Oxandrolone and HDL drop – anyone see labs shift after a few weeks?

Question

Ngl I just got my labs back after a four week oxandrolone run at 20mg split twice daily. Was using it mostly to help with a stubborn Achilles tendon thing, not for bulking. HDL went from 55 down to 42, LDL crept up from 92 to 108. Trigs stayed pretty flat. Felt fine strength wise and no noticeable sides otherwise. Wondering if this kind of lipid shift is typical at that dose or if I’m just more sensitive. Thinking about adding a gram of fish oil daily or maybe low dose niacin to see if it pulls HDL back up. Also curious if anyone else has noticed a bigger drop when they go above 30mg or if the split dosing makes a difference. Would love to hear what your labs looked like and what you did to offset it. No medical advice just looking for real world data.

calmerin · Accepted Answer

Yeah that tracks... Dose dependent seems right. My HDL dropped around 12 points at 15mg which was a bit surprising at that dose honestly. 3 to 4g EPA DHA makes sense imo, 1g is pretty much nothing for that purpose. The flushing from niacin is real, lasted maybe 20 minutes each time but I got used to it. Did you run any lipid panel mid cycle or just before and after?

frugal_fasted · Answer

Yeah 10 point drop sounds about right, mine did something similar on a shorter run. Fish oil at 3-4g EPA/DHA is the way to go imo, the 1g stuff barely does anything. Have you tried psyllium husk alongside it? Not for HDL directly but seemed to help my overall numbers settle faster when I added it in.

quiet_ironman · Answer

Yeah HDL dropping into the low 40s at 20mg for a month is pretty common honestly, the drop is usually dose dependent so going to 30 plus will probably push it lower. Splitting it twice a day is supposed to help a little with stability but honestly the lipid hit still shows up. Fish oil at a gram is probably not gonna move the needle much, you'd want more like 3 to 4g combined EPA DHA if you're going that route. Low dose niacin works for HDL but the flushing is annoying and you gotta watch liver stuff. For me personally when I ran a short oxa cycle my HDL dropped about 10 points and came back within 6 weeks of stopping, just from diet. Curious what your diet looked like during that time?

grinder265 · Answer

Appreciate the input. Yeah 1g was prob way underdosed, i'll bump to the 3-4g EPA/DHA range like you said. Havent tried psyllium but im down to add it, doesnt sound like it would hurt anything. Did you notice the HDL bounce back faster with the higher fish oil or was it more just a slow creep over the full cycle?

grinder265 · Answer

Yeah just baseline and the four week pull, no mid cycle. Kinda wish I had done a two week check now because the drop might've been steeper early on. 3-4g EPA DHA makes more sense than 1g honestly, i'll bump it up. Niacin flushing doesn't sound terrible if it levels out, how long did that take for you and were you doing immediate release or the flush free kind?

grinder265 · Answer

Thanks for the real numbers on the fish oil, ngl I was way undershooting that. Made me feel better about the 13 point drop being pretty normal and not some outlier sensitivity thing. Did your HDL recover on its own or did you have to actively push it back with something? A few weeks or a few months?

Oxandrolone and HDL drop – anyone see labs shift after a few weeks?

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