Embarrassed to have my first post here about this topic, but I experienced severe diarrhea lasting several days each week after taking 6 mg. So I dropped back to 3 mg for two weeks and it wasn’t as bad, but still was present. Went off rapa entirely last week and I’m back to normal. I see this is not a typical side effect, so I’m puzzled. I’ve done recent blood biopsy with galleri and full body scan with Prenuvo, so I don’t think it’s cancer. We’re big fans of full body scans now as they found advanced prostate cancer in my husband which his urologist had been inattentive to (no biopsies or MRI’s in 6 years with high PSA). Wish we’d caught that sooner. Anyone had this kind of reaction to rapamycin or have suggestions? I am a patient of Dr. Green so will follow up with him as well.
I used to have that issue but it stopped happening after ~6 months. That timing coincided with my starting an Akkermansia supplement so I can’t be sure what caused the change.
Edit: now that I think about it more, the diarrhea may have stopped when I extended my dose timing to every 14 days. I take a bigger dose (4mg x GFJ).
In the beginning of my rapa journey, I had severe stomach pain and diarrhia once, it lasted 3-4 days. Terribly painful.
Thank you Joseph. I have ordered some of their probiotics. I did try a random one that’s been in my medicine cabinet for a decade so that probably wasn’t very effective!
I also had symptoms ( as diarrhoea) at my first doses of 1mg which did not repeat afterwards (now at 4 mg ; I went very slow - started in April 2023)
@Devon_MacEachron you should refrigerate the pendulum products to maintain viability but even that won’t last forever. Fullscript is running a sale in May that will bring down the price significantly. Send me a message if you’d like an invitation.
Might be interested. I’ve been taking glucose control (I only chose that one because it seems to be their flagship product but perhaps it’s overkill?)
Unless I’m missing something, I see fullscript charges more than their website. Do you know how much less than their website it will be in May?
That is not an uncommon side effect, IMO. This is caused by too high of a dose.
6 mg is rather high to start with. Just go to a lower dose and gradually work up over several weeks or even months.
I have no idea why someone would have diarrhea with low dose rapamycin. The article above gives some solid science, but reading it - it looks like dose dependent, and levels of 18.5 ng/mL when significantly affected. This could never be achieved with cyclic rapamycin single dose without taking something like 20 mg (it’ll go up during absorption and redistribution higher, but check at 16-24 hours and it’ll be down below this) - of course this would be without GFJ. However, I have no good explanation for diarrhea at a once weekly 1-3 mg as it will not get anywhere near a level adequate to inhibit mTOR to any extent.
There are separate mechanisms just on slowing cell division, and the gut has pretty much the fastest cell turn over in the body - so if you cease cell division, GI symptoms are very prominent in any anti-metabolic ingestions or toxins or chemotherapeutic agents. However, again, the dose of 1-3 mg doing this won’t cause that mechanism either.
There are always individuals who have a direct GI intolerance of any given substance. Perhaps that is at play.
Does anyone else have a good explanation of this?
@Beth each provider on Fullscript sets their own prices as discounts from the retail price. I have set my prices to be the maximum possible discount (I make no margin….zero) when 3 things coincide: my normal big discount, sign up for autoship, Fullscript sale. Send me a message with your email address if you’d like an invitation.
I am not trying to be vague. I have to comply with Fullscript rules. I can share more in a message.
3 days of 100 mg Doxycycline may normalize it. Works well with Rapamycin.
People have reported Diarrhea after dosing 20+mg, and its a pretty consistent issue as you go above that level, but I haven’t seen much in this side effect at this low dose. I’m very surprised. But occasionally people do have surprising reactions to rapamycin.
Did you take 6mg right at the start, when you first began rapamycin?
Most of us start at 1mg, do that for a few weeks, then slowly increase over a few month period to the full dose. This seems to minimize side effects, as mentioned in this thread: The Rapamycin Dose for Anti-Aging?
If you did not try that protocol initially, I would try that protocol and not jump straight in at 6mg in one dose once per week.
Thank you all for this very helpful feedback. I had started at 3 mg for four weeks then up to 6. I’m going to have some blood work done to make sure it isn’t something else, then I will try starting at 1 mg and very slowly increasing as recommended. That makes such sense. Also, I’ve got good probiotics ordered so will use those as well. Thank you!
Are you lactose intolerant? I had read somewhere in these forums that one of the forms of rapamycin you can order from India had some lactose in it.
I don’t know if that is it or not. But, I can share that I had horrible diarrhea the day after low dose for the first 2-3 months of taking it. It almost always hit me out of no where during running the day after.
It did go away. Not sure if it was my body normalizing, or possibly rapamycin changing my gut microbiome. I just don’t know… I can just tell you I did not enjoy it and almost stopped taking it because of it.
The only reason I continued is because my wife was seeing such good benefits. I have some hypothesis on why it was happening to me, but it’s all anecdotal so I won’t bother sharing.
Edit
Not sure if the above is true or not, but remember reading it last year and thinking it might have had something to do with my stomach issues.
If you follow that thread, they discuss rapamune and rapacan having lactose in them. And there is a suggestion of taking lactaid with it to help.
Would I be able to get an invite as well?
Certainly. Send me a private message here with your email. I’ll set you up.
Do they ship to the UK?
Fullscript does not ship to UK. Only to US and Canada. Sorry.
I agree that’s the key. My hypothesis (with a risk of sounding a bit like a quack), is that someone with poor gut health could more susceptible to rapamycin because of slowing cell division. Adding appropriate pro and pre-biotics along with a overall healthy diet may improve that.
For example, Resistant starch can help feed gut bacteria and protect intestines. When digested, normal starches break down into glucose, but resistant starches do not. Instead, resistant starch ferments in the large intestine, creating butyrate, a major metabolite that keeps the gut healthy and functioning normally. Butyrate is the preferred fuel for cells lining the gut and helps ensure the integrity of the gut wall
Which kind of Resistant starch do you prefer?