There are two issues with multiple draws.
a) How much blood it takes. My weekly blood tests probably use up on average 20ml of blood a week. Personally I think there is a need to lose a little blood either through donation or something merely to maintain the iron balance at a reasonable level. Hence that is not an issue. 12 blood draws in a day could be significant, but I don’t think it is as long as it is not every day.
b) How to do the venepuncture.
I think realistically you would not want twelve separate holes. My own venepuncture repairs in a couple of days. You can tell the difference between my right arm which has done about 40 venepunctures in a year and the left which has done one (when the right arm venepuncture went wrong). However, twelve different holes sounds to me like an issue.
There are many things where I would like to see my own metabolic changes. I particularly would like to know what happens to serum Melatonin. These are not necessarily tests it is easy to get done.
Two arms. I think it is obvious which one has had venepuncture 40 times.
I believe they give you just one intravenous cannulation and then draw blood per schedule. It is easy and simple. I went years ago to have some hormones checked every hour for 8 hours and they did it that way with IV cannula.
The person{phlebotomist] is not that skilled or is just sloppy.
I have preformed a procedure on the same person {a medical doctor] 1 venipuncture with an 18G/1.2mm butterfly winged set, once every 48 hours for over 15 years{adds up to several thousands and the puncher sites do not look that bad.
There were a range. Some were good. Some not so good. One particular one tried with four punctures in each of my adult son’s arms and still did not succeed.
“When you take multiple doses over time, there will be some leftover rapamycin in your system from your previous dose. This is what is known as a trough level or therapeutic dose window. So, depending on when Agetron measured his levels, he could have actually been seeing the collective rapamycin in his system being dumped by GFJ at once.”
It’s my understanding that grapefruit juice only enhances absorption of oral doses of rapamycin by its action in the small intestine, not by increasing bioavailability of the rapamycin already in the bloodstream.
IMO l-dopa is like many supplements. You probably won’t feel any effects if your body is healthy and you don’t need them. Yes, I use Mucuna pruriens occasionally and still have a bottle on the shelf. Sometimes I use it as a mood lifter. It seems to work for me but it may be a placebo effect. It is not recommended for long-term use unless a doctor is prescribing it for Parkenson’s.
Correct, it inhibits cytochrome enzymes that usually block or break down drugs like rapamycin. I should have clarified and said the collective rapamycin in his intestinal system, as bloodstream rapamycin would be largely unaffected as you have stated. My bad.
Usually there is some residual drug in the small intestine that is bound up by cytochromes or other surfaces/proteins - call this the “latent” drug. When taking GFJ, this can not only increase the absorption of the next dose, but also increase the amount absorbed that was already residing within the intestines. This is especially so for drugs that undergo enterohepatic recycling, but I’m not sure if rapamycin undergoes that phenomenon.
Order doesn’t particularly matter, if you’re concerned about that. It’ll still give you a triangular plot, just thicker towards the end rather than the beginning.
I see, so it’s quite the dramatic jump. Looks as if your body effectively flushes it out entirely between doses. IMO, that seems pretty good since it indicates you’re getting better absorption, but no to the extent that it lingers in any significant amount over the week.
P.S. I hope you didn’t use Snipping Tool or similar photo editors to make that first image of your test results. Refer this article on why.
If one is dosing weekly, not daily, isn’t the amount of residual rapamycin in the small intestine likely to be negligible - a tiny percentage of the next dose?
The residual amount in the small intestine would probably be difficult to determine, uncertain at the time of the dose and diminishing at some rate different than that in the blood.
What I’m suggesting here is that weekly dosing, as opposed to daily dosing, removes whatever concern there may be about grapefruit juice acting on that residue to dump a significant amount of rapamycin into the bloodstream.
If you wanted to check how much residual rapamycin in the small intestine is contributing to the amount in the blood, you could do three blood draws instead of your usual two. First, get a draw for the trough, next, eat grapefruit or drink juice and get a draw, then go ahead with your normal routine by taking your dose of rapamycin, and get a draw for the peak.
Compare the first and second draws to see how much effect grapefruit had.
You know that is pretty cool and would definitely give more information.
No doubt MAC would love it. My doctor is pretty understanding with 2 blood draws from his office in a 2-hour time period. And… he would probably might go for three - just not sure if I am up to it - would feel like a pin cushion. Hahaha. Trough and t-max works for me
