How to Use AAS When Growth Plates Are Still Open
First off before I start I am going to be referring to steroids as (AAS), This is gonna be a long thread make sure to not DNR
Music for thread
How Growth Plates Close
First off we have to understand how growth plates close. The main mechanism growth plates close is due to the rise of estrogen. Testosterone is converted into estrogen via the aromatase enzyme then signals growth plate closure. When estrogen is present in growth plate cell division happens (basically each growth plate has a set amount of cell division before it closes) Estrogen speeds up the process of cell division. so more estrogen= early closure
REF: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/endocrinology/articles/10.3389/fendo.2021.812196/full
https://academic.oup.com/endo/article-abstract/155/8/2892/2433298?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false
How Can We Get Around This?
The way we can get around this is by taking an aromatase inhibitor. If we look at Men with estrogen receptor alpha mutations (unable to respond to estrogen). They never experience growth plate closure which then results in very tall adult height.
Note: This man with an aromatase deficiency had still opened growth plates at 24 years old. Also we do not want estrogen to go to 0 as if you look at the study overview we can see how many health complications he had.
Best AI (Aromatase Inhibitor) Overview
The best AI from what research has shown to have the least effect on lipids and other side effects is Aromasin. Most studies on children use letrozole but I find that letrozole is quite outdated and most clinics use it only because it was FDA approved before Aromasin. Even though they are both AIs they work completely different, First Aromasin is a suicide inhibitor meaning it binds to the aromatase enzyme and destroys it (don't worry your body makes new enzymes after around 3-5 days)
Second, letrozole is a non suicidal inhibitor meaning it binds to the aromatase enzyme and therefore not allowing testosterone to bind the enzyme and convert into estrogen. The one benefit letrozole has is that if you crash your estrogen you can pull the drug and estrogen will rebound almost immediately or even above baseline.
Where with Aromasin it could be up to a few days to weeks before estrogen is stable. I would not be worried about this as I don't think anyone with a brain will crash their estrogen and I think conservative doses of any AI are better if you're not under close medical supervision as estrogen is needed for mainly bone and brain health which are crucial when you are developing and going as low as some doctors put children like 5pg/ml is way too low without close monitoring. This is why I recommend lowering your estrogen very slightly for example from 30pg/ml to 15-20pg/ml
How AAS Stunts Growth and How to Mitigate It
Now that we understand what closes our growth plates and how to mitigate that we now need to understand how AAS stunt growth and how to mitigate that. AAS like testosterone or any aromatizing steroids will stunt your growth because more testosterone equals more binding to aromatase enzymes and converting into estrogen. I see a lot of people with open growth plates running cycles with way too high of a test base. For example seen multiple times doses of 300mg pinned 3x a week with 12.5mg Aromasin which on paper looks like it would work as estrogen would be decently low on testing. The main thing for people with open growth plates running cycles is local aromatase activity within the growth plate itself even if estrogen on paper is low. So you're basically just rolling the dice if estrogen is gonna be concentrated in the growth plate or not. I first came to this conclusion reading these studies
https://academic.oup.com/edrv/article-abstract/24/6/782/2567220?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12671795/
Although this study is on rats it shows that insulin has a role in estrogen in the growth plates meaning its not just as simple as most people think
My Solution to Keeping Growth Plates Open
A way of keeping growth plates open that I have discovered that no one else has seemed to think of yet is topical letrozole. Daily you're gonna wanna rub this where your growth plates are. Full list of where to rub. Radius and ulna (forearm), Femur (thighbone), tibia and fibula (shin bones) and ankle.
DOSE M/W/F: You're going to have to measure what concentration of topical formula you have to 0.1 mg equal to letrozole oral and rub that on growth plates.
What Does the Ideal Cycle Look Like
From researching this topic for many hours I came to the conclusion that a test base of no more than 140 mg testosterone is ideal with light dosing of Aromasin. I do not recommend running a cycle of this as 140 is not much above natural production and to keep on these until your plates are closed and use the 140 as a test base and run things like Anavar or non aromatizing compounds on top of the test base. You can also use other steroids such as Masteron, Primobolan, Equipoise to control estrogen but they will have to be used at very very low doses as they act like an AI in some ways.
