was having some type of insomnia problems. But that's just me, I think if a patient is Categorized for needing it. It'd be perfectly fine, to give it to them about much concern.

Garrett Soames: Cool, Cool. Yeah, the only other thing to mention about Anavar is again, not that we typically recommend it in

Garrett Soames:  Except in rare cases, but it is one of the medications that is sometimes prescribed to women. We do prescribe it to women for the same reasons, you know, catabolic disorders were their bed bound, things like that, and they're losing muscle mass. So because it has a low androgenic ratio in comparison to others. So it was also it comes appeal form too so it's a little easier to take in that regard and but because it comes in pill form, we don't typically recommend long courses of it just to for overall liver health and things like that. So they're typically if it is prescribed it's often prescribed for shorter periods. It's not like TRT where you take it, you know, you know forever, but it is something that, you know, it's an option out there another tool and the toolbox

Brian Mckinley:  and I think the the other part of that gentleman's question would be I guess like the why, why would we not prescribe it often? I feel like we kind of answered it, but You know, maybe if we touch on it again, just for the video sake.

Garrett Soames: Yeah, so yeah. Why not prescribe it, right? I mean it sounds like a good medicine, it. The the long and short of it is, You know. there's, there's a lot of behind the scenes that I don't think a lot of people realize when it comes to prescribing medications. You know, as someone who spent years and years trying to get, you know, his medical license and then applying for a DEA license, you know, it this is how I make my money, This is how I survived the South, I pay my bills and feed my family. So basically during bush juniors. Time in office. They, you know, there was a real crackdown on use of anabolic steroids and so the laws changed rather significantly. So

Garrett Soames:  even though it's legal to prescribe, if we start prescribing it outside of Typical guidelines and we do it too often. We we risk. You know, the DEA knocking on our door and removing our DA license and things like that. So,

Garrett Soames:  you know, again to put it simply we don't prescribe medications like Antivir often because There, their history of abuse in the bodybuilding community, their history of abuse. And the athletic community has put a spotlight on them. So as soon as a pharmacist sees it, come through, they might start, you know, having questions if they start getting more and more and more antivir prescriptions come through. And again, I think it's a great medicine. I'm generally for fewer regulations in healthcare, I feel like they've really limited. Our ability to care for patients. That's one of the reasons. We also find that we don't often work with. We don't really work with insurance agencies, health insurance, because 100% of time, this is a denied medication.

Garrett Soames:  You know and the insurance companies really aren't our friends so it working kind of in the cash pay model makes more sense in men's health, in general, because it opens more doors to allow us to prescribe medicine's that are less traditionally prescribed like Anavar. But again, we still got to meet criteria. But you'd be surprised how many people actually meet this criteria in particular, more recently with covid covid. You know, can cause long-term side effects, people often sick for months, they can't work out. They lose muscle mass. You know, believe it or not Anavar is is exceedingly prescribed in the geriatric population. Especially after a fall. If you know geriatric patients can lose up to seven pounds of muscle in 10 days.

00:20:00

Garrett Soames:  Of being bed bound. So and then obviously you lose that much muscle. You're more likely to fall again because you're weak. So we do prescribe Anavar on a daily basis in the geriatric population. But again. you know, you, you need a little more justification when you're prescribing to otherwise you know, younger healthier, you know, individual

Brian Mckinley:  Nice. Yeah, I think that. I think we'll probably covers the the question and we'll do a separate video on like the Science of Neanderlone. This one was I think pretty focused on what would be asked of us. So yeah, thank you for joining us and we'll have another video up soon for the next medication.