The Steroid Nurse
by Bryan Krahn
Next Page | Pages 1 2 3
Back in June 2003, a new poster known as Prisoner#22 joined Testosterone Muscle's Steroid Forum. He quickly made a name for himself as someone who knows a heck of a lot about anabolic drugs.
Online steroid authorities are hardly an endangered species, as we all know; virtually every bodybuilding message board has at least one self-proclaimed drug guru. But what made Prisoner#22 different from the other "experts" was that he clearly had some medical training to back up his posts. He even claimed to work in the health-care system.
Fast forward five years and 2,500 posts, and Prisoner#22 (now just Prisoner) has become one of the most popular, if controversial, fixtures on the Steroid forum. But what's the real Prisoner all about? How did he come to know so much about steroids? How does he balance a career in health care with a hobby that so many of his peers would consider unhealthy? And given the conservative nature of the health-care community, how can he do what he does and keep his job?
I sat down with Prisoner at a restaurant just a short drive from the hospital where he works as a nurse in the emergency room. I'll try to be vague about details that could endanger his anonymity, although I think it's safe to say that he's in his early 30s and describes himself as happily married. He's been training for 18 years and has competed in several bodybuilding shows over the years.
Testosterone Muscle: How long have you been into steroids?
Prisoner: I actually trained natural for the first 13 years. In fact, as a youth I was very much against steroids. I thought they were just an easy way out and that you didn't need them to make gains.
TM: What changed your mind?
P: Around the time I turned 26, I just stopped making progress. It was super frustrating, especially when I watched young juiceheads in the gym who didn't know shit about training or nutrition blow past me in a matter of months. Plus, a really good friend of mine had been gearing for years and was always bugging me to try a cycle.
TM: So, tell us about that first cycle.
P: Deca-Durabolin, Dianabol, and Trenbelone. Yeah, a total libido killer! (Laughs)
TM: Ouch. Guess that wasn't well thought out. Was that stack your idea?
P: It's funny — a doctor who's now a senior orthopedic resident at an Ivy League university got me started. He had a few vials of Deca lying around and offered them to me. Another friend had an extra bottle of Tren and gave me that. I just kind of used what I could get hold of.
TM: What were the results like?
P: Fantastic. I went from around 185 to about 210 with just that one cycle.
TM: Did you tell your wife what you were up to? Surely she must've noticed.
P: We were just hooking up that the time, and she was really anti-steroid. So I told her it was creatine! That line actually worked for a while, but the Deca ended up killing my sex drive and she started to wonder what the heck was going on. So eventually, I had to come clean.
Anyway, the libido came back and everything worked out between us, but I always tell people that if steroids are something you're interested in doing, you best make sure your spouse is 100 percent on board. I'm lucky that I have my wife's full support in all of my bodybuilding endeavors. She helps me out when I'm dieting, cooks my food, even sprays on my tan before shows. But for her sake, I will never do Deca without Testosterone again!
TM: How did you come to learn so much about steroids?
P: What really helped me out is my education. Studying pharmacology and physiology gives you an excellent knowledge base in terms of how the body works. I learned about the different responses to medications, drug half-lives, receptor science, and receptor downgrade. From there, I learned a lot on the Internet, and from reading any studies that I could find. Then, of course, there's also my personal experience with steroids, which is considerable.
TM: Is there a lot of published research on anabolic steroids and humans?
P: No. Most of what's out there are older studies, and a lot of them just aren't applicable. It boils down to ethics. It would be a challenge justifying a long-term human study with supra-physiological doses of androgens. So the research just isn't there.
TM: Have you learned much from the doctors that you work with?
P: No. Most docs don't know anything about bodybuilding. My biggest teacher was myself.
TM: So many docs that I run into are hopelessly out of shape.
P: Tell me about it. At work I once had to endure a lecture by a female doc about my oh-so-unhealthy bodybuilding lifestyle. The irony was, she was about 80 pounds overweight and was signed on to spend a month at one of those fat farms.
TM: Do any of the doctors you work with know about your steroid use?
P: I'm sure they must know I do something. But it's never been an issue. They know that I take my job seriously and that I'm highly capable. Once they saw that, I just became part of the health-care team.
TM: You made a very interesting post that's now a sticky in the Steroid forum about what to do in case of infection at the injection site. Was that from personal experience, or something you came across on the job?
P: Both. I had a serious infection that developed into an abscess on my leg just three and a half weeks before a show. I had been injecting into my quads, and one day it was sore as hell. I let it go for a day or two and the pain only got worse, and I began to realize that I could be in some real trouble and miss my show.
At the hospital, I grabbed a 16-gauge syringe and a handful of gauze and headed to the washroom. I jammed the pin in and aspirated a whole syringe full of yellow pus. It was disgusting. After that, I hit up a doc that I was cool with for a script for Keflex.
Within a week, I was fine. But had I not known the importance of getting the infection out, and following it up with a full course of antibiotics, I would've missed my show, or worse.
by Bryan Krahn
Next Page | Pages 1 2 3
Back in June 2003, a new poster known as Prisoner#22 joined Testosterone Muscle's Steroid Forum. He quickly made a name for himself as someone who knows a heck of a lot about anabolic drugs.
Online steroid authorities are hardly an endangered species, as we all know; virtually every bodybuilding message board has at least one self-proclaimed drug guru. But what made Prisoner#22 different from the other "experts" was that he clearly had some medical training to back up his posts. He even claimed to work in the health-care system.
Fast forward five years and 2,500 posts, and Prisoner#22 (now just Prisoner) has become one of the most popular, if controversial, fixtures on the Steroid forum. But what's the real Prisoner all about? How did he come to know so much about steroids? How does he balance a career in health care with a hobby that so many of his peers would consider unhealthy? And given the conservative nature of the health-care community, how can he do what he does and keep his job?
I sat down with Prisoner at a restaurant just a short drive from the hospital where he works as a nurse in the emergency room. I'll try to be vague about details that could endanger his anonymity, although I think it's safe to say that he's in his early 30s and describes himself as happily married. He's been training for 18 years and has competed in several bodybuilding shows over the years.
Testosterone Muscle: How long have you been into steroids?
Prisoner: I actually trained natural for the first 13 years. In fact, as a youth I was very much against steroids. I thought they were just an easy way out and that you didn't need them to make gains.
TM: What changed your mind?
P: Around the time I turned 26, I just stopped making progress. It was super frustrating, especially when I watched young juiceheads in the gym who didn't know shit about training or nutrition blow past me in a matter of months. Plus, a really good friend of mine had been gearing for years and was always bugging me to try a cycle.
TM: So, tell us about that first cycle.
P: Deca-Durabolin, Dianabol, and Trenbelone. Yeah, a total libido killer! (Laughs)
TM: Ouch. Guess that wasn't well thought out. Was that stack your idea?
P: It's funny — a doctor who's now a senior orthopedic resident at an Ivy League university got me started. He had a few vials of Deca lying around and offered them to me. Another friend had an extra bottle of Tren and gave me that. I just kind of used what I could get hold of.
TM: What were the results like?
P: Fantastic. I went from around 185 to about 210 with just that one cycle.
TM: Did you tell your wife what you were up to? Surely she must've noticed.
P: We were just hooking up that the time, and she was really anti-steroid. So I told her it was creatine! That line actually worked for a while, but the Deca ended up killing my sex drive and she started to wonder what the heck was going on. So eventually, I had to come clean.
Anyway, the libido came back and everything worked out between us, but I always tell people that if steroids are something you're interested in doing, you best make sure your spouse is 100 percent on board. I'm lucky that I have my wife's full support in all of my bodybuilding endeavors. She helps me out when I'm dieting, cooks my food, even sprays on my tan before shows. But for her sake, I will never do Deca without Testosterone again!
TM: How did you come to learn so much about steroids?
P: What really helped me out is my education. Studying pharmacology and physiology gives you an excellent knowledge base in terms of how the body works. I learned about the different responses to medications, drug half-lives, receptor science, and receptor downgrade. From there, I learned a lot on the Internet, and from reading any studies that I could find. Then, of course, there's also my personal experience with steroids, which is considerable.
TM: Is there a lot of published research on anabolic steroids and humans?
P: No. Most of what's out there are older studies, and a lot of them just aren't applicable. It boils down to ethics. It would be a challenge justifying a long-term human study with supra-physiological doses of androgens. So the research just isn't there.
TM: Have you learned much from the doctors that you work with?
P: No. Most docs don't know anything about bodybuilding. My biggest teacher was myself.
TM: So many docs that I run into are hopelessly out of shape.
P: Tell me about it. At work I once had to endure a lecture by a female doc about my oh-so-unhealthy bodybuilding lifestyle. The irony was, she was about 80 pounds overweight and was signed on to spend a month at one of those fat farms.
TM: Do any of the doctors you work with know about your steroid use?
P: I'm sure they must know I do something. But it's never been an issue. They know that I take my job seriously and that I'm highly capable. Once they saw that, I just became part of the health-care team.
TM: You made a very interesting post that's now a sticky in the Steroid forum about what to do in case of infection at the injection site. Was that from personal experience, or something you came across on the job?
P: Both. I had a serious infection that developed into an abscess on my leg just three and a half weeks before a show. I had been injecting into my quads, and one day it was sore as hell. I let it go for a day or two and the pain only got worse, and I began to realize that I could be in some real trouble and miss my show.
At the hospital, I grabbed a 16-gauge syringe and a handful of gauze and headed to the washroom. I jammed the pin in and aspirated a whole syringe full of yellow pus. It was disgusting. After that, I hit up a doc that I was cool with for a script for Keflex.
Within a week, I was fine. But had I not known the importance of getting the infection out, and following it up with a full course of antibiotics, I would've missed my show, or worse.
