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If he is telling the truth this is an awful thing to happen. I've heard quite a lot about clomid for men, plus like you say, many fertility drugs are used off label.

I would think it would be pretty easy to prove to the NFL that he took Clomid for infertility related reasons.

@Sunshine1810: I can't imagine having a job where I need permission to take a medication.

Oh, wow. Sucks for him and his wife if he is telling the truth.

There is a process in place where he could have and should have request an exception prior to use. While it's foreign to most of us to need an employer's permission to take medicine all NFL players are made well aware of the rules. When my husband was playing I can't tell you how many times a random dude would show up at our door to watch my husband pee in a cup. It's a bummer for Robert Mathis but he knew he would be tested regularly.

Very interesting.

If he was taking it exclusively for fertility purposes, then I feel bad that it has been made so public, but it sounds pretty sketchy to me. He is an NFL athlete and knows the type of issues these medications can cause, so it just doesn't make sense that he wouldn't clear it with the appropriate people ahead of time. And I think the article said that the physician he was going to didn't handle fertility treatments? Which I suppose isn't a huge deal (do regular physicians prescribe Clomid, or does that mainly come from REs?), but definitely doesn't help his case.

I wonder how long Clomid stays in the system? It says his wife is currently pregnant, so presumably he wouldn't have needed to continue his dosage.

Also, the article quotes his agent as saying that Mathis has been taking Clomid as a fertility drug "for 20-plus years." Um. What?? He's 33 years old. He's been taking a fertility drug since he was 13? That doesn't make much sense to me... I know some women can take things like that from a young age to regulate periods, etc., but I have never heard of a man taking something like that so early.

@spaniellove: Ah, you're right. I misread! I was like wtf that is crazy?! Haha.

It's all so interesting. It just seems insane that an NFL athlete would not go through the appropriate channels for something like this - he had to have known this would happen. Right??

Athletes know what drugs they can take or not and if they aren't sure, they are supposed to check, so if he isn't allowed to take that while playing, than I guess he'll pay the consequences. I would think he would know since the article stated that Clomid is one of the most common banned substances that has been taken by athletes. It'll be interesting to see any future follow-ups on this matter!

It's sad that his struggles were made public but shouldn't professional athletes check on *every* drug just to be sure!? I think I would if my livelihood depended upon a clean drug test and so many banned drugs.

@spaniellove: Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

@Sunshine1810: Makes sense!

@sunny: Yes, this! And particularly the drug that is the most popular performance-enhancing among athletes!!