Hey you old bastards, I'm long overdue joining in here. I'm 41 and feel old as fuck. I ran a lot of gear in my early to late 20s, but mostly the past 10 years has just been TRT. Used to run 200 mg, then dropped to around 150ish the past few years, and recently I backed down to 130mg because I always need to donate.
Anyway, my knees are fucking terrible now and I'm constantly cracking and popping all over. I'm consideriny jumping on GH, but just enough to help with skin, maybe joints, possibly fat loss? Would 1iu a day do anything, or do you think I need to run at least 2-3iu?
I did get my IGF-1 tested recently, at 167 on a scale of 52-328.
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I hear you on the knees and I've given serious thought to GH. Maybe as a next step . . . definitely would like to hear your experience if you try it. Here's my knee journey, perhaps of help . . .
Mine have been bad since my 40's as well . . . don't know why, no rough competitive sports when younger, hard core bicyclist for many decades. Maybe motorcycles, maybe starting offroad dirt biking in the my 50's, maybe genetics . . . whatever.
about 15 years ago (age 50) mine would pop and crack as I walked, once on a long flight from LA to NY I literally couldn't stand up due to the pain. Had to travel a ton for work, often walked miles a day at airports, still in pain. Had X-rays, doc said moderate osteoarthritis in both knees, plus a torn medial meniscus. He said he would do surgery, but 1/2 the time it wasn't successful or made things worse. He advised me to just change the way I moved and sat so it didn't hurt. Took 6 months or so and yeah, pain was reduced a lot.
Started TRT at 61, still had issues with my knees at the time. Starting going to the gym (never lifted before then, though kept in good shape), soon as the T started to kick in (6-8 weeks) I noticed an immediate improvement in knee pain and function. I could feel the tissue building back up and my knees getting stronger. I did try BPC-157, I think 3-4 vials over 3-4 weeks, 2x per day each knee. That seemed to help, though really the only thing that works long term is just hitting the gym and training.
I'm almost 65 now, running 250 mg Test-C/week along with 150 mg Tren-A/week. Levels are good, just had a complete detailed physical and nothing out of ranges. BP is controlled (was high before TRT), I take some Arimadex to keep the estro balanced. For me the estro balance has been the hardest thing, no real sides from the T (other than a bit of anger and horniness), but high estro makes me bitchy and moody, too low and my joints are painful.
The latest thing I've been doing for my knees is PRP treatments, which seems to help quite a bit. As well as training Muay Thai. It is entirely counterintuitve, every doctor and online source says no high impact sports with arthritis. But I know for me it helps like nothing else has. I'm careful, no jumping and running. But otherwise the kicks, the lower body mobility drills, the cardio . . . all amazing and I can feel my knees getting a lot stronger and more flexible. Plus hitting stuff is really satisfying.
I'm hoping to push hard and get my knees in shape to last at least another 5-10 years. They are feeling better now than anytime in the past 15 years, hopefully I can avoid surgery.
