Thanks for the suggestion Mike. I’ll look into it and may want to try it down the line.
I’ve been on a two month washout and have also skipped the knee applications. Pain itself never was a big problem, more of a warning sign - kept me from doing squats and the like, so I forgot all about the knees until you brought up the subject.
Just now did some butt-all-the way-to-the-floor deep knee bends and there’s not much pain at all. The rapamycin in aloe gel with dmso may have been working.
I’m starting back on my regular routine of twelve mg with grapefruit juice once every two weeks. For now, I’m going to skip the knees and keep watch to see if there may have been some long-term improvement.
I like the idea of mixing rapamycin with OneSkin. I still use both separately. If I had to choose one, I would pick OneSkin but I tend to like the option of both with one application.
desertshores, Since your use of the 10 mg to 12 mg rapamycin in 100 grams (transcutol + water) showed nothing at the ~3 month time, did you increase the amount of rapamycin in your solution? If so, have you seen any results? Thanks.
It may be working but the effects are subtle. I was already having very good results from Tretinoin(Retinal A) 0.5 %. I don’t plan on changing anything at this time.
I’m about to make my first batch using this method and dug into the numbers a bit more. I wanted to compare the Drexel formula to Alan Green and Methusela’s formulas.
To start, I calculated the total mass of rapamycin needed for a 56 ml solution of the Olay Regenerist (50 ml) with an extra ~6 ml of transcutol for dissolving the rapamycin ala Methusela, using the 10 micromolar number they gave in the paper:
This shows that you need about 0.5 mg to reach the same molarity in a 56 ml solution. I tried to show the formulas I used in the bottom row. Please correct me if I’m wrong on any of this.
Then, I compared the formulas of Dr. Green and Methusela:
Here we see that Dr. Green’s formula is much stronger (45x) the strength of the Drexel formula. Here, I used % solution because that is what Dr. Green references and it’s also easier. All these calculations assume that the density of the liquid is the same as water (1 g/cc), which I think is reasonable. Dr. Green uses Aquaphor, and I couldn’t find an exact number for that, but I think 1 g/cc is still reasonable. Notice that Methusela’s formula is about 10x the Drexel formula. I think I will use something closer to that since Methusela has had good results.
For fun, I also calculated the amount of rapamycin used in the OneSkin paper, where OneSkin touts superior results compared to rapamycin cream. They had a 100 nM solution (paper linked at end):
That means you would mix 0.005 milligrams into a 56 ml solution, which is minuscule! I find the claims that OneSkin is better than rapamycin to be disingenuous, since it’s 100x weaker than even the Drexel formula.
Rad, this is an excellent contrast. I defer to AG and Drexel for their reasoned methodology in the formulation. My concoction is a guess, as I surmise is theirs. I’m happy with my results.
Dr. Green actually recommends 3 MG rather than 45 MG. He uses a higher % because of sun damage to his scalp. He prescribed me eight pills (24 MG) to use over the next 12-18 months to make my own do it yourself skin cream. As far as OneSkin to rapamycin, I tested both, one on each arm. OneSkin was hands down the winner in my n=1 experiment. Now I use both.
I still have not seen any meaningful reason to add a cream like Olay to the rapamycin plus Transcutol+water mixture. It just seems like a waste of some rapamycin to me.
Put on the Olay afterward if you think you need a cream. I am finding that the straight rapamycin+Transcutol+ water is working great and I am seeing a reversal of age spots on my hands.
Most of these cosmetic creams are not effective, but they have put a lot of effort into absorption. None of my rapamycin is wasted other than perhaps a tiny, tiny bit at the bottom of the jar.
I think the rationale is simple - many people already use a body/facial skin moisturizer on a daily basis, so rather than add complexity to people’s daily routine the researchers just added it to something people might use daily already. So - minimizing people’s need for behavior change (which is always a good thing if you want people to adopt something new).
Plus, many of these moisturizers have compounds that are good for the skin - e.g. CereVe with Cerimides, etc. , so the addition of rapamycin makes a good product, even better, and you don’t need to change your daily habits.
I find it less problematic than not knowing how much of my rapamycin has been dissolved. For all, I know any carrier such as Transcutol is already saturated in the cream and doesn’t dissolve any rapamycin at all. For those dissolving the rapamycin in some Transcutol or DMSO before adding it to the cream, it is a different story. Spritzing on a little Transcutol, rapamycin, and water solution before putting on the lotion is hardly a chore.
But, once you add rapamycin to any one of the myriads of creams on the market you have no idea what amount will be available for absorption or how much will be absorbed.
Just my opinion of course but I will choose what I consider to be the more reliable solution. (No pun intended)
How much rapamycin are you crushing up, and into what quantity of liquid/cream are you mixing it? The mixtures are given in % of rapamycin, so a 0.045% solution is not necessarily 45 mg of rapamycin in a given quantity of liquid. Knowing the amount of rapamycin and quantity of liquid will let me calculate the % for comparison.
I’ve used about three of the 50 ml OneSkin OS-01 on my face over the past 6 months probably. While I do like the results generally, I feel it’s way overpriced. They suggest using it twice a day, and with that amount I could easily see going through two 50 ml tubes of it per month. At $100-120 per month it adds up. I would be more apt to buy if it were about $80 for 150 ml. It’s unclear if their Body lotion has the same quantity of the peptide. If we can get similar results with rapamycin skin cream I’d be happy.
Have you been using the Face or Body cream, and have you compared the two?
What I am not sure is if it is any less pure than that sold by Lab Alley. Lab Alley’s product claims to be USP food grade purity, and sells for almost 2x the price.
Does anyone have any input on the purity of Lab Alley’s vs Lotioncrafter’s?
It you can get the LC rapamycin for your skin cream, its fine. I have a friend who works in a lab who ordered it for me, but most people are not able to do this.
The powder is easy to work with, with none of the extra material you get in the tablets.
But if you can’t get the powder, just using the tablets, as identified in this DIY rapamycin slin cream post at the top of this thread works fine also.
I think I am going to add Astaxanthin to my rapamycin skin cream. Here is a study that purported to show benefits from oral and topical application on skin. The ITP study showed a 12% increase in median life span from Astaxanthin (males only).
