I know that a few of my readers are intensely interested in elder-care.
One of mom's current health challenges involves mobility. Her side of the family has a great deal of arthritis so her joints are toast. She also has osteoporosis and her hips are compacted potato chips.
"But" you say, "anabolic steroids build muscle, not bone." and of course you are right.
But the pain of moving means that my mother does not move very much. Consequently, she has little muscle strength. It does not take much imagination to see that someday she will overbalance and not have the muscular strength to recover. She will fall, break bones, go to the hospital and die of pneumonia three weeks later.
Anabolic steroids will not fix her bones but they might help my mom to retain enough muscle mass to avoid that end. Sure, there are side effects but the world is a risky place when you are 87-years-old. Geriatric medicine is a game of balancing risks and one size does not fit all.
My youngest sister is running the trap-line to see what the "best science" has to say about the topic of geriatric anabolic steroids. Sis is a nurse in oncology and has seen what anabolic steroids can do for patients during and after chemo.
We have had some similar recently. Some meds ( Steroids or pain killers) that you wouldn't do long term for someone 30-50 MAY in some cases be good for someone in their 80s+ . Keep em as healthy and mobile as you can. Often their quality of life will be greatly improved and frankly ( sadly) their end due to age will happen before long term side effects from meds becomes a real problem.
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