Help - Low BP and high RHR on cycle??

[Raiders789]

Hello everyone -

So I am a week in to my second cycle of 525 test cyp and my blood pressure has been slightly dropping every day. A little background: was cruising on 225 cyp with 5IU gh, and a week ago bumped up to 525 cyp and 6IU gh. I'm also(and have been for a while) taking 5mg nebivolol, 10mg tadalafil, 10mcgT3/25mcgT4, 325IU HCG EOD, 10mg reta, and 5mg rosuvastatin/10mg ezetimibe.

Notable changes since bumping up(averages):
BP - went from ~105/63 to ~92/60
RHR went from ~68 to ~80
HRV went from ~60 to ~45
Weight went from 194 to 198


I feel like just that on its own wouldn't be such an issue(maybe a good thing) but my lifts have all gone down a few reps and I'm experiencing a lot more tiredness during the day, especially during and after lifts. I feel like its been getting progressively worse too, during my lift yesterday I would feel slightly light headed after every set and toward the end of the workout I would be seeing little white 'floaters' or little sparks/white dots during my sets. Also, my resting heart rate after sitting down for a few minutes after each set would only get down to like 100-110. I'd also sometimes get weird sensations on the left part of my chest(lowkey scary). Over the past few days I've been doing constant EKGs on my Apple Watch and none of them show signs of atrial fibrillation.

My first cycle(of just test) I had the complete opposite reaction, my blood pressure shot up and I got lots of high E2 symptoms(although I was a lot fatter then). My original plan for this cycle was to add in 150 NPP after the first week, but now I'm gonna hold off for a bit.

My first move was to take the tadalafil out so I didn't take any today, although it hasn't really done much for my blood pressure. I took a reading like right after my lift today and it was 89/62. Another thing I have been dealing with for the past couple of months and what I think could be causing this has been low iron. In my pre cycle bloods taken a week ago, I had a serum iron of 50ug/dL, transferrin of 173ug/dL, transferrin sat of 15% and a ferritin of 58ng/mL which are all at the bottom/below the reference range. I had this problem last cycle when I was running test/primo; my iron markers were lower than these so I started supplementing with Iron and Vitamin C, which brought them back up. I haven't been supplementing iron over the past month(because I ran out and was lazy) but added it back in a week ago. My(ChatGPT inspired) theory is that low iron is causing less oxygen to circulate to muscles/heart so I'm compensating with a higher heart rate(especially during exercise) but my blood pressure is still staying low.

Over the past week I've been taking 50mg iron a day in the morning, but I'm gonna up that to 50mg twice a day and see if that helps. But I could also be wrong and the problem could be something else, so I was hoping someone here with more knowledge than me could help me out. If anyone has experienced something similar with low iron or just similar in general some advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[knucklesamich]

Damn buddy, sorry to hear this. Your BP numbers are pretty low. When are you taking the reading? Mostly, you want to do so at a time where you haven't just had a meal, when you haven't just completed a lift.--every time I check my BP just after hitting the weights, it is significantly lower than normal. It is weird to see a drop in BP while on gear, you're right in that most of it will increase your blood pressure.

 

[Raiders789]

Damn buddy, sorry to hear this. Your BP numbers are pretty low. When are you taking the reading? Mostly, you want to do so at a time where you haven't just had a meal, when you haven't just completed a lift.--every time I check my BP just after hitting the weights, it is significantly lower than normal. It is weird to see a drop in BP while on gear, you're right in that most of it will increase your blood pressure.

Thanks bro - so I'll do my baseline readings in the morning a few minutes after I wake up after sitting down for a few minutes and I'll do a couple and average them. And then I'll also take a few readings randomly throughout the day whenever I'm at my desk and it's convenient.

I think the iron was the issue, for the past two days ive been taking 75mg iron with Vitamin C twice a day and I feel a lot better and my lift yesterday was solid. My bp has gone up a bit, I was 103/63 this morning. Usually when I do my morning cardio I feel like shit and a little light headed but today I felt really good and went longer than I normally do.

Also I've been doing some research and I think the high rhr is a result of waking up dehydrated - I found out my GH has diuretics in it, and I think the reta is masking the feeling of being dehydrated. Today I drank 1.5L of water right when I woke up and my rhr dropped to like 70 from like 95 before hydrating.

Im gonna get my iron makers tested this week to see how the supplementation has been helping, but I feel a lot better now!

 

[RockyP]

How is your stool looking? Dark at all? Any blood in them? With low iron and low BP on a cycle (with BP meds you've been on for a while) as well as increased heart rate (assuming you haven't bumped up your reta recently) i would be concerned about ruling out some sort of bleed (perhaps GI bleed), as these symptoms all fit with some sort of bleeding.

I'm not saying it is a bleed, BUT it would be important to rule it out first.

 

[knucklesamich]

Thanks bro - so I'll do my baseline readings in the morning a few minutes after I wake up after sitting down for a few minutes and I'll do a couple and average them. And then I'll also take a few readings randomly throughout the day whenever I'm at my desk and it's convenient.

I think the iron was the issue, for the past two days ive been taking 75mg iron with Vitamin C twice a day and I feel a lot better and my lift yesterday was solid. My bp has gone up a bit, I was 103/63 this morning. Usually when I do my morning cardio I feel like shit and a little light headed but today I felt really good and went longer than I normally do.

Also I've been doing some research and I think the high rhr is a result of waking up dehydrated - I found out my GH has diuretics in it, and I think the reta is masking the feeling of being dehydrated. Today I drank 1.5L of water right when I woke up and my rhr dropped to like 70 from like 95 before hydrating.

Im gonna get my iron makers tested this week to see how the supplementation has been helping, but I feel a lot better now!

Ok good, you're taking your readings properly. Especially since you're getting a reading several times a day to compare. Let's see how things improve with the iron supplementation. What does your meals consist of? Naturally, I'd imagine you're getting plenty of protein, correct? How about red meat?

 

[Raiders789]

How is your stool looking? Dark at all? Any blood in them? With low iron and low BP on a cycle (with BP meds you've been on for a while) as well as increased heart rate (assuming you haven't bumped up your reta recently) i would be concerned about ruling out some sort of bleed (perhaps GI bleed), as these symptoms all fit with some sort of bleeding.

I'm not saying it is a bleed, BUT it would be important to rule it out first.

Thanks - I haven't even considered this. I just took a shit and it was black and solid but no blood. I haven't really been paying attention to the color over the past few weeks but I know there hasn't been any blood(or at least significant blood). I've been looking into this and you're totally right, all my symptoms align with a possible slow GI bleed. Hopefully this isn't the case but I just ordered a fecal blood test to rule it out.

 

[Raiders789]

Ok good, you're taking your readings properly. Especially since you're getting a reading several times a day to compare. Let's see how things improve with the iron supplementation. What does your meals consist of? Naturally, I'd imagine you're getting plenty of protein, correct? How about red meat?

Yea I'm always between 200-250g protein per day. I eat a lot of red meat - usually I'll have 400-600g of sirloin per day which is weird because I'd expect to have high iron levels from that right?

 

[Tbaz192]

Thanks - I haven't even considered this. I just took a shit and it was black and solid but no blood. I haven't really been paying attention to the color over the past few weeks but I know there hasn't been any blood(or at least significant blood). I've been looking into this and you're totally right, all my symptoms align with a possible slow GI bleed. Hopefully this isn't the case but I just ordered a fecal blood test to rule it out.

Black is from the iron supplement, happens to me too. Just what’s they do.

This might be stupid. But also make sure you have the right size BP cuff and the batteries and fresh. It can throw off readings.
I have to use the biggest one.

I also have iron issues. And brother let me tell you.
Crashed ferritin & E2 being off. Will give you terrible anxiety. Fucking terrible. Life controlling anxiety.

Which both also messes with your BP/Heart.
I’d constantly be anxious and checking my heart. Looking up Symtoms and problems.
Felt like my heart was skipping beats and my arms would go numb. I’d be dizzzy and tingly. All from low ferritin and the anxiety from it.
Started ferrous bisglycinate. Boom gone.

It’s why I’m not blasting right now. My ferritin was 13-18 for over a year. Just realized it months ago as the cause for my issues.

I hopped off and have been getting my ferritin in order. Haven’t felt better.
My advice … hop off. Your health and body aren’t worth risking for a cycle. Get your labs in order and keep your iron/ferritin in mid range. Run any tests you think just for the peace of mind.

Ferritin serious fucked me over.

I was eating red meat and all this. So my iron serum was elevated and tibc etc. but my ferritin didn’t budge. It’s possible it’s a copper deficiency. I Haven’t had issues since copper and iron supp.

 

[Raiders789]

I hopped off and have been getting my ferritin in order. Haven’t felt better.
My advice … hop off. Your health and body aren’t worth risking for a cycle. Get your labs in order and keep your iron/ferritin in mid range. Run any tests you think just for the peace of mind.

Thanks for sharing bro - before supping iron my ferritin is at 60, which is in the reference range but I'd expect mine to be way higher based on how much red meat I eat. But I totally get how much it sucks having low iron/ferritin; for me the low iron kills my motivation to do anything. Going to get bloodwork/FBT done tomorrow and based on that I might be taking some time off as well.

 

[Photon]

Thanks for sharing bro - before supping iron my ferritin is at 60, which is in the reference range but I'd expect mine to be way higher based on how much red meat I eat. But I totally get how much it sucks having low iron/ferritin; for me the low iron kills my motivation to do anything. Going to get bloodwork/FBT done tomorrow and based on that I might be taking some time off as well.

CBC
Iron
Ferritin

There's also a FIT test you can do at home, its like $20 where you test your stool for blood. Should be able to get the test easily, Amazon or something. Just find one that's well known, not some unknown china brand.

Usually if there's blood in your stool, next step is colonoscopy.

 

[Tbaz192]

Thanks for sharing bro - before supping iron my ferritin is at 60, which is in the reference range but I'd expect mine to be way higher based on how much red meat I eat. But I totally get how much it sucks having low iron/ferritin; for me the low iron kills my motivation to do anything. Going to get bloodwork/FBT done tomorrow and based on that I might be taking some time off as well.

People can still feel symptoms around there! Which is wild.

 

[Raiders789]

Just wanted to share a quick update -

So I got bloodwork done and everything looked relatively normal. cmp and hematology were all normal, CRP was 0.83, and E2 was in range. Now that I've been back on my iron supplementation, my iron values were all in range but on the low side; Iron was at 73, transferrin was at 215, ferritin was at 58 and transferritin saturation was at 25. Also got B12 + folate tested and those were both high normal. I just dropped off my FBT test, and also just tested for h pylori and celiac so soon I'll find out if it's a GI issue or not.

A few days I took nebivolol out, and that made a crazy difference. My blood pressure is now back to normalish; I've been supplementing up to 10-15g of salt with water throughout the day and I've gotten my bp to sit at ~105/70 and since dropping the nebivolol, my rhr has dropped down to like 75.

Whenever I get low bp symptoms like light headedness I'll drink 500ml water with 5g of salt and that usually fixes it. I'll take 5g before my lifts which has finally gotten rid of the light headedness at the gym, and I can finally get good pumps again.

I still think it's very possible I could have a GI problem, but I think a contributor to the issue was dehydration from the GH. Also I just started living alone again and making all my own food, so after counting how much sodium I intake I realized I was vastly under consuming sodium. Since I've been adding in the 10-15g sodium with water my weight has shot up 5lbs and I feel a lot more watery, but my pumps have been great and my bp is higher.

 

[NotHuman]

Just wanted to share a quick update -

So I got bloodwork done and everything looked relatively normal. cmp and hematology were all normal, CRP was 0.83, and E2 was in range. Now that I've been back on my iron supplementation, my iron values were all in range but on the low side; Iron was at 73, transferrin was at 215, ferritin was at 58 and transferritin saturation was at 25. Also got B12 + folate tested and those were both high normal. I just dropped off my FBT test, and also just tested for h pylori and celiac so soon I'll find out if it's a GI issue or not.

A few days I took nebivolol out, and that made a crazy difference. My blood pressure is now back to normalish; I've been supplementing up to 10-15g of salt with water throughout the day and I've gotten my bp to sit at ~105/70 and since dropping the nebivolol, my rhr has dropped down to like 75.

Whenever I get low bp symptoms like light headedness I'll drink 500ml water with 5g of salt and that usually fixes it. I'll take 5g before my lifts which has finally gotten rid of the light headedness at the gym, and I can finally get good pumps again.

I still think it's very possible I could have a GI problem, but I think a contributor to the issue was dehydration from the GH. Also I just started living alone again and making all my own food, so after counting how much sodium I intake I realized I was vastly under consuming sodium. Since I've been adding in the 10-15g sodium with water my weight has shot up 5lbs and I feel a lot more watery, but my pumps have been great and my bp is higher.

I actually dropped Nebivolol as well because I felt my BP readings were too low. I am also on a polypharmacy like you so while they’re all very healthy things to be taking, adding them all together requires being careful to make sure too much of a good thing doesn’t turn into a bad thing.

If you want to get the RHR down, you could add Ivabradine 10mg (5mg twice daily) and go up to 15mg if necessary. That’s what I have done to replace the RHR lowering benefits of Nebivolol.

Also, 10mg of Reta seems high. Maybe think about dropping that? That could be causing lower BP and higher RHR/HRV

 

[Raiders789]

Hey guys thought I'd share another update -

So all the gi tests came back negative. Still having the same issues, seems like mega dosing the salt only helped for a few days but then back to square one.

My next thought was that I could have been dealing with blood sugar issues, specifically reactive hypoglycemia, since 6IU's of growth was the highest I've gone and usually I'll eat 600-700g of carbs per day from a lot of higher GI sources. Two weeks ago I took out the gh for a week and switched to majority whole grain carb sources and have been wearing a cgm. didn't really notice much of a change in the instances of low blood pressure, so I went back to my normal diet before adding in GH. I was also taking 500mg berberine at the time with my biggest carb meals, and my blood sugar would drop to ~3mmol confirming the reactive hypo. That correlated with some low bp and brain fog symptoms, so I dropped the berberine and haven't gone hypo since.

Reintroduced gh about a week ago and have put on a lot of water, but no noticeable effect on the low bp. It'll still average around 95/60 in the morning and I still get all the low bp sides.

I saw my gp about it and he put me in a 24hr blood pressure monitor. Majority of the time my bp averaged ~90s/60s with some systolic measurements getting into the 80s and confirmed that I had postural hypotension. We discussed it today and he prescribed me 100mcg fludrocortisone. I guess it takes a few weeks to reach full effect but I'm really hoping this finally solves this problem. I also have some midodrine on the way from india in case the fludrocortisone isn't effective, since my gp wants to give it a month before trying the mido. Also gonna see a cardiologist next week to get an echo + stress test just to make sure there isn't anything serious going on, although I think thats unlikely.

I switched up my cycle and now I'm running 300 test 400npp; I'm hoping the nandrone can help heal a recent scaphoid fracture and maybe boost the bp a bit. The 400npp + 6iu gh + fludrocortisone really has me feeling like the Michelin man, since adding these 3 I've put on 8lbs of water so far.

 

[Eddie.]

I actually dropped Nebivolol as well because I felt my BP readings were too low. I am also on a polypharmacy like you so while they’re all very healthy things to be taking, adding them all together requires being careful to make sure too much of a good thing doesn’t turn into a bad thing.

If you want to get the RHR down, you could add Ivabradine 10mg (5mg twice daily) and go up to 15mg if necessary. That’s what I have done to replace the RHR lowering benefits of Nebivolol.

Also, 10mg of Reta seems high. Maybe think about dropping that? That could be causing lower BP and higher RHR/HRV

Same here, nebivolol dropped my diastolic from 55 to 43 and made my rhr to go from 75 to 80+ since my diastolic went too low.

I dropped it and currently while on reta and HGH i had some readings of high 80s and sometimes low 90s. 10mg ivabradine puts me 70-75 currently without touching my BP at all. Works like a charm.

 

[Dial It In]

I actually dropped Nebivolol as well because I felt my BP readings were too low. I am also on a polypharmacy like you so while they’re all very healthy things to be taking, adding them all together requires being careful to make sure too much of a good thing doesn’t turn into a bad thing.

If you want to get the RHR down, you could add Ivabradine 10mg (5mg twice daily) and go up to 15mg if necessary. That’s what I have done to replace the RHR lowering benefits of Nebivolol.

Also, 10mg of Reta seems high. Maybe think about dropping that? That could be causing lower BP and higher RHR/HRV

I agree with the Reta. That seems high. Reta has shown to decrease blood pressure. The RHR though isn’t typical with Reta except initially in most cases but that’s usually an increase not a decrease. Most I know and myself see Reta being pretty effective in the 2-4 range.

 

[Raiders789]

Same here, nebivolol dropped my diastolic from 55 to 43 and made my rhr to go from 75 to 80+ since my diastolic went too low.

I dropped it and currently while on reta and HGH i had some readings of high 80s and sometimes low 90s. 10mg ivabradine puts me 70-75 currently without touching my BP at all. Works like a charm.

diastolic at 43 bro how do you feel with it that low? Mine drops into the low 50s and occasionally high 40s and I feel like death.

I've been considering ivabradine, but my only concern would be possibly getting the same results as nebivolol. My thought process is that if I manually slow my hr down, my bp would decrease further as a result and just make things worse. But it really doesn't touch your bp? I'm gonna look into it more because that sounds like a godsend. My rhr is sitting around 75-80 on cycle with the reta which I'm not bothered by too much, but ideally I'd want it lower.

 

[Raiders789]

I agree with the Reta. That seems high. Reta has shown to decrease blood pressure. The RHR though isn’t typical with Reta except initially in most cases but that’s usually an increase not a decrease. Most I know and myself see Reta being pretty effective in the 2-4 range.

Yeah, I actually have some tirzepatide on the way. My plan is that if the fludrocoritsone doesn't work, I'll swap the reta for a lower dose of tirz to see if that has any effect. I only have experience with sema and reta, but figured if I do decide to go that route I'd start low with the tirz and only use enough to manage food noise.

 

[Dial It In]

Yeah, I actually have some tirzepatide on the way. My plan is that if the fludrocoritsone doesn't work, I'll swap the reta for a lower dose of tirz to see if that has any effect. I only have experience with sema and reta, but figured if I do decide to go that route I'd start low with the tirz and only use enough to manage food noise.

I’ve no experience with tirz. Lots if incomplete studies on all these GLPs in general. There are others similar to Tirz that have been shown to reduce iron levels. Now that very well could be the reduction in food intake for those studies. If you’re concerned or seeing reduced iron levels in bloods no harm in adding in that. I come from a world of troubleshooting and that can be applied to day to day life. So let’s run through basic trouble shooting. Anytime you add multiple variables finding the root cause becomes more difficult. Hard to pinpoint what fixes or solves the problem with multiple variables being added at once. Not everyone may agree but maybe try this. Drop everything but your test. Run a trt dose titrate up and evaluate. Then add the next piece that is important for your goal evaluate and titrate up and so on and so forth. Might not be what you want to hear or do but you only get one life and it’s ultimately your decision.

 

[Ghoul]

Funny how high the success rate is in Sema and Tirz extended trials with people using a single GLP, once weekly dosing, gradually titrating to a stable maintainance dose, no longer experiencing any sides whatsoever, for 3-4 years+

Seems like the "unique", chaotic protocols UGL users often follow maximize side effects and ensure they're a continuous problem.