This is an excellent point!!! I feel China has all the power and I don’t foresee them crying uncle first.
Does anyone here know which common drugs are vulnerable or how we find out? It might be a great time to place a bulk Good RX order outside of insurance (at least for me who has useless insurance).
I imagine no one knows, but I’ll just list my US sourced rx’s on the chance anyone knows
Estrogen gel, progesterone, repatha, colchicine, acarbose, generic synthroid, cytomel
Also, does anyone know the expiration date of these items… meaning, I assume I can safely buy 12 months worth?
I placed an order with Jagdish about 2-3 weeks ago for Sirolimus and just received it. Everything in order, and he responded promptly. I wonder if he is maybe sick now or something?
I made the mistake of breaking empagliflozin in half- destroys the slow release enteric coating and I received huge hit of the drug that just flattened me. Took me a week to read the drug insert-so stupid. Double ck dapa. High peak flozins can induce AKI
I’m not sure that empagliflozin can’t be pill-split. We’ve got some indications that it can be (but ideally if people used a CGM and could confirm or deny this, I’d be greatly appreciative).
See:
Background:
Costs are important cause of therapeutic noncompliance in type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Half-tablet empagliflozin (EMPA)-25 mg has lowest monthly cost among all EMPA preparations; data is unavailable on efficacy of half EMPA-25. This study compared real world weight loss and glycaemic outcomes of 10 mg versus 12.5 mg versus 25 mg of EMPA.
Methods:
Data, retrospectively captured from records of 2 different centresfor patients > 35 years-age having T2DM on EMPA as part of standard pharmacotherapy for T2DM, having > 6 months follow-up data available was analysed. Patients were in 3-groups depending on EMPA dosage: Group 1 on EMPA 10 mg/day (1-tablet EMPA-10), Group-2 on EMPA 12.5 mg/day (half-tablet EMPA-25), and Group 3 on EMPA 25 mg/day (1-tablet EMPA-25). Primary endpoints were glycaemic efficacy and weight-loss.
Results:
Of 3601 records screened, data from 599 patients (184, 239 and 176 in Group-1, 2 and 3 respectively) was analysed. All 3 groups were comparable with regards to sex, blood pressure, haemoglobin, renal function, medications use. Group-3 were significantly older, had longest diabetes duration, highest HbA1c and lowest body mass index. Glycaemic efficacy was comparable among groups (ΔHbA1c Groups 1-3: −0.9 (−1.9 – 0.0), −1.0 (−1.8 – 0.5) and − 1.0 (−1.5 – 0.22], respectively; P = 0.363). Patients on EMPA 12.5 or 25 mg/d had significantly higher total (−1.4 [−3.0 –0.2] vs. −0.3 [−2.4 – 1.32] kg; P = 0.028) and percent weight-loss (−1.75% [−4.15 – 0.26] vs. −0.44% [−3.11 – 1.39]; P = 0.039), and significantly higherfraction achieving HbA1c < 5.7% (12% vs. 0; P = 0.021), compared to EMPA-10.
Conclusion:
Half EMPA-25 is the most cost effective way of using EMPA in clinical practice.
FWIW, I’ve been taking empagliflozin for five months now. I get the original pills, not any generic. I split 25mg pills into two roughly 12.5mg/day, and have experienced no side effects that I can tell. I’ll have the results of my blood tests sometime next week, so I’ll see if there has been any impact on biomarkers. My suspicion is that splitting pills doesn’t matter, but of course I could be wrong. I should be using a pill splitter, but I lazily use a knife, so my splits are not perfect halves most of the time, but nothing too crazy, maybe 10mg + 15mg at worst? No sides that I can detect. YMMV.
$105 for 30mg. At say typical low dose of 2mg/week thats 15 weeks for just $105. Ad in a few $$ for syringes, the dilution water (BAC water) etc. And its barely beer money / money. In fact most will spend more on beer / mo then this source for tirzepatide. Very easy to pay for unlike buying pills from India. I’m at my ideal weight and like BHRT + thyroid, GLP-1 is also a beneficial hormone to micro dose for health. I’m taking about 0.2mg/week + 0.2mg/week of retatrutide (adds GIP to the dual aganist tirzepatide) for glucagon/liver control. I split my wkly dose into 2 to micro dose / week. At my dosing my costs for Vitamin D/K2/mo (using a silly example) is more then GLP-1.
I’ve recently stocked up!!! Craziness abounds.
FWIW my most expensive suppliment / mo is probably; stemregen. 2nd probably prodrom plasmologens. Can’t report anything noticable. Its all on “faith”. ;( ;( ;( and of course the company’s research. Alex Kikel on youtube has alot to say on these compounds.
Yes but Reta does not have nearly (very little) appetite suppression of Semaglutide or Tirzepatide. Body builders who prefer Reta given its observed effect of directing food inputs more into muscle then fat, take a 50:50 (personal preferences +/-) dose of semaglutide too for the appetite suppression. I take 50:50 micro doses of tirz / reta 2x a week to reduce the highs and lows. I/m at my ideal weight of 167 at 71yo leanish but a tinny belly. I take around 200mcg ea of tirz / reta 2x a week for 800mcg total of glp-1 ++. My wife who does want to loose weight is same protocol but 2x the doses.
I take a glp-1 for the same reasons I take testosterone and thyroid and and… glp-1 has brain (etc) receptors and it drops off with age. Yet another forever tactic… But its cheap when bought off the research sides: solution peptides etc etc.
FWIW:
I have had two shipments from India since tariffs were imposed.
Both went through customs with no delay or additional charges.
I admit that I don’t understand how this tariff thing is supposed to work, but so far, my packages from India haven’t been affected.
I had one package seized last year, but it was larger than usual.
Maybe package size matters?
I don’t remember any of my previous packages being held up like this. Does this look unusual? Today is the 29th so it’s been held in customs for inspection for 6 days
I just noticed that I have a letter arriving today in my mailbox. I’m guessing it’s going to be related to the hold up. Anyone have this happen?
I haven’t had this happen, but it’s funny to watch the process in reverse. My package which was sent back to India for “incomplete address” (even though the address was absolutely complete), was progressing swiftly, through Frankfurt until it arrived in India where it’s been stuck in Indian customs for a week now. You’d think it would go through fast because it’s just an unopened return, but no. It’s sitting in Indian customs. Who knows for how long. Then Jagdish will resend it and again I’ll watch the journey. Not happy to have my meds on an endless transport loop while it’s getting hotter and hotter out there. But such is the price of postal service incompetence.
We have also heard from some unlucky people who had their first shipment was confiscated by customs in the USA. We don’t know what percentage of packages that US customs checks inside, but most people seem to think its in the low single digits - e.g. 1% to 3%. The worst we’ve ever heard is that the medicine is confiscated and you get a letter from customs like this letter shown below, and you’ve lost your money. We suspect that the person who had their product confiscated in the below letter might have been importing too many tablets at once (600) for the customs officer to accept as personal use.
Any effects on resting heart rate? I hear it can raise it, which turned me off trying reta for the time being. Currently using tirz, not bad so far. On 2.5mg. Was on sema for a year.
I already had good self-control but GLP1s have taken it to a new level, I’m like an algorithm just doing the right thing (from what I currently know anyway.)
I also strongly believe that GLP1s will be uncovered as potent longevity drugs in years to come. We already see so many off target benefits in various organ systems.
