I’m by no means advocating any sort of banned substance use through this post, but I reckon it’s worth taking a look into the world of post-performance-enhancement use in professional athletes, particularly with regard to bodybuilders who notoriously turn towards taking anabolic steroids to beef up quickly and quite intensively.

Lots of athletes, some of which ply their trade professionally and are adored by many, shock us with the news that they’ve been taking banned substances, the most common of which used to be one or more varieties of anabolic steroids. I hear the use of steroids is still particularly rife in those borderline sporting codes like wrestling, which isn’t really regulated as a proper sport in which performance enhancers are kept in check. Sure, since some wrestling franchises are referred to more as entertainment than an actual competitive sporting code, there’s not much incentive for the regulation of substance use. Performance enhancers containing anabolic steroid derivatives are also used in many sports where some explosive power is required and some professional athletes somehow manage to get away with their illicit substance use, going through their entire professional careers without ever getting caught out.

The problem however (yeah, there’s always a catch), is that any use of performance-enhancing banned substances is that they can have what can sometimes be very lasting side-effects, experienced far beyond the active days and well into a sportsperson’s retirement. Sticking with anabolic steroids as our example, this particular performance-enhancing drug yields explosiveness and fuels quick muscle growth due to its heavy reliance on stimulating high levels of testosterone production. Perhaps steroids stimulate an over-production of testosterone and adrenaline, which is part of where their danger lies, and a few of the most widely-known side effects thereof are indigestion, restlessness, insomnia, depressed immune system, compromised cardiovascular health, and hair loss among several others.

It is common knowledge that the use of performance enhancers affects the metabolism and causes rapid weight gain. It also thickens the left ventricle of the heart which causes dyslipidemia, and hypertension. These effects, in cohesion with the impairment of lipid metabolism, can result in an increased risk of coronary artery disease. Suffice to say that the heart health of a regular steroid user is compromised, if not at a high risk of a sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). But all is not lost, as there are a few ways to reverse the effects, and help prevent SCA in young athletes, as well as in those who are older. Treatment methods include the likes of supervised detoxification, comfort medication, and behavioural therapy to name a few. These treatments, however, should be closely followed with the maintenance of a healthy diet, stress management, abstinence from drug use, alcohol and smoking, and following prescribed exercises.

With a lot of the other issues caused by professional career-long use of performance enhancers, the often lifelong effects are dealt with by a case of using new medication or substances to try and fix the negative effects of the substance previously used. So it’s a case of always having to take something in order to feel better about some or other ailment caused by whatever it is they previously took, and naturally, this gets very expensive alongside the many visits to doctors and specialists as well. For the hair loss issue in particular, a lot of balding former pro-athletes whose use of substances such as steroids led to their thinned hair, primarily turn to cosmetic solutions like hair transplants offered by various Denver hair transplant clinics or medical spas in their local area that specialize in cosmetic surgery.

You certainly don’t have to have used steroids to experience hair loss, and you most certainly don’t have to have a former pro-athlete budget to get the requisite treatment either. The cost of a hair transplant is getting more and more affordable with each advancement made in the hair transplant field. One such procedure is FUE hair transplant (Follicular Unit Extraction). It involves harvesting individual follicular units from the scalp. The hair follicles are usually removed in a random fashion. The physician harvests hair through microscopic circular incisions on the scalp from the donor area (with less to no noticeable thinning in that particular area) and implants it in the recipient area. Owing to its faster healing time, many individuals opt for this treatment.

People like Wayne Rooney have had success with such treatments, but that in no way suggests he’s been using performance enhancers and it most certainly doesn’t mean he’s the type of person to whom this type of treatment is exclusively available because of that Premier League football money he has coming out of his now healthy-looking hair follicles.