First dose feelings - apprehension about taking an experimental drug

I took my first 1mg dose last week. I was also extremely nervous since I don’t take any meds. No obvious side effects except I did sweat more while working out and I felt more winded or out of breath than normal. Yesterday I took my 2nd dose of 2mg with fish oil first thing in the am and my hands got sweaty along with full body sweating during a spin class this morning (it takes a lot for me to sweat) I’m wondering if it’s the “heavy heart” someone mentioned earlier. I just did a calcium score and mine were 0 except for left valve 20% blocked. I’m grateful for this thread and thanks everyone for chiming in!

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Thanks, now I know where I will definitely not look for something to go with my Globuli sugar pills if I ever visit.

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I take so much stuff, Rap is the least of my concerns LoL!

Can’t say I’ve ever noticed an effect taking a 7mg dose every 2 weeks for the past year.

But then my longevity stack is pretty tall :slight_smile:

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Hello Dr.
Question…I started about 7 weeks ago at 1mg per week ramping up to 6mg once a week. I was planning to stay at 6mg simply because that’s what I read here that most people are taking. But I saw your post today about 8-10 needed for therapeutic results. I thought I read something like this you posted before but couldn’t find it until this post I saw today. Is there any correlation between dose and weight? i.e. could you figure x mg per x weight? I weigh 180ish and was thinking of going to 7 or 8 mg once per week. What about females? my wife is 140ish and she is taking 5mg once per week.

thx

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There will be a mg/kg relationship to some degree in regard to serum levels. There are also things such as impaired liver function that can dramatically delay metabolism. There are items in regard to absorption - such as taking with fatty foods, or adding grapefruit juice. The volume of distribution, % of your body that is water (so body composition), and I’m sure a few other things I’ve forgotten.

I guess the bigger question is, just like Dr. Kaeberlein when he talks about his dosing and why … I can’t even say 100% we are going to have the outcomes we are striving for - so given that, talking about specific levels, more would relate to safety and then to efficacy - assuming Rapamycin is effective.

My comments were more in relation to getting a sirolimus level that is felt to be sufficient to provide enough MTORC1 suppression to avoid organ rejection in combination with other agents - which is 3 ng/mL. So this certainly is getting some reasonable outcome based effects. I don’t know if being below this dose. I’ve still not seen good literature correlating the ng/mL levels to what degree of mTORC1 inhibition one has. At least at 3 ng/mL we know it is sufficient to generate one outcome. Of note, as a solo agent, rapamycin usually is goaled at a trough level of 5-12 ng/mL depending upon the indication.

So, I guess, if I have someone who has ApoE4’s and we are looking to provide a reasonable level, including getting a reasonable peak level, I’ve got some patients requiring 12 mg or higher to do this, some needing to add grapefruit juice to achieve this.

I’d think just for longevity goals, unless you have some underlying issue with your liver or taking big doses with grapefruit juice, it’s tough to argue for doing levels if you are keeping in the 5-8 mg range weekly for most people. However, talk with your doctor.

I can only give my logic for what I do. I have no evidence at all. It is negotiated and discussed with each patient what strategy they want to pursue. The one thing I don’t want is continuous mTORC1 inhibition, and try to craft a dosing regimen for those monitoring where we don’t have more than 1/3rd of the time with a level >3 ng/mL.

Too many unknowns. Individual choices - but focus on safety first.

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thx for the repy although I have to admit it just makes it a little bit more confusing for me… There is so much info. here on the site! I am just looking more towards longevity. For my wife, we are dosing more for her early dementia diagnosis; (vascular) not longevity as she is 83. The Dr’s around here where I reside (lower south) seem to have a habit of either not knowing anything or they don’t want to be involved. I get the feeling it’s really that they don’t want to get involved… So for me would a 7 or 8mg be a good place to start/stay at and for my wife is 5mg enough do you think? And I understand it’s not medical advice you are giving me if you reply.

thx

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On a safety basis for most people, with gradual increases in dose, starting low and increasing weekly - making sure no side effects, most people tolerate in the range you mention without any significant adverse events. However, I’d still recommend that you talk with your physician and make sure they don’t feel there is some reason you’d come to harm with any of your other medical conditions or medications. I know Dr. Green often pushes doses a lot higher as patients get older and for cognitive decline. I often do that also, but monitor carefully and make sure all is well.
It is unfortunate you may end up needing to self manage - and that introduces some risks. In regard to your wife -you might want to consult Dr. Green as I think he is seeing people in a variety of states, as I don’t cover any of the lower south U.S. but he might. He has lots of experience with maximizing things with individuals with dementia - but I’d suspect he’d push the dose up, but also monitor.

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Do you know for sure if the Siraboon folks even had their blood drawn and measured for Rapa? I have the Siraboon but haven’t started on it yet. I’m hoping it will help my gums and teeth.

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You can see many reports of blood/sirolimus levels of siroboon users (and generally its not good - so it seems you want to avoid siroboon brand sirolimus vs. the better brands of Zydus and Biocon). Siroboon Lab Blood Test Results

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Ok, thx. I’ll msg him later.

I found sucking melatonin at night helped reduce inflammation of the gums.

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You could always cheer for Eintracht. That might make it better.

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Second week of rapamycin, took 3mg with olive oil this time and definitely felt somewhat headachy and vertiginous all day so far. Coincidentally my first ever continuous glucose monitor arrived today and I applied it… it’s been between 113 and 118 all afternoon which seems high to me, I’m assuming it’s the elevated glucose effect from rapa that everyone talks about? My fasting glucose at doctor appointment 2 weeks ago (before starting anything) was 87 and my A1C was 5.2. I also got metformin (which I haven’t tried yet) from the same online service that prescribed the rapamycin, so it will be interesting to see what effect that has.

Nah :joy:
I’m actually an Union fan - they came up just as I got interested in the Bundesliga but I’m definitely enjoying Leverkusen this season.

I’m so sick with a cough that’s making me want to give up everything - so I took the good advice suggested by our beloved Admin that skipping the dose was probably the safer thing to do.

Good luck with this, hope you feel better quickly.

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Bummer, I hope you feel better soon!

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My husband and I both started taking 6mg rapa once a week six months ago and no side effects or feelings except we both developed slight mouth ulcers that pass quickly and are a sign it’s working so we put up with it :grin:

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Thanks! I found this yesterday. He has a personal testing protocol I think is interesting. He had blood drawn at 2 hours, 4 hours and 24 hours post-ingestion and tested for sirolimus. In his case, he took 8mg, his peak serum level was 20ng/ml and had dropped to 3ng/ml at the 24 hour mark. By day 7 it was undetectable (and likely Long Gone).

Sounds worthy, so I’ll likely try this myself.

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People tend to think of the half life being around 60 hours.

Relax. I’ve been taking Rapamycin for 3 years using various dosing regimens. Had a little mouth irritation right after my first dose. And then no negative effects after that. But, many overall improvements in my body condition.

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