Women and Steroids: Possible Side Effects and Dangers

Post Cycle Therapy for Women

The purpose of PCT for male steroid users is to stimulate the production of normal testosterone function after it has been suppressed by the steroid hormones. Clearly this is not an issue that women face.

But do female steroid users still need to implement some form of post cycle therapy, or is it OK to just stop using steroids? There is no research to back up any claim that women need to do PCT following a steroid cycle and it is unlikely women steroid users undertaken PCT.

The drugs used in PCT are mostly anti-breast cancer drugs – drugs that women with cancer take. Healthy females taking these drugs does not make much sense at all, and will likely be harmful as they are anti-estrogenic in nature and will bring about additional disruption to the hormone balance.

None of these male PCT drugs should be used by female steroid users. The consensus is that female users recover best from a steroid cycle by simply stopping the cycle and continuing to maintain a healthy diet and exercise regime.

Since most female users will be using fast acting and short half life compounds that leave the system quickly, any side effects that have developed will begin subsiding relatively quickly after a cycle provided they have been not been allowed to develop over a long term of heavy steroid use. The lack of PCT requirement for females is one advantage women have over men when it comes to steroid use.

Women and Steroids: Possible Side Effects and Dangers

Male users of steroids have to deal with some pretty intense and sometimes serious side effects. So as we’d expect, female users will have a different level of side effects to face when choosing to use anabolic steroids.

Because steroids are basically male hormones (testosterone or similar), they are going to cause drastic changes to the entire way a woman’s body works. Females simply are not accustomed to having excess male hormone circulating.

Just like male steroid users, females will also see different side effect risk levels between different compounds. Some are considered more “female friendly” than others; but this doesn’t mean there won’t be any side effects. Even at very low doses virtually any anabolic steroid can bring about unwanted effects in women.

The key in most cases is not only to keep the dose low, but the length of the cycle short to prevent undesirable effects from being allowed to continue to develop.

The most concerning effect for most women is virilization, or the development of male characteristics. This is what the testosterone hormone and other similar hormones that drastically increase male androgens do to the female body. This masculine trait development can include:

Deepening of the voice
Growth of hair on the face and body
Enlargement of the clitoris
Hardening or roughness of the skin
Additionally, females who continue using higher doses and longer cycles of strong androgens as anabolic steroids being losing some feminine characteristics. Namely:

The breasts can reduce in size.
Menstrual cycles can change or stop. This usually returns to normal when the steroids are stopped.
These effects come about due to the way androgens affect the body as well as when estrogen function is altered. Steroids which have more powerful androgenic properties will clearly be the steroids that will cause virilization faster and more severely than steroids that have a lower androgenic rating. Some steroids are completely off limits to females for this reason; they are simply too androgenically powerful to be of any positive benefit to women.

There are other serious side effects women need to be aware of when considering steroid use. Some of these are the same as the risks men face. These include:

Birth defects: pregnant women must never touch anabolic steroids as they will bring about severe birth defects in the fetus.
Liver toxicity: if a steroid is liver toxic to male users, the same risk applies to females.
Raised cholesterol: steroids that are known to raise cholesterol in men can pose the same risk to women depending on the particular compound and dosage taken.
The lack of research into adverse effects of steroids on women means it is not possible to fully understand the risks to the cardiovascular system or the liver, but users should proceed with the assumption that there is a potential for these critical body systems to be negatively impacted by ongoing steroid use.