Peptide Critic Community

@diegoc said:

Im at 2iu and just above the ref range. i dont think its bad unless i was over 400 however Im going to try the same dose as @randy 1.5iu to see were i land.

The peptide game is to use the effective min dose on everything

The largest meta analysis was pulled from this

Association between IGF-1 levels ranges and all-cause mortality: A meta-analysis

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acel.13540

Worth checking out. This was done across large population groups so there are caveats.

120–160 ng/mL — the identified low-risk floor of the curve in the pooled data. However, even in the 180-220 range the extra igf-1 can be seen as worth the slightly increased risks due to benefits. Once you go above 220 though the relative risk starts to sharply increase.

@Stones67 said:

@diegoc
No clown feet like Pete? Or prominent brow? LOL Seriously, you've got it dialed in. I'm sitting at 212 (Z 1.1) and feeling a little inadequate while messing around with CJC/IPA. Hmmm.

180 - 220 igf-1 score is ideal for anti-aging and overall health benefits while minimizing side effects/cancer issues long term. I wouldn't muck around with it at a 212 score, that's plenty of igf-1 floating ground to do it's job of tissue repair/healing/lypolisis/sleep while minimizing run away cell proliferation.

There is also benefits to keeping the natural order of those pituitary somatotrophs working and the whole natural process of the HTPA axis going. If you weren't getting any response from secretagogues and your igf-1 was <100 then I'd say absolutely go the HGH route.

@WesEqualshXc said:

@Neil-McCauley I think I settled at around 150mcg if I remember correctly. But after the first 2-3 weeks I never ran it at night. Only in the morning and occasionally before a mid-day nap. After that first cycle I have not run it again. It broke my sleep too much to justify it for

Given the half lives being incredibly small (30 min/2 hours) the drugs are long gone if you're injecting in the a.m. by the time you go to sleep.

Many have the belief that this needs to be taken before sleep in order to be effective. You have multiple GH pulses throughout the day (4 total to be exact) in natural state. These pulses too also deteriorate with age, and there is certainly a benefit to enhancing them as well.

@WesEqualshXc said:

My rat did a cycle of this before bed, it made his sleep worse. After titrating up we ended up going back down in dose to about half the maximum recommended dose and moving the injection to just after waking. The one thing I did find it helped was taking a small dose just before the occasional nap.

What dosage are you using now? I too have issues taking this before bed. In the morning, I can take any size dosage and my sleep at night is unaffected. In fact, I notice that I sleep better when on cycle, because the GH boosting during the day must have some carryover into the evening that positively effects sleep.

@JtCjEfF said:

@vpeptides Im actually trying it in order to correct this very thing. My HR has gone through the roof with Reta, so Im trying to get it under control and get some HRV improvements. My sleep is trashed since Reta started.

What dosage of Reta are you using?

I take it in the morning. Doesn't make me groggy at all.

@derekg1 said:

@vpeptides said:

Did anybody get Nexaph's Tesamorelin? Is it a good quality one? They have no ready COA for the one they sell now.

Also, I wouldn't be so alarmed about 100% purity. Tools have an error margin. It is usually both ways: +-, like +-0.005%. If your measured value is 100.000% +-0.005%, it means it can be 99.995% - 100.000% (obviously it can't be over 100%). I take it this way.

Testing their tesa/ipa blend now. It’s doing well for my little rat.

Running their CJC-1295/IPA blend myself. Flush is strong, no injection site issues, so far so good.

I am back on my CJC-1295/IPA cycle after a full 30 days off, longest time off I have taken from GH related peptides in....years. Flush was strong these first couple days, I don't mind it. Based on some new research I have been reading I am experimenting with longer stretches off (30 full days this time) to really freshen up the receptors. Prior my time off was always 1 week/10 days/2 weeks or something similar.

I also tried going nighttime inject to mix things up. Bad idea, wide awake 4 hours after falling asleep. Double on top of that is having this fresh receptors really amplified that. Back to a.m. dosing as usual!

Running this about 100 days, then taking another 30 day break. I am going to investigate some ways to enhance GH outside of GH secretagogues for my next 30 day break. One option is L Dopa + Citrillune (essentially a very mild GHRH + GHRP). L Dopa is your GHRH, Citrillune is your GHRP. First thing a.m. fasted, what I am doing already. Also looking at a 30-40 day cycle of HGH as my go between. Perhaps both.

I've got labs coming up in September. I'll keep ya'll updated on where this moves my igf-1.

@ManicXmedic said:

I believe the issue is blood sugars, when they're elevated it contributes to somatostatin which is the growth hormone blocking hormone. Some people will fast and still have high blood sugars from having some insulin resistance, which imo needs to be addressed so that we're not getting water retention and carpal tunnel sides without the benefits.

With reta if you're still digesting dinner after 2 hours your blood sugars will still be elevated.

I'm currently working on getting my fasting blood sugars routinely 90 or under before I start gh or gh releasers. for what it's worth I'm still trying to figure alot of peptide information out and I may be off base but hopefully it adds to the discussion

Your body, in an evolutionary adaptation, knows that if you've eaten food, you don't need GH to break down stored fat, so it shuts down the whole GH assembly line.

I wouldn't wait to get your fasted glucose under 90 to start GH boosters, especially if you're over 40. Often these drugs in of themselves can actually improve insulin sensitivity over time via improved lypolisis. Definitely try the secretagogue path first to see how well you respond.

Correct. Hard to remember sometimes just going off top of my head without being in the lab and looking!

@vpeptides said:

You may play with lowering Ipamorelin dose. 0.1 mg is known to saturate the receptor for the most.

If you're a newbie I am leaning towards 2mcg/kg to being the best saturation dosage while not being wasteful/diminishing returns/over saturation of receptors. It's not that much more as it really ends up being around 150mcg for most but I think that little extra seems worth it, at least in my experience.

You definitely don't need those huge 300mcg twice a day dosages unless you're really experienced in this.

Same with Tesa. If you're new to using it, definitely start with the 1mg dose. I prefer the 10mg/3mg blend that has Ipamorelin. It's often added with a minimal cost and it adds a nice multiplier to the Tesa, and gives you that 150mcg dose noted above.

@bfuller said:

@Neil-McCauley I would also add that the environment created by fasting 1-3 hours before bed and the improvments in sleep and recovery paired with improved lypolisis are a great envirnoment for the male hormones tho improve.

100%. Things tend to snowball in either direction, both positive and negative.

I am becoming more and more convinced that prior to engaging in TRT for an adult person,that the 2nd step after addressing the normal lifestyle factors of sleep and diet, would be to using a GLP to address weight loss (you will see definite improvements in total androgen load by simply losing weight).

Once that has been undertaken, I would move towards actually doing GHRT and DHEA supplementation first prior to using T. I'd try the GHRH/GHRP secretagogue combo first before going down the HGH route if needed. By simply losing weight/improving lifestyle and boosting GH levels one will see tremendous improvements in T levels.

@hunt_ak said:

@Stevepep as far as I understood the GHRH analogs (CJC/IPA like you mention) are going to pulse GH, telling your liver to produce IGF-1. An increase in IGF-1 production shouldn't have a correlation to testosterone production.

Am I missing something here? Seems to be two different conversations.

They are bigtime correlated. People who use GHRT often see, on average, a 10% increase in testosterone levels, although some see increases much, much higher. Same goes in reverse - those who use TRT often see an increase in that same 10% or so range in IGF-1 numbers.

This is also true of DHEA replacement - it will often move the needle for both IGF-1 and testosterone. All these hormones seem to work in concert and there is overlapping everywhere.

When things go decline, hormonaly speaking, they tend to drop everywhere. When one hormonal level breaks and degrades it tends to drag others down with it.

The good news is that also works in reverse, when you fix one aspect of the hormonal symphony, others tend to get up to speed and repair themselves, at least to some partial degree.

Let's use GH for example. As GH levels and therefore igf-1 levels decline, we see both Increases in SHBG levels and a decline of LH function in the testes. Both of these in turn also contribute to lower testosterone levels.

Increases in igf-1-->lowers SHBG levels back to normal baseline. It also reinvigorates the leydig cells to work again and respond to LH signaling. Bundle those two together and you see increases in testosterone.

Testosterone is partially responsible for the GHRH pulses in the HTPA. So as your Testosterone levels decline in age, so your GH pulses in the pituitary. Take an exogenous drug like testosterone that amplifies GHRH pulses and you see increases in igf-1/GH levels. We know this from studying puberty - the dramatic shift in increasing igf-1 levels are partially androgen driven, not necessarily from any changes in the HTPA elsewhere.

Testosterone also has a positive effect on GH/igf-1 receptor effectivess throughout the body, not just the liver but also all the tissues as well.

@coondogesq said:

@ResearchCat My dumb question of the morning. Since I typically don't eat in the morning either, I'm leaning towards morning doses when I start my cycle. With that said, i do usually have a protein drink and fiber drink in the morning. While not eating per se, should I delay them for a couple of hours if I decide on the morning protocol? I suspect so, but don't want to overthink it. Thanks for any imput.

Go the full 2 hours if you can. The GH boost is primarily within the first 60 minutes post pin, but there is a transient amount in that second hour that ideally you want to take advantage of.

@hunt_ak said:

Just finished a test vial of Tesa after running CJC/IPA for 12 weeks. Had 10mg from a friend so decided to run 5 day course of the vial. No flushing like CJC (as mentioned above), but after 3rd day, joints started to hurt a bit and scale up 3-4 pounds from water retention. Wasn't a fan...CJC it is for me.....well....GH, really...

If you're headed somewhere, just go there...

2mg is way too high of a newbie starter dose. You should have gone 1mg. Also, the water retention and joint issues is a by product of high GH......which means it was working.

If you're so susceptible of side effects from GH that 2mg of Tesa gave you joint pain and water retention within the first week, even something as small as 1iu of HGH is likely going to do the same thing.

What is your baseline igf-1 level that you're going from?

@CapmanCrunch said:

@TheHazmatGuy
I agree with your view. My Testosterone has always been out of normal range on the high side.
My doctor still wrote me a prescription for TRT because we reasoned that normal for me is more like 1200-1500. That is normal for me. We are all different and what works for some might not work for others.
I'm 68 and know a lot of guys around my age that are on TRT. A lot of them say they don't notice much of a difference? If that were me, I would take probably take more. Seems like more people are under treated rather than over treated. Numbers are great guides for helping you figure out stuff, but for me, I am looking more for a certain feeling of wellbeing.
Testosterone, HGH and Peptides make sense to me as a first choice for improving my overall health. Replacing or enhancing with things my body already produces makes me more comfortable than trusting chemical compounds from big pharma.
I understand the concern with TRT for younger people, but I agree that for the majority of people, coming off TRT is very doable if necessary.

What is your PSA?

One reason why many 65+ aged people on TRT don't get the energy/QOL boost they expect is because often their IGF-1 & DHEA numbers are in the toilet (<100 for both).

Having a 600 test level and an IGF-1/DHEA scores of > 200 is far, far superior than having a 1200 test level and an IGF-1/DHEA scores of < 100.

@vpeptides said:

@judgetoo how was your sleep with Tesa? I just started 1 mg, it does sting as you describe, but on the second night my sleep was bad (high stress). I am careful because I tried CJC/Ipa for a week previously and my sleep was a complete mess with it. Without interventions my sleep is good.

You can inject first thing a.m. fasted, don't eat for 2 hours. In fact, there are many advantages to doing this.

Many years in and only problem I have had is a little bruise here and there. Hoping that using virgin needles via pens eventually will put an end to that permanently, but I've got a stash of EZ pins to go through first.

@thanks_enjoi said:

@Hammertime65 do not take an AI if you dont have to. AI'S do more harm than good. TRT doses of around 150mg or less shouldn't need an AI. I would recommend DIM. Its a supplement. I can be around test with 1400ng dl and be around 40 estradial and even less with DIM.

Agreed. I have found that maintaining a low bf% to be extremely effective at keeping estradiol levels in range, as effective as a low dose AI.

If you're on an AI or need one, I'd try a GLP before I'd go the AI route.

@CapmanCrunch said:

I am rambling here, are you contemplating HGH?

I am always experimenting with things. I have a ton of experience with GHRH/GHRP analogs. Never actually ran pure HGH.