A lot of us have dreamt about being our favourite superhero. The power, the attention, the girls – it seems like a pretty attractive gig; but one guy in Brazil took his love for The Hulk a step too far.
The bodybuilder risked his life injecting a cocktail of oil, painkillers and alcohol to pump up his biceps. And boom, he went from Jekyll to Hyde. Trouble is the mix of nasties he was willingly flooding his body with have some potentially life-threatening consequences.
The married dad of one says his experiences in using the synthetic filler became so extreme that he was even scheduled to have his arms amputated. "If you take it once, there will definitely be a second time it's addictive," dos Santos told Barcroft.
"I remember the doctor told me that they would need to amputate both arms they said everything in there, all my muscles, were rock."
He was introduced to the muscle-building concoction by a couple of big-lads down the gym, the kind of dudes who make you feel like a lamb when you ask how long they'll be on the bench press.
He recalls: "I saw some really big guys in the gym with huge arms and I started to make friends with them. They introduced me to synthol and I got excited about the results I lost control."
The more he used synthol, the more rock-like his arms became. Eventually, only industrial needles used on bulls could penetrate his muscles. Sadly, he was an addict to muscle growth. Thus when people on the street began calling him a "beast" and "monster" he took it hard, and tried to kill himself.
He lost his job, was close to losing his life, and closer to losing his arms.
"I remember the doctor told me that they would need to amputate both arms. They said everything in there, all my muscles, were rock. It was either that or cut all of my muscles out."
Fortunately, doctors were able to save his arms in the end, "Thank God the doctor told me that they did not have to amputate they could instead remove the synthol rocks which had formed in my arms," he says.
He has now been off the stuff for two-years, and with no plans to go back down that path, he's gradually growing muscles the old fashioned way exercise.
