Social media is promoting steroid use among young people in Ireland

'It can affect fertility'

Horse medication Clenbuterol is being used to burn calories while counterfeit steroids continue to enter the market, says Dr David Nolan, Assistant Professor of Sport and Exercise Sciences at DCU.

Meanwhile young men taking steroids report high levels of anxiety, inability to sleep and shrunken testes.

The boom in Ireland’s gym and “wellness” culture has increased the use of anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing drugs.

“There’s no age limit, steroid use is becoming much more normalised,” Dr Nolan said.

“Anabolic steroids are all just a different form of testosterone. Testosterone is a hormone that both men and women naturally produce, but men produce it in much higher levels.

“In men, when you take anabolic steroids at high doses, they're very effective at increasing muscle mass and strength. So that's the main reason people take it is they're going to the gym or they're playing sport, and they want to be bigger, faster, stronger.”

Anabolic steroids are used to increase lean muscle tissue and improve strength. Users report muscle at a greater rate than relying on diet and training alone.

Meanwhile, the risks and side-effects ranging from liver problems to heart attacks and strokes.

Some experience cosmetic damage such as acne, loss of hair, enlarged breasts, and shrunken testes in men, and facial hair growth and changes to sex organs in women.

Mental health effects can also be severe, with users reporting inability to sleep, anxiety and short temperedness when using high doses or “cycling off” the drugs.

Dr Nolan says young people are not educated enough on steroids to be using them at such high doses.

“As with any drug, the poison is probably in the dose,” he said.

“When you take high doses, more than the body can naturally produce, and you take those for a long time, they can have quite a lot of side effects.

“So they can change the way our blood carries oxygen, and when that gets too high, the blood gets thick, putting pressure on the heart.”

Use of these drugs can damage the liver, and can even see changes in the brain and abuse over time can increase the risk of dementia.

“If you're putting hormones into the body, the body doesn't need to produce its own hormone anymore,” Dr Nolan adds.

“So the testicles can actually shrink. It can affect fertility. Sometimes when the body then develops oestrogen, the female sex hormone, that can cause the development of  gynecomastia, which basically means breast tissue in men.”

Seizures of anabolic steroids have been steadily climbing since 2005. Last year, of the 1,000,984 dosage units* of illegal medicines seized by HPRA, anabolic steroids made up over 20%, with 203,088 units.

Due to stigma and the illegal nature of the drugs, no recent data is available to know how many people are currently using, or how widespread the issue is.

When prescription medicines are bought online, there is no way of knowing if the product is genuine, if it contains the right active ingredient or if it has been tested and approved for human use.

An investigation by JOE found that anabolic steroid stores are easily found online and on social media, despite 2,553 websites, e-commerce listings and/or social media pages amended or shutdown by HPRA.

Social media has proliferated the use of steroids, according to users and experts.

“One thing where people who have very impressive physiques and are claiming they're completely natural, but really they're taking anabolic steroids or different performance enhancing drugs,” Dr Nolan said.

“Young people who are trying to aspire to be that get very dissatisfied that they can't achieve the same results and turn to drugs to help them achieve that physique. And then on the other side, we have people that are glorifying or normalizing steroid use who are not really qualified or educated enough to talk and give recommendations.”

Killian Carolyn, 30, a personal trainer from Dublin began taking steroids ten years ago after purchasing them for around 25 euro from someone he met in the gym.

He said that he had no knowledge of the steroids or injecting and used Youtube and “bro science” to inform his practice.

“While on Tren you feel superhuman, your recovery, strength, muscles, veins, everything just gets it a lot better, Killian said.

“You do get a temper on it, your fuse is a lot shorter. If someone annoys you, instead of just being annoyed and forgetting about it, you might go home boiling over.”

With “energy levels through the roof all the time”, lack of sleep is common, he adds.

“Along with night sweats. They are intense, laying in bed putting towels under yourself. You're just cooking.”

Killian adds that sex drive can also increase, however testes shrink.

“Your balls turn into grapes, basically, but you’re thinking about sex all the time” he adds.

“Your balls are just non existent. You’re like an angry, horny teenage boy.”

Anabolic steroids are usually injected into the muscle which can lead to other issues.

Dirty needles pose risks of infection.

A common issue is known as “Tren cough” where people accidentally inject the oil the testosterone is suspended in into a blood vessel. Users then cough up oil for a number of days.

Needle exchanges are available in some areas however, both Dr Nolan and Killian say steroid users are reticent to use them.

Killian said he knew people who injected some form of steroids every single day.

“I would like to see doctors in Ireland need to educated on what is going around steroid wise,” he said.

Dr Nolan agrees that education and de-stigmatizing the use of steroids could make everyone safer.

“Like any drug, criminalizing it doesn't work. So we need to have that more empathetic and education focused approach,” he said.

“We need to de stigmatize, and ensure people are aware of what anabolic steroids are, what to do, and that anyone that is choosing to use them isn't afraid to engage with their GP.

“A lot of what we tend to do with steroid use is just scaremonger. We tell young people about all the negative consequences, but like any drug, they're going to be curious.”