Ask the Doc: Is it safe to take anabolic steroids?

It is safe to take steroids if they have been prescribed by a doctor for treatment of a medical condition. In this situation, your doctor will monitor your health to make sure the treatment is effective, and to check that unwanted side effects are avoided. Under any other circumstances, the safety of androgenic steroids cannot be guaranteed.

Steroids are only legal if they are prescribed by a doctor for a valid medical reason. It is illegal to make, possess, or use anabolic steroids, or provide them to someone else.

Steroids can make you irritable, nervous, aggressive, reckless, depressed and suicidal.

Steroids can cause serious health problems including, high blood pressure, heart failure, liver cancer, kidney failure, infertility and erectile dysfunction. Other effects of steroids include acne, stretch marks, balding, sweating, gynaecomastia and low libido.

People who use steroids can become dependent upon them, and experience withdrawal symptoms when they try to stop using them. Some of the unwanted effects of steroids can take months to go away.

Buying steroids over the internet, from someone at your gym, or any other unregulated source is dangerous because you can’t be sure that what you’re getting is what you think it is.

Another danger of steroid use is the possibility of infection or nerve damage from injecting.

If you feel like steroids are necessary to help you achieve your fitness or appearance goals, you should talk to your doctor. If you are already using steroids, your doctor can help you to stop using them safely.