So my rapamycin is coming in today, I was wondering how do you usually store the tablets you are not using? Is it just like any other medication? Or does it need to be stored in fridge or freezer to ensure the drug doesnt break down?
I don’t do anything special with it. A cool dry place is good… Pretty much any drawer.
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So my rapamycin came in from Welcome Healthcare, so you can just add another source saying that they got their rapamycin. It actually came way faster than expected. It shipped on 2/8 and I got it 2/22. It was suppose to be 21-25 business days.
Also in regards to starting with my dog
Should I wait and get blood work done with him before starting?
Also is it okay to start with 3mg/weekly or should I start at 1mg/weekly and work his way up to 3mg/weekly?
Is it better to give dose in morning or night? with or without meal?
Also I was contemplating after seeing the latest study on early life rapamycin extending health and lifespan, starting taking some rapamycin (1mg a week for now) for myself( I turn 25 in August), but should I wait until I get blood work done for myself or even consider doing this at this point?
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Not recommendations - but I’ll tell you what I did, and perhaps others can share what they did. I have not bothered to do blood work on my dog - she’s relatively young (4 years old) and I’m only giving her 2mg per week (she’s 24lbs or so). I started with 1mg/week, then after a few months bumped it up to 2mg/week. No side effects at all - she’s in great health. I generally give it in the morning, same time/schedule that I take it myself. I use cheese chunks/blocks that I use a knife to cut a small slit in - into which I put the tablet. My dog just gobbles these down with hardly a chew - so never any issues.
I like starting low and slowly phasing up the dose. No data behind this - it just seems to be the safest, lowest risk approach.
For personal use - I definitely like the idea of getting blood work done before starting so that I have a baseline to compare against (I wish I did this when I first started). The CBC and CRP tests from Life Extension.com are cheap and easy to get in most metro areas (they use LabCorp offices for the blood draw). Then you can calculate your Levine phenotypic age as a baseline and see if it changes over time and dosing.
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Sounds good, I will wait to do it for myself as I have a physical with blood work coming up at the beginning of next month. I will have to do a separate blood test for CRP though.
And my dog is 140lbs, male and 5 years old(turns 6 in October) at great health, so do you think 3mg/weekly is fine or should I go higher?
Also for keeping track of my blood work do you use a excel sheet like Dr Michael Lustgarten? Or do you have any other recommendations on what to use to keep a history of my blood work and results?
Only you know your dog… so I don’t make medication recommendations for other people or dogs. I just recommend you read up and make the decision you think is right for your dog - see the Rapamycin for Dogs Page.
Yes - I use the excel spreadsheet that Mike Lustgarten uses.
Sorry I should’ve clarified, I was thinking 3mg/weekly due to the recent podcast with matt kaeberlein on peter’s podcast, but wasnt sure if that dose would be effective for a extra large dog like mine, thats why I asked. I think the largest dog they had was around 100lbs.
Didn’t Matt mention the exact mg./kg. that they used for the current dog study? I think most people just follow that estimate and scale it to their dog weight as closely as possible.
They’re using 0.15 mg/kg (once per week) in the rapamycin arm of the Dog Aging Project.
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So - at .15mg/kg for a 140lb (63kg) dog that works out to about 9mg a week. Wow - that seems high for a dog. Am I calculating that right?
It does seem like a lot for a dog, but a 140 pound dog is a lot of dog!
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Yes - its interesting… its a slightly higher dose in terms of mg/kg than most people seem to be taking of rapamycin. For a 170lb/77kg male human a dose of 0.15 mg/kg equals almost 12 mg./week. Which is a little higher, I think, than what most people take per week of rapamycin.
Dr Kaeberlein I believe said it’s because the half-life is shorter in dogs. Maybe there are other pharmacokinetic considerations, but interspecies dosing conversions is a topic I’m currently a bit weak on.
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Yeah definitely a lot for a dog, I think I am just going to keep him at the lower end of rapa dosing so I can sparse out my rapamycin longer lol( it would equal to about 3-4 mg/weekly). I can always get more later on down the line if need be. Also I was curious why you didn’t get blood work done for your dog before in order to see if the rapamycin improved her biomarkers/ so you can track it as she ages?
I think a lot of people are weak in this area , there are just so many variables and factors that can play into this. Lol
Yeah, but I normally hold myself to a high standard. I just need to quickly peruse a review article on how the interspecies conversions are done.
My dog will get follow up blood work (along with f/u echocardiogram since he has a heart murmur) in a couple of months, so we’ll see if there are any changes after he started rapa. I’m not really expecting to see any changes in standard CBC/CMP tests – mainly just making sure his fasting glucose hasn’t gone up and that his white blood cells haven’t gone too low after being on the rapa.
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Do you give your dog their rapa in morning or night after a meal?
Any reason you do not give in evening after their last meal to enhance the effects of mTOR inhibition due to overnight fasting?
Morning after breakfast. I feed them twice daily, so breakfast vs dinner isn’t going to make a big difference. Also, some people seem to find rapa “energizing” and if that’s the case with my dog, I don’t want him keeping me up all night😁
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Do you pause giving other supplements on days you give rapamycin to your dog? For example I give my dog Fish oil, PEA and Taurine daily(except weekends) so on the days I give my dog rapamycin would it be best to pause the other supplements?