Please Scroll Down to See Forums Below This my first post at Elite although some may know me from other boards. I have been cross infected with HIV and Hep C for 20 years. I had cancer as a teenager and contracted both viruses in 1982 when I received multiple blood transfusions post surgery. Well i beat the Cancer but now I'm stuck with this thing as many of you apparently are. I am currently taking 3 drug therapy. Crixivan, epivir and ziagen. I cannot go off protese inhibitors for reasons i will tell you in another post. Well i train hard 3 days a week and do cardio for 2. I have a belly that looks like I drink a case of beer a day and I'm developing a buffalo hump as well. I am also noticing some fat around my kneck area l. I am looking for a good stack that won't aggrevate my liver and will show results on my stomache. I really work hard in gym and i want to take some stuff that will help show it. I know that HGH is non toxic to the liver but what do you think for me because of my cancer background. I am long past the cancer but do you think HGH would kick it up even in low doses. I am thinking injectables due to liver toxicity in orals. Maybe someone with some expierience in this area can help. I look foward to many conversations with all of you thank you in advance COOP.
Lypodystrophy and Anabolics
- Thread starter COOP
- Start date
NorCalBdyBldr
New member
Usually Serostim is prescribed for the buffalo hump and the lypodystrophy and works to varying degrees with different people. For some it is like a miracle drug and completely reverses it. The usual dose for HIV+ is 6 iu/day X 7 days/week and often runs a three to four month course. The truth is that this is a VERY high dose and it has been found to work equally well at far lower doses without the side effects that 6 IUs daily inflicts on most HIV positive patients. I also suspect that shorter than 3-4 month "cycles" would be much better to be honest in terms of safety and efficacy. In all likelihood, you could get a scrip for serostim fairly easily to treat your lipodystrophy and if your doc knows what he/she is doing and writes it up properly, your insurance should pay for it as this can become a very serious issue. You may wish to use two vials out of the seven per week and shoot them over a four day period, say two on, one off, two on, two off @ 3 IU per day--the unused portion must be refrigerated after mixing. Less than this will probably also work but I have seen this amount to work very well in people that I personally have observed using it for treating lypodystrophy. Considering your history and vulnerability to cancer, I would tend to err on the side of caution and only use it long enough for the lipodystrophy to be resolved. Once it seems to loose effectiveness, I would get off of it for a while before resuming and give your body a rest. It has a very long shelf life if properly stored so you can save any unmixed product until such time as you need it if the lipodystrophy returns.
I suspect that the cancer risk from serostim is probably not any worse than using anabolics for that matter. If you are considered to be "cured" of your cancer, i.e. complete remission greater than five years, I don't know that your risk factor would be considered all that high at this point but you should consult with your doc. Personally, I would try to have the full prescription filled for Serostim but try the lower dosage that I mentioned and only increase it if you need to. Better to err on the side of caution in this matter. And of course, lower doses are less likely to cause problems. Having said that, t is a known fact that people that use anabolic steroids have always done better with HIV, even when there were no drugs to treat it. I think Dr. Jekot, in LA pretty much brought attention to that issue a long time ago.
You probably should stay with injectibles with Hep C and HIV drugs though as they are not liver toxic. Liver toxicity is of particular concern if you have chronic Hep C. Of course, your liver enzymes can always be more frequently monitored (and should be to see how you react) if you start an anabolic cycle using orals (I hope you have a doc that is amenable to this idea or at least willing to test you knowing that you are doing a cycle on your own accord for health concerns at least). I would tend to shy away from Anadrol 50 even though it is approved for HIV positive patients as I am aware of a couple of HIV patients with advanced disease that developed hepatic shock and died within one week of starting it. It CAN be very liver toxic. These folks were quite sick and on quite a lot of medication so it has never been determined the actual "cause" of death per se. But just consider it a red flag. Oxandrin seems to be fairly safe, based on blood tests and a fair amount of experience with some docs at this point with treating HIV related issues, as far as liver toxicity is concerned. Typically, it is prescribed at 20 mg per day for HIV positive patients which is a dose that is a bit on the low side from what I have seen. This would be four 2.5 mg pills in the morning and four 2.5 mg pills in the evening. At such a low dose, I can't say that I have ever seen any liver enzymes on blood work. Your situation could be different however. I know many HIV docs that have admitted that they have never seen elevation of liver enzymes at all with depo testosterone and nandrolone decanoate. I think most bodybuilders would tend to use Oxandrin at a higher dose starting around one 2.5 mg pill per 20 pounds of bodyweight per day so if you weigh 200 lbs, that would be 10 pills per day or five in the morning AND five in the evening. This is higher than what is normally prescribed since the scrip does not take into account bodyweight but is based on studies that use large "averages" and determine dosages based on the "average" person regardless of just how much mass they have to dilute the medication into. So when considering that, the one 2.5 mg pill per 20 lbs of bodyweight does not appear to be unreasonable for HIV related wasting issues.
As for your lypodsystrophy, I don't think that anabolics will do a lot to help you there. They seem to help somwhat as they affect the partioning of nutrients between fat and muscle adn they also elevate your metabolism so you have less propensity to "add" fat and typically will burn some off. The serostim is the usual choice though as it has been observed to completely removed a buffalo hump in as little as three weeks of administration. If you use the serostim at a lower but still effective dose and plan to cycle on/off of it, I suspect that it would not contribute significantly to your cancer risk--sometimes things used in moderation and so on.......
There is also a slight chance that your lypodystrophy is related to insulin resistance so you may want to get that checked out. This is the far less common situation. If ths is your case, then a diabetic drug like Metformin may work extremely well at completely eliminating it. I know of a patient that had a HUGE "crix belly" and the Metformin removed it completely in less than one month. This is extremely rare though but does show another possibility. So something else to think about.
Has your doc got your blood lipids under control? Crixivan, in particular is notorious as are the other protease inhibitors and many of the NRTI drugs which is the class that the 3TC and Ziagen are in for causing blood lipid problems such as low HDL, high LDL, high VLDL, high Total Cholesterol, and HIGH triglycerides. It these factors are not under control, your lipodystrophy will only continue to worsen or return as it is tied in with a general lipod metabolic problem specific to HIV as well as the drugs used to treat HIV. The virus can cause lipodystrophy in patients that are not even on medications so the cause is still not well understood. It is fairly accepted, however, that if your lipids are not under control, you will have problems with lipodystrophy. That is a given. So you may need to also be on Lipitor to control cholesterol and cold water fish oil capsules to control trigyclerides as this is the ONLY thing that has been show in medical studies to lower triglycerides significantly other than removal from the offending HIV medications. There are no prescription medications that will effectively deal with elevated triglycerides in HIV positive patients to my knowledge at this time but the fish oil really works amazingly well for this purpose and can easily lower it several hundred points with only moderate supplementation--I have seen this repeatedly on blood work. Just something else to think about.
So good luck. I hope that his helps. You are an amazing guy to be surviving so long term with the "deadly duo" of HIV and Hep C. I only know of one other "long term survivor" with this combination (he has had HIV for something like 18 years). He also works out big time and uses anabolics. I suspect that this has actually worked in his favor.
I suspect that the cancer risk from serostim is probably not any worse than using anabolics for that matter. If you are considered to be "cured" of your cancer, i.e. complete remission greater than five years, I don't know that your risk factor would be considered all that high at this point but you should consult with your doc. Personally, I would try to have the full prescription filled for Serostim but try the lower dosage that I mentioned and only increase it if you need to. Better to err on the side of caution in this matter. And of course, lower doses are less likely to cause problems. Having said that, t is a known fact that people that use anabolic steroids have always done better with HIV, even when there were no drugs to treat it. I think Dr. Jekot, in LA pretty much brought attention to that issue a long time ago.
You probably should stay with injectibles with Hep C and HIV drugs though as they are not liver toxic. Liver toxicity is of particular concern if you have chronic Hep C. Of course, your liver enzymes can always be more frequently monitored (and should be to see how you react) if you start an anabolic cycle using orals (I hope you have a doc that is amenable to this idea or at least willing to test you knowing that you are doing a cycle on your own accord for health concerns at least). I would tend to shy away from Anadrol 50 even though it is approved for HIV positive patients as I am aware of a couple of HIV patients with advanced disease that developed hepatic shock and died within one week of starting it. It CAN be very liver toxic. These folks were quite sick and on quite a lot of medication so it has never been determined the actual "cause" of death per se. But just consider it a red flag. Oxandrin seems to be fairly safe, based on blood tests and a fair amount of experience with some docs at this point with treating HIV related issues, as far as liver toxicity is concerned. Typically, it is prescribed at 20 mg per day for HIV positive patients which is a dose that is a bit on the low side from what I have seen. This would be four 2.5 mg pills in the morning and four 2.5 mg pills in the evening. At such a low dose, I can't say that I have ever seen any liver enzymes on blood work. Your situation could be different however. I know many HIV docs that have admitted that they have never seen elevation of liver enzymes at all with depo testosterone and nandrolone decanoate. I think most bodybuilders would tend to use Oxandrin at a higher dose starting around one 2.5 mg pill per 20 pounds of bodyweight per day so if you weigh 200 lbs, that would be 10 pills per day or five in the morning AND five in the evening. This is higher than what is normally prescribed since the scrip does not take into account bodyweight but is based on studies that use large "averages" and determine dosages based on the "average" person regardless of just how much mass they have to dilute the medication into. So when considering that, the one 2.5 mg pill per 20 lbs of bodyweight does not appear to be unreasonable for HIV related wasting issues.
As for your lypodsystrophy, I don't think that anabolics will do a lot to help you there. They seem to help somwhat as they affect the partioning of nutrients between fat and muscle adn they also elevate your metabolism so you have less propensity to "add" fat and typically will burn some off. The serostim is the usual choice though as it has been observed to completely removed a buffalo hump in as little as three weeks of administration. If you use the serostim at a lower but still effective dose and plan to cycle on/off of it, I suspect that it would not contribute significantly to your cancer risk--sometimes things used in moderation and so on.......
There is also a slight chance that your lypodystrophy is related to insulin resistance so you may want to get that checked out. This is the far less common situation. If ths is your case, then a diabetic drug like Metformin may work extremely well at completely eliminating it. I know of a patient that had a HUGE "crix belly" and the Metformin removed it completely in less than one month. This is extremely rare though but does show another possibility. So something else to think about.
Has your doc got your blood lipids under control? Crixivan, in particular is notorious as are the other protease inhibitors and many of the NRTI drugs which is the class that the 3TC and Ziagen are in for causing blood lipid problems such as low HDL, high LDL, high VLDL, high Total Cholesterol, and HIGH triglycerides. It these factors are not under control, your lipodystrophy will only continue to worsen or return as it is tied in with a general lipod metabolic problem specific to HIV as well as the drugs used to treat HIV. The virus can cause lipodystrophy in patients that are not even on medications so the cause is still not well understood. It is fairly accepted, however, that if your lipids are not under control, you will have problems with lipodystrophy. That is a given. So you may need to also be on Lipitor to control cholesterol and cold water fish oil capsules to control trigyclerides as this is the ONLY thing that has been show in medical studies to lower triglycerides significantly other than removal from the offending HIV medications. There are no prescription medications that will effectively deal with elevated triglycerides in HIV positive patients to my knowledge at this time but the fish oil really works amazingly well for this purpose and can easily lower it several hundred points with only moderate supplementation--I have seen this repeatedly on blood work. Just something else to think about.
So good luck. I hope that his helps. You are an amazing guy to be surviving so long term with the "deadly duo" of HIV and Hep C. I only know of one other "long term survivor" with this combination (he has had HIV for something like 18 years). He also works out big time and uses anabolics. I suspect that this has actually worked in his favor.
Crixivan, epivir and ziagen. Your lypodsystrophy is not related to insulin resistance. The Crixavan is know to give that Buffalo hump your complaining of. Also long term exposure to nucleaside analogs have been prove to deplete the mytocondrial DNA within the cell, causing the cell to "Not Function" properly causing as its know as lypodsystrophy or fat redistribution. There is plenty of data documenting that fact. D4T has been accused as the worse of the NRTI's but they all do it.
That is a funky 3 drug regamin your on. Both 3TC and Ziagen share the same mutation point of resistance the M184 and for all intensive purposes your only really taking 2 drugs. Have you tried other NRTI's combinations? Keletra is a much better PI and Videx EC/Tenofovir/Sustiva is a 3 drug mix all 1 pill once per day taken all at once. Sustiva has been proven to be better in efficacy than PI.
That is a funky 3 drug regamin your on. Both 3TC and Ziagen share the same mutation point of resistance the M184 and for all intensive purposes your only really taking 2 drugs. Have you tried other NRTI's combinations? Keletra is a much better PI and Videx EC/Tenofovir/Sustiva is a 3 drug mix all 1 pill once per day taken all at once. Sustiva has been proven to be better in efficacy than PI.
NorCalBdyBldr
New member
"That is a funky 3 drug regamin your on. Both 3TC and Ziagen share the same mutation point of resistance the M184 and for all intensive purposes your only really taking 2 drugs. "
I would definitely have to agree with those statements. Why do you also need to be on a protease inibitor at this point in time? I would think that Tenofovir would be a better substitute for either the epivir or ziagen and crixivan is about the worst offender concerning lipodystrophy of the protease inhibitors although Rotonovir isn't great either. I am curious as to why you can not go off of protease inihibitors though as there are other classes of drugs that could be selected from. There are a lot of other serious issues regarding protease inhibitors in general like loss of bone mineral density, etc. Has your doc done any tests to check for this?
I would definitely have to agree with those statements. Why do you also need to be on a protease inibitor at this point in time? I would think that Tenofovir would be a better substitute for either the epivir or ziagen and crixivan is about the worst offender concerning lipodystrophy of the protease inhibitors although Rotonovir isn't great either. I am curious as to why you can not go off of protease inihibitors though as there are other classes of drugs that could be selected from. There are a lot of other serious issues regarding protease inhibitors in general like loss of bone mineral density, etc. Has your doc done any tests to check for this?
For him to be on that combination, either he is being treated by a medical provider that has no clue in HIV, or he failed everything else and this is a last ditch effort.
Did you see the bad data on Trizavir! Looks bad, failed in both arms of the ACTG study, high and low viral load patients. ACTG 5095
Did you see the bad data on Trizavir! Looks bad, failed in both arms of the ACTG study, high and low viral load patients. ACTG 5095
enlightened
New member
wow hep c and hiv in 82 here too - 2 days after I was born
guess 82 was a bad year for a lot of people =\
guess 82 was a bad year for a lot of people =\
NorCalBdyBldr
New member
"Did you see the bad data on Trizavir! Looks bad, failed in both arms of the ACTG study, high and low viral load patients. ACTG 5095"
I just checked it out on the NIH website. I am not surprised, however. Considering that Trizavir contains 3TC, Ziagen, and AZT, and that the points of resistance for 3TC and Ziagen (Abacavir) are the same, it is essentially like taking a relatively weak two drug combo. of AZT and 3TC or Combivir instead of a more potent true three drug cocktail. I don't see where the addition of Ziagen (Abacavir) would have anything to offer other than to increase the chance of side effects over just using combivir. It has long been known that a combo of AZT and 3TC can fail in as little as 6-9 months or even less as a double combo. as both are easily mutated around. That is why the arms of the study which also included Sustiva to the regimine were better. That makes a true 3 drug cocktail even though by using Trizivir with the Sustiva, you are esentially using four drugs to make a three drug cocktail.
This appears to me to be just another shabby attempt by a pharmaceutical manufacturer to find a way to extend a patent so no generics can happen with older anti-HIV drugs like AZT or 3TC and do not appear to be science motivated particularly.
Personally, inspite of the lipodystrophy issue, there is information that Zerit can be used at one half the historical normal dose and works just as well. My understanding is that it is the one drug that no direct viral mutation around has been observed to date. It is certainly one of the most durable. I would tend to put it together with 3TC as a MUCH better and more long term durable choice that Combivir and have always felt this way. This is likely to be true, even if put together with 3TC at standard 150 mg 2 X daily dose with the Zerit being reduced to 20 mg 2 X daily instead of the more typical 40 mg 2 X daily in order to reduce fatigue, lipodystrophy, mitochondrial toxicity and blood lactic acidosis concerns. Studies are now 48 months showing it holds up equally as well as the higher dose and dramatically reduces all of these side effects which are largely dose dependent anyway.
So I would have predicted Trizivir to be a washout with no foreseeable benefits from the git go.
I just checked it out on the NIH website. I am not surprised, however. Considering that Trizavir contains 3TC, Ziagen, and AZT, and that the points of resistance for 3TC and Ziagen (Abacavir) are the same, it is essentially like taking a relatively weak two drug combo. of AZT and 3TC or Combivir instead of a more potent true three drug cocktail. I don't see where the addition of Ziagen (Abacavir) would have anything to offer other than to increase the chance of side effects over just using combivir. It has long been known that a combo of AZT and 3TC can fail in as little as 6-9 months or even less as a double combo. as both are easily mutated around. That is why the arms of the study which also included Sustiva to the regimine were better. That makes a true 3 drug cocktail even though by using Trizivir with the Sustiva, you are esentially using four drugs to make a three drug cocktail.
This appears to me to be just another shabby attempt by a pharmaceutical manufacturer to find a way to extend a patent so no generics can happen with older anti-HIV drugs like AZT or 3TC and do not appear to be science motivated particularly.
Personally, inspite of the lipodystrophy issue, there is information that Zerit can be used at one half the historical normal dose and works just as well. My understanding is that it is the one drug that no direct viral mutation around has been observed to date. It is certainly one of the most durable. I would tend to put it together with 3TC as a MUCH better and more long term durable choice that Combivir and have always felt this way. This is likely to be true, even if put together with 3TC at standard 150 mg 2 X daily dose with the Zerit being reduced to 20 mg 2 X daily instead of the more typical 40 mg 2 X daily in order to reduce fatigue, lipodystrophy, mitochondrial toxicity and blood lactic acidosis concerns. Studies are now 48 months showing it holds up equally as well as the higher dose and dramatically reduces all of these side effects which are largely dose dependent anyway.
So I would have predicted Trizivir to be a washout with no foreseeable benefits from the git go.
genotype or phenotype test
An other sugestion is to change your current regimen after you had a genotype or phenotype resistance test. The results of the test would indicate what your treatment options are, as far possible new drug regimens. The results will indicate which medications you have developed a resistance to, and medications you have not developed resisitance to. Hopefully you still have other possible treatment options.
An other sugestion is to change your current regimen after you had a genotype or phenotype resistance test. The results of the test would indicate what your treatment options are, as far possible new drug regimens. The results will indicate which medications you have developed a resistance to, and medications you have not developed resisitance to. Hopefully you still have other possible treatment options.
NorCalBdyBldr
New member
"I have had some experience with lypodystrophy and I can say that Acytly L Carnitine saved my life. It works by trasporting long fatty acid chains across the cell membrane. These fats are then burned by the mitochondria. I burned all the fat off so that my belly looked normal"
How much Acytly L Carnotine were you taking and how many times per day? With or without food? How long did it take to get rid of your belly? I am very curious as I have heard/read some things from some HIV nutritionists that this could theoretically help and your experience seems to bear that out. I would like to know so I can pass it on to others that I know are having the same problem. Thanks.
How much Acytly L Carnotine were you taking and how many times per day? With or without food? How long did it take to get rid of your belly? I am very curious as I have heard/read some things from some HIV nutritionists that this could theoretically help and your experience seems to bear that out. I would like to know so I can pass it on to others that I know are having the same problem. Thanks.
