Whoa, slow down. Let's stay focused on the issue - water retention from 5 mg anavar. We know this is not uncommon for women to experience. To that end, if that is how your body responds to that particular compound (or specifically the product you're using), expect it to be part of your cycle for the duration. There are a couple ways you approach this:
1) Fiddle w/ the dosing to see if the water retention drops.
2) Watch the things that affect water retention in your body - these include water consumption, sodium, processed food, carb loads.
-- this won't remove the water retention from the var, but paying attention to it can help to not contribute to it via diet.
3) Try some OTC diuretics - but note that its not generally recommended to continue using diuretics long term (keeping in mind you're probably running a several week long cycle)
4) live with it - its not necessarily a bad thing. If you're not competing, then its honestly not that big a deal and I'd hate to see you spending a lot of time taking other stuff to counter the water that might introduce other issues. If you are doing a growth cycle, cutting your water is not a good thing. If you're cutting towards a competition date, just srtp the cycle 10 days out from your target date, which will allow time for your body to process the water out.
If anything, I'd suggest trying dandelion root as an OTC diuretic or water pills or whatever similar OTC product. As mentioned above, water manipulation often leads to cramping, so you can use potassium (sources include caps, usually at 99 mg caps, or other natural sources such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, bananas, etc.), magnesium, taurine, and drink lots of water. You can try this for a while but I'd suggest cycling it as well and not loading it - remember you're running a steroid cycle and you're inducing changes in your body so you can't really expect to "stay normal" across the board. If you're bulking, you're going to experience some size increase. If you're cutting, its still not good to cut your water. Of all the stuff that comes w/ a cycle, if the water retention is "very slight", I'd probably not worry about it relative to what you're trying to accomplish. If its really bad water retention, check your diet for unnecessary sodium. If you're bulking, I'd probably simply expect some bloating from the heavier cals.
RE: clen - that's a whole other discussion. Clen is a controlled substance (not OTC - usually prescribed for asthma patients) used for fat burning. If you're running a var cycle to build mass, I'd probably recommend you not use clen because your primary goal would be muscle building, not cutting. If you're running a cutting diet, that's another way of saying you're NOT trying to build muscle. This is bringing me back to my comment about paying attention to what you're running and what the purpose is. If you are throwing more stuff on to counter the sides of something else you're running, you may be adding additional sides that your body has to deal with , and you might be better off just dealing w/ the intial sides are part of what goes into running a cycle.
You can cycle it w/ anavar but you need to do your research to know what it is & how to run it. You can probably expect to feel the shakes and tension headaches regularly. You need to supplement w/ l-taurine to help reduce the inherent cramping. I would highly recommend you spend some time w/ the Search button on this site, and w/ Google in general. I'm not saying any of this to scare you or anything but if you are asking the questions like "are there any sides", then I am assuming you are new this particular item. The best thing you can do for yourself the minute you decide to go to the dark side & self-medicate w/ controlled substances, is to understand what you're looking at and if it is appropriate for the results you are looking for. More is never better (esp for women), and stacking more stuff just because someone mentioned it, you have access to it, or it all sounds good on paper like its what you want to do, is not always the right approach. Never forget that your body has to support all this stuff and figure out how to respond to each individual influence. The end result is not necessarily always in line w/ what you were trying to accomplish.
Here's some reading for you to get started:
Clenbuterol
Clenbuterol is prescribed as a bronchodilator for asthma, but also has the additional effect of increasing metabolism. The claim is a 10% increase in metabolism over ECA, which claims a 3% increase in metabolism. (I have seen this often quoted but never found an original study to back this up.) Clenbuterol has a 36-39 hour half-life – meaning if you take it, or worse, too much, you have to ride it out for about a day and a half. Some people panic if they take too much, and head to the Emergency Room, where the doctors will still just tell you that you need to ride it out until it wears off. There is nothing you can take to “make it stop” before then.
Clenbuterol Profile:
· Clenbuterol
· Clen FAQ
Clenbuterol has also been called “anti-catabolic” – meaning it does not promote muscle loss as part of the increase in metabolism to reduce bodyfat. Here are a couple studies that imply that clenbuterol, interestingly on a restricted diet, does promote some amount of muscle growth (or preservation) in research animals:
· Effect of clenbuterol on growth, nitrogen and energy balances and endocrine status in food-restricted sheep.
· Effects of clenbuterol on the metabolism of nitrogen and IGF-I level in isolated perfused rat liver.
Some additional considerations when using clenbuterol:
· Supplement with (3-5g/day) l-taurine – clenbuterol tends to inhibit l-taurine in your system, producing cramps
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The effects of the beta 2-agonist drug clenbuterol... [Amino Acids. 1998] - PubMed result
· Using Ketotifen with clenbuterol (2-3mg ED)
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Ketotifen Profile
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Note Ketotifen is prescribed as an anti-histamine. It can make you sleepy so better to take it at night.
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Effects of ketotifen and clenbuterolon beta-adrenergic receptor functions of lymphocytes and on plasma TXB-2 levels of asthmatic patients:
· Using Benedryl with clenbuterol
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“Bro-telligence” has often recommended using Benedryl to allow you to run clenbuterol longer without an “off” cycle to reduce down regulation of receptors. This is NOT true. Benedryl will only help you sleep if you’re overstimulated by a clen cycle. Ketotifen is the better choice for longer clen cycles.
With regard to cycling clenbuterol, I suppose this falls under bro-telligence. Following are two common cycles:
· 2 weeks ‘on’ / 2 weeks ‘off’ for 8-12 weeks
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Starting at 20 mcg, increasing by 20 mcg units as you can handle, until what you can handle or a maximum of100 mcg per day, and then stay at that amount for the duration of the two weeks. Then stop and go off for 2 weeks, substituting your favorite OTC thermo, and then repeating the 2 weeks ‘on’, again starting at 20 mcg.
· Continued ‘on’ for 8-12 weeks, include ketotifen
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Starting at 20 mcg for a week, increase by 20 mcg per week until what you can handle or a maximum of100 mcg per day, and then stay at that amount for the duration of