I'm about to start rapamycin; looking for dosing advice

Hello, friends! My doc has willingly prescribed rapamycin for me, but she openly admits to not knowing anything about the drug for longevity purposes, and thus, she doesn’t know what dose I should take. So I’m turning to this community for advice: I’m a healthy 67-year-old female clinical psychologist, 5’10", 140 pounds. I exercise regularly, drink alcohol occasionally. I just had my annual wellness exam, and my blood panel (plus everything else) looks great. I’m a healthful, knowledgable vegan eater, and along with the usual vitamin supplements, I take NMN and metformin in what would be considered “typical” doses for my size/age. My rapamycin prescription came in 1mg tabs, and I’m considering starting with 5mg, taken once per week? Or possibly less, like maybe 3mg, taken at a longer interval, like once every ten days? These seem to be the most common parameters I’m seeing for dosing/interval schedules. I will stand by, my rapamycin and glass of water in hand, hoping for some advice! Thanks ever so much, and I’m proud to be a new member of this website! I look forward to contributing to our collective knowledge on longevity/anti-aging practices.

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Hi there. Welcome I’m 27 Male, 175 pounds and started rapamycin a few weeks ago,

There is really no “official” dose for aging/longevity, yet , but I personally take 6mg a week and have no side effects at that dose. Its better to start from a small dose and work your way up. I started with 1mg, then 2mg, 4mg then 6mg each week. This is just to lower potential side effects

Some people take higher doses like 20mg every 2 weeks, some every 1 week like my self. its really hard to stay. I’m sure others with more experience will post on here as I only recently started rapa my self.

Good luck with your rapa journey and welcome!

Just a reminder that if you take grapefruit juice within 4 hours of taking Rapamycin, you will increase the dosage by 3x. If you take Rapamycin with a high fat food or in EVOO, you will increase the dosage by 30%. If you are also taking Metformin, you will also increase the dosage. If you do all of the above, you may increase your dosage by up to 5x.

I started with 1 mg plus all of the above. After a month, I moved on to 2 mg. Will be moving on to 3 mg in a week. Good luck on your journey.

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Thanks most sincerely to both of you for your quick responses! Given what each of you has told me, I think I will start with 1 mg for the first week, and then slowly work my way up. I don’t want to drive everyone crazy by asking 1 million questions, but I’m wondering whether I should take my metformin simultaneously with my rapa, in order to deliberately up the dosage? Ditto with drinking grapefruit juice simultaneously? Or is this something to be avoided, in which case, should I separate my rapa from my metformin dosing? I will take my first 1 mg dose tomorrow. And once again, thanks so much for your responses! It feels so nice to be supported by a community.

Have you reviewed these pages?

Here: What is the Rapamycin Dose / Dosage for Anti-Aging or Longevity?
Here: Improve Bioavailability of Rapamycin (2)
Here: Rapamycin Interactions with Other Food, Drinks, Supplements and Drugs

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What I do is I eat a grapefruit and then take 1 g of Metformin and my other supplements in the morning. 1-4 hours later, I take my rapamycin in a EVOO shot. I want Metformin in my system before taking my Rapamycin as they work synergistically together and Metformin blunts many of the bad side-effects of Rapamycin regarding insulin and glucose. Taking Metformin beforehand also helps more Rapamycin enter my system.

Good luck and we wish you all the best!

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Start low, like 2mg/week, obeserve how it went if all was okay increase dose by 2mg else try same dose and observe again

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Wow, I like your doc!

Dr. Blagosklonny says start small and titrate up until you either get get side effects or are taking too much for your budget, whichever comes first.

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Yes, he does. But its generally a little more complex than that. Some side effects show up once and never again, others are very low (e.g. a small increase in blood lipid levels (LDL), etc.) so - generally people here take a more nuanced view of side effects. Are they significant enough to cause concern, or are they easily modifiable.

For example - I started at 1mg/week, and slowly increased 1mg per week until I got up to 4mg, then paused at that level for a while. At some point I got a canker sore, but it went away after a few days. Then I continued at that level, then increased again by 1mg to 6mg, then eventually to 8mg/week, and have tested as high as 28mg (over 2 weeks). Never had a canker sore again.

So, its more complex than what Blagosklonny suggests, I think.

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I’m hitting a wall at 2 mg weekly with canker sores and rashes. I have a blood panel scheduled in January. Honestly, I was hoping to get up to 3 mg.

Ah - but you are taking the 2mg rapamycin with grapefruit juice, and EVOO, so the actual equivalent dose is likely somewhere between 7mg and 10mg, and perhaps as high as 12mg (some people are seeing a 5X increase with just grapefruit juice)…

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Wow! My sincere thanks to everyone who chimed in with personal experience and advice! Truth be told, I’m rather blown away by all this support. As a psychologist, I often refer people to forums that I think might be helpful to them, but I’ve never joined one myself. It feels so reassuring to be connected with this community.

My doc is more than willing to write the rapa script for me, but she knows nothing about both metformin and rapa for anti-aging and longevity, so she’s leaving it all up to me regarding dosages and dosing schedules. (That’s why I’m so glad to have all your support.)

I just took my first dose this afternoon: 1mg, approximately three hours after taking my metformin and my vitamins. I took the rapa with a little bit of hummus on a cracker, doused in some EVOO, per your suggestions. It’s been several hours, and I feel great. Totally normal, I guess I’d say.

I’m not trying to imply that I’m the most fascinating new rapa user in the entire world (haha), but if anyone is interested, I will keep reporting my experiences to you. My plan is to increase to 2mg one week from today, and then make a decision about whether to keep increasing by 1mg each week, or to stay at 2mg for a while. I’ll feel it out as I go. Ultimately, it looks like 6mg/once per week is what most people are doing, based upon the surveys. (By the way, thanks, RapAdmin, for everything you’re doing for us!)

If anyone has any other words of advice, I’m all ears. Once again, I thank all of you, and I feel lucky to be part of this wonderful collective experiment! Sincerely, Denise

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Yes, with the 2 mg + GFJ + Metformin + EVOO + Curcumin + Piperine + (any of my other supplements that may increase bioavailability of which I am not aware), I do think I am hitting around 6-7 mg equivalency maybe up to 9 mg. Also, I think Zydus (my current brand) has 10-20% more Rapa than Pfizer.

Also, a dime-sized rash (now) or three canker sores (last week) are not deal-breakers. They are nuisances. Also, I am pretty sure the nausea\euphoria from the prior two weeks was caused due to exercising in the heat and sun (hot weather hiking or cycling) although Rapa may have augmented them. All of this is just making me cautious about bumping up to 3 mg weekly.

Yes that sounds like good advice. Start low and then work up. And please never use grapefruit juice without checking with your physician. I started at 6MG and then had to go down to 2 MG immediately because of side effects.

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Hi, friends! Well, it’s time for my second dose of rapa. Here’s my simple report from the entire past week: I experienced zero side effects.

I’ve been reading, reading, reading all the helpful articles and posts on this site, and I think my plan remains reasonable. Thus, since I experienced no side effects at 1mg, I’m going to increase today’s dose to 2mg. I will report my results in a day (any immediate side effects), and again in one week (anything that crops up within a one-week period).

As I mentioned, it’s not like I think I’m that interesting (!), but I’m happy to share everything that happens as I experiment with doses/dosing schedules, in hopes that my experience might help another group member, as well as provide new data to the administrator.

One last thing, in case anyone is reading this…if you believe I’m not thinking this out correctly, or if you have any suggestions, I hope you’ll let me know. Other than consulting with the other members of this site (and ALL of you are far more informed that I am at this point!), I’m simply making a lot of assumptions and downright, plain 'ol guesses, and doing my best to navigate rapa use on my own.

Thanks so much for listening. It’s nice to have the support of the group.

Sincerely, Denise

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Try taking your next dose with EVOO or a high fat food to increase bioavailability. Good luck!

Thank you so much for all the advice, everyone! I am four days past taking my second dose of 2 mg. Everything seems fine! I’ve been mildly nauseated, but be a characteristic side effect, so I am imagining that it may be from something else. I will keep everyone posted.

I had my wellness exam last week, and all my numbers look beautiful, including the pre-first dose of rapa baselining that I did, per the suggestions I’ve found on this site. I will test again in three months to make sure everything is going OK.

One thing did come up: does anyone have an opinion on the timing of getting my third Covid booster shot? (it might be the same advice for anyone who is getting a flu shot, as well.) I am assuming that I should probably time the vaccination into the middle of the cycle between doses? My wellness doctor thought perhaps I should even skip one week of rapa, but neither one of us really knows what would be best. Any advice would be appreciated.

Again, I want to express my gratitude to the community and to our administrator.

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There is actually a thread discussing this. I would recommend a full two weeks between your shot and your last rapamycin dose. Given that you need similar spacing for your flu shot it almost forces you to have both at the same time.

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Do you have any research studies that back up this belief, that you can post here. We try to be data and evidence based here on this site.

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Thank you for your concerns. Due to the build up of all these nuisances, I am in the middle of a two week resting period where I am not taking Rapa. The canker sores have all healed and the rash and pimple have lightened a lot. Now the question is whether to take Rapa again this week, or have another rest week until the rashes and pimple are completely healed. Thoughts?

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