I am a new member, and am seeking the advice and recommendations from Rapamycin users.
I have obtained Rapamycin from an alternative source since there are no Doctors in Australia who will prescribe it, and I can’t afford to travel overseas.
I am thinking of starting at 1mg once a week and monitor my blood levels, but I’m a little apprehensive about it.
I will take a full set of blood tests prior to starting, including fasting insulin and APOB.
My questions are:
Which specific biomarkers should I be looking at as an indication that by the Rapa is doing my body some good?
My last blood test showed borderline LDL and blood glucose level. I don’t want to make them worse, but have read that rapa can do this. I also don’t want to have to counter potential increases in ldl and blood sugar with more medications. It seems counterproductive to me that if rapa is supposed to improve my health, it may in fact put me at risk for diabetes and CVD.
I don’t know enough about statins to make an informed decision, and my one attempt at taking Metformin, starting at 500mg a day dosed before noon, resulted in continuous sleepless nights (which stopped as soon as I discontinued the Metformin)
Labs I would consider tracking are fasting insulin / HOMA-IR (insulin sensitivity), glucose levels (ideally checking fasting and post-prandial excursions), creatinine/eGFR, CBC (mainly to watch out for anemia and low platelets), iron/ferritin levels, cholesterol levels, and white blood cells (especially monitoring for low lymphocytes). All of these potential side effects have been reported in persons taking sirolimus, although the majority of those reports are in persons taking daily it for post-transplant immunosuppression.
Welcome to the site. Its funny… don’t expect dramatic results quickly… I’ve been on it for almost 3 years now, and the improvements for me at least, are slow and steady. For me the results came slowly and you only notice them after a while when something is “gone”… little aches and pains that don’t bother you any more, more energy, more stamina, less need for sleep, things like that - slowly creep up on you until one day you say wow - and realize things are much better than they used to be.
If you can, I’d do blood tests every quarter / 3 months.
Welcome.
You look young, so I’d start slow at maybe 2 mg and advance very slowly. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Females have lower TOR levels and are also more sensitive to TOR inhibition.
Many notice that weight loss is easier, but not necessarily automatic with rapamycin.
The drug is an anti inflammatory so my overall WBC count dropped to under 5.0.
It also increases cardiac ejection fraction so after 3 months you may notice an increase in exercise capacity.
I fully agree that if we’re taking this drug for health/ lifespan that it’s counterintuitive to take other drugs to negate its effects. Metformin is a mitochondrial inhibitor and greatly reduced my exercise capacity.
For lipids , I’m most concerned with trig/ hdl ratio. This can be modified with diet and exercise without resorting to meds. Doubt that it will be affected.
Don’t fully rely on rapamycin. Consider Mediterranean diet and other useful supplements as well.
Yes, I have read that about Metformin and I exercise every day, so I don’t want anything messing with that.
I already have a good diet, so there isn’t much more I can do there.
I’m super sensitive to supplements and my body usually responds by screwing up my sleep. I tried nmn, resveratrol and magnesium, titrating from tiny doses. All screwed with my sleep, and in my opinion sleep is the most important factor, so I had to give up the experiment.
I do take omega 3 and vitamin D, and get my D levels checked every 6 months.
You know… I don’t see much difference between the two (from a data perspective - though obviously more data on the weekly side because we have the Mannick papers on weekly) and I tend to find it just a little bit easier to follow a weekly schedule.
I think my next tweak on my dosing will be to alternate between everolimus and rapamycin / sirolimus on a week by week basis, due to the potential BBB benefits.