These comments are made for the purpose of discussion and should NOT be used as recommendations for or against therapies or other treatments. An individual patient is always advised to consult their own physician.
Steroids
Question: What effects are there on children using steroids, in particular slowing down growth rate?
Answer: Steroids are used in a variety of diseases, usually to decrease inflammation. In general, the side effects of steroids, are to increase the rate of aging of the body. So, there is improvement in inflammation at the cost of premature aging. For children, in addition to the side effects for adults there can be a loss of height and growth due to premature closing of the bone ends called epiphysis. Once these are closed very little further growth will occur. Consequently, steroids are used very sparingly in children to avoid this potential complication.
Steroids
Question: I am 19 years old and recently made a bad decision to take
a cycle of steroids called (Pantestone 40mg 60tablets).
This was the worst mistake of my life. The 35 year old man, that
sold them to me, told me that these steroids did not have any
side-effects. I soon found out otherwise. After I took them I
noticed that my hair had thinned out a little, I developed
a very mild case of what the doctors said was gynecomastia,
and my testicle (I only have one) had shrunk to a smaller size.
We saw two doctors who thought that these symptoms were reverseable. One doctor told my mom, without me being present, that it may have caused me to have premature male-pattern baldness, but the testicle and gynecomastia would both return to normal. The first two doctors told me that if I didn’t take any more, that I would be fine and all symptoms would return to normal. It has been 8 months since I took them and I haven’t noticed any improvement. How much longer do you think it will be until I start to see improvement. Or how long would it be until it is too late for these symptoms to reverse.
Answer: Unfortunately, like many, you have discovered some of the problems of taking unsupervised steroids. However, I would be reluctant to believe that 60 tablets would produce this number of symptoms so rapidly. The male pattern baldness is unlikely to change, the gynecomastia and testicular atrophy(shrinkage) should return to normal over six months or so. If they persist, you should see an Endocrinologist for further evaluation.
