Little piece of knowledge on topical issues. Maybe someone will find it useful.
HEMATOCRIT ON THE ANABOLIC STEROIDS(AS) CYCLE
What hematocrit is?
One of the most important blood indicators on the anabolic steroids cycle, which should be monitored is the hematocrit indicator. Hematocrit is measured in percentage and it defines percentage of blood cells (erythrocytes) towards the liquid component of blood. The more blood cells there are, the higher the hematocrit index is.
What happens to hematocrit on the AS cycle?
During the steroid cycle, there is growth of hematocrit, due to an increase in amount of red blood cells. When the hematocrit’s level becomes too high, blood becomes too thick and this entails a number of undesirable and risky health effects. Because of the excessively thick blood, it becomes more difficult for the heart system to push it through the vessels and urges heart muscle work more intensively for a long time. Increased hematocrit can result in hypertension (increased blood pressure) and also can cause the risk of thrombosis, followed by a stroke or heart attack if, there are other predisposing risk factors.
Symptoms of thick blood
Symptoms of excessively thick blood are sleep disorder, decreased mental concentration and deterioration of mental activity, shortness of breath, joint pain, increased sweating. During the AS cycle, the hematocrit level will often be slightly higher than normal, but do not wait until its level exceeds the permissible limits.
Steps to do
The only way to make the blood more liquid is to drink a lot of fluids, in other words water. Often, a high level of hematocrit is a consequence of low fluid intake by athletes and in that case, such issue can be solved by a proper regime of water intake. The average volume of liquid consumed should be at least 30 ml / kg of body.
If your drinking regime is adjusted, but the hematocrit still tends to rise, after reaching the 54% mark, it makes sense to resort to phlebotomy (bloodletting). There is also a more sophisticated way to reduce hematocrit, for example the reduction of iron absorption in various ways, but it won’t be discussed in this article.
About bloodletting procedure
Among athletes, you can usually hear the term - drain blood, which is the slang name of this procedure. The amount of drained blood should be such as to bring the hematocrit level back to normal, but sometimes it's impossible to do that at once. We recommend to limit a 500 ml of blood at one time. Later, you should take a hematocrit test and compare the values. If another procedure is required, take a rest day and repeat, but draining more than 500 ml of blood is prohibited.
How the procedure should look like:
1. Inject NaCl aqua into the vein equivalent to the estimated amount of blood that you want to drain. Infusion rate of the aqua should be observed based on medical standards (your nurse knows about this).
2. Next, the necessary amount of blood is drained into a special container.
Where to do this procedure?
Usually, any nurse in a hospital can provide you with such a procedure or make a home visit. The procedure is simple and takes about 40-60 minutes including NaCl aqua preparation.
Donorship
Why can’t you be a blood donor in this case? The thing is that most often using various substances, such as growth hormone, Infra-jet or anabolic steroids - you will not be suitable for donation.
-------
We have endocrinologist in the team now, so if you have any questions - do not hesitate to drop any questions
