Nolvadex - how long is too long

[justine0101]

Wondering how long is too long to be on Nolvadex?

What are the side effects if you do stay on longer than the recommended doseage for a show? I

I currently do 20mg a day been on it since May, with a week or two off due to lack of supply

Women using this for cancer stay on this for years and are fine, so wondered why for competitors it has to be a short time.

[sassy69]

How long were you planning to run it & what is the logic behind that decision?

I ask because I look at hormone manipulators as things that are NOT maintenance protocols. This includes steroids, SERMs (selective estrogen receptor modulator) like nolva and thyroid (t3, t4) All of these impact the natural production of these hormones in your body. If you're using any of them, you're forcing a certain level of one of them, which allows you to manipulate the effects of that hormone for a period of time. However over time, the natural balance of it that your body expects starts to suffer. The extreme of using estrogen suppressors is early menopause. There is very little if any research on at what point that happens, but I think the point here is why even test it? Ain't nuttin' for free and you should probably expect to start experiencing some of the effects of that hormone imbalance over time.

Can you provide a link that supports your statement about "women using this for cancer ... are fine"? I would be very hesitant to compare a non-sick person's use of a treatment to a sick person's use of a treatment to justify it's dosage or duration of use. "Fine" is also a relative term comparing someone prepping for a show to someone treating, overcoming or succumbing to a deadly disease.

Generally when you start talking about SERM or AI (aromatase inhibtor) treatments for breast cancer, most of the literature is targeted at post-menopausal breast cancer patients. Acknowledging that I am not a doctor nor qualified to speak w/ authority on this topic, the abstracts that are available via google search all reference the unknowns and lack of research around the use of nolvadex in pre-menopausal women, and how nolva is the preferred treatment for post-menopausal women.

For ref, here's one abstract (http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/92/11/903.full) that notes the traditional treatment for pre-menopausal women w/ breast cancer is an ovariectomy to remove the source of estrogen production that the cancer feeds on to grow. Depending on who you are, this is not "fine". If you are able to go thru a treatment w/ nolva & something else to help manage the effects of the nolva and still be able to have kids after treatment, God bless. But the effects of drugs on the body in treatment of things is brutal and I would guess, a very long process to truly come of the whole experience "fine".

Opening statement of this particular abstract:

"Surgical or medical castration and antiestrogenic treatment with tamoxifen are common endocrine treatments for premenopausal women with breast cancer. ..."

Without going into extensive research that I probably can't completely wrap my head around, I think that this is telling us that there's a lot more going on than just popping nolvadex for breast cancer treatment and everything goes back to normal after the treatment is over & (God willing) the cancer is gone. Thus, I think it is simply not a safe comparison to make to a healthy person using the treatment for selective hormone manipulation for any real length of time. Generally the human body is amazingly resilient and can handle short term extremes in the balance of the hormone & endocrine system, if you allow it time to recover back to homeostasis. Pushing it however .... my usual statement about the extremes of metabolism manipulation - your body can handle short swings, but if you don't respect what it can handle, ultimately it will tell you to go fuck yourself and then you have some problems much larger than whether or not you are holding bodyfat you don't like.

This is my philosophy on things anyway. We get away w/ a lot of things in this sport, but if you don't respect the drugs you want to play with, you will have problems. My personal suspicion is that the full spectrum of effects aren't widely discussed or even recognized, both physical and psychological -- I challenge anyone to tell me estrogen doesn't have an impact on one of the most fundamental parts of our being - our moods. I suggest That Time Of The Month as Exhibit A.

Some larger scale thoughts I have on this go to the logic behind the decision to continue use after a competition. If you have another show or another event soon after the first event where it matters how you look on a given day, sure, go ahead and continue the use because your goals are not to expect to gain muscle but rather preference towards staying ultra lean towards that event. And then after the second event, come off. Just like all the other parts of contest prep that are geared towards dialing into a show date, when it's all over, we all generally expect some amount of rebound or at least an overall move towards a maintenance weight / bodyfat & supporting protocol.

After a competition, most people look to that as the most anabolic time when the body has been running at optimal metabolic rates and is ready to consume all fuel sources it is provided and to build muscle, following the incredibly efficient way it was designed to run. However you NEED estrogen to build muscle. So why would you want to suppress it at that point?

[justine0101]

Wow sassy thanks for all the great info. Never considered that estrogen is needed to gain muscle.

This was the 1st year I added Nolvadex into my regular protocol of Anavar (20mg day) for competition prep; I came in at my best with more muscle and obviuosly tighter in areas that were previously a problem.

I ran nolvadex (20mg day) & var (20mg day) from April -early June. Stopped both for a month. Started both back in August to get ready for appearancesvfd/photoshoots I have until Nov. Obviosuly I'm not trying to get stage lean, but lean enough.

So was curious if 7 months was too long. I have no clue what the benefits of low estrogen are since I always hear how too much estrogen (ie in birth control pills) is bad

I fell in love with how nolva tightens things up so quickly and I fell in love with the mild or non exsistent periods/cramps, which I used to get when I just ran anavar. While off of everything for that month the menstruation was back to normal

Mood wise I don't notice a change. I do notice more feminine discharge (no odor or itching) just ALOT of discharge

As for the women using it for treatment of breast cancer, I quickly browsed a breast cancer forum & read many women talking about how long their dosage was. I didn't read more into what side effects they got, because as you said their bodies are using it for a totally different reason

I will definitely stop everything Nov, until next year's competition seasons start for me in May

[sassy69]

I think the fundamental thing to keep in mind is what you are trying to manipulate. Things like water manipulation , carb manipulation, etc. are transient manipulations of things that you put into your body all the time but just want to control them for a short period of time. Hormones are a bit different in that your body produces them, so they will always be in play. Given that everything in our bodies operates on a push/pull balance - physically as well as biochemically, if you try to force anything for a long period of time, IMO it will push the body too far off one of those balances and then a whole cascading effect of other things start to happen.

I guess the general rule I'd give is if you use it for competition prep, specifically dialing into a particular day, it is NOT appropriate for ongoing maintenance. And ESPECIALLY things that are intended for other uses under doctor supervision. And don't confuse the results of competition prep w/ a maintenance protocol - one is just not appropriate for the other.

Why I keep saying, "Ain't nuttin' for free." The more you can do w/ your body via diet, training & recovery - in different combinations, in different cycles (e.g. carb rotations & refeeds for diet, deload phases, active recovery, etc for training), the more you are going to retain w/ the least amount of negative impact.

[justine0101]

Thx for all ur info. I couldn't find any answers like this. Guy bodybuilders had no clue what to tell me

i stayed on it way too long:
- april to June for prep & 2shpws back to back
tapered off July

- went back on August - nov for photoshoot

- both times I also did var with it

- plus: during comp prep it did wonders in tightening up lower body & but like never before
-the tightening of my abs my worst part was amazing

- however hated the hollow jaw bony face feeling. In pics my face just looked razor sharp in a good way at the right angles but in person it looked too sunken in

- my period completely stopped & haven't had anything not even spotting since I 1st started in April

- it didn't give me yeast infections but the amount of discharge I have on a daily basis increased so much that I have to wear tampons daily.

- My doc said I didn't have vaginosis or yeast infection but my hormones were off. I didn't tell her what I took

- I tapered off both nolvadex and var in Nov and the discharge is still so much & now my abs don't get as tight. Mind you at my shreddest on this I still snacked on junk and it didn't effect my leanness

now my belly area is the most difficult to get lean again

have I done serious damage; like put myself into menopause?