My kidney function tests have also been normal. The ankles swelling and increase in blood pressure were associated with rapamycin +EVOO + grapefruit juice. The symptoms lasted about 48 hours after the rapamycin. They did not reoccur after decreasing the dose to 4 mg from 5 mg.
Glad to hear the side effects have passed. Now you know your upper limit.
I actually would be very surprised if Rapa was the reason for those symptoms as, I believe, they are not typical side effects.
Remember correlation does not equal causation. To be sure you would have to go on and off that dosage multiple times and see if each time you took that dose, you had those side effects and each time you went off they disappeared.
She was taking pretty high doses with EVOO and GFJ. 5 mg of rapamycin plus GFJ could be equivalent to 15mg to 30mg… And as a woman she is likely significantly lower than we are in weight.
But have swollen ankles and high BP been seen anywhere in the literature at ANY dose?
An interesting question… generally rapamycin has the opposite effects… it reduces inflammation:
But there are cases (infrequent or “incidence not known”) of swelling:
Incidence not known
- Abnormal wound healing
- headache
- hives or itching
- large, hive-like swelling on the face, eyelids, lips, tongue, throat, hands, legs, feet, or sex organs
- nails loose or detached
- puffiness or swelling of the eyelids or around the eyes, face, lips, or tongue
- swelling of the arms or legs
- yellow nails lacking a cuticle
My weight is 130 lb. I had no other explanation for transient elevation of BP and ankles swelling besides a side effect of sirolimus. The symptoms did not come back after I reduced the dose to 4 mg.
We are learning new side effects associated with too high INDIVIDUAL dose of Rapamycin in association with EVOO and grapefruit juice.
I also just came across this on the Wiki reference for Sirolimus: so the swelling (peripheral edema) is seen in the higher dose transplant cases…
The most common adverse reactions (≥30% occurrence, leading to a 5% treatment discontinuation rate) observed with sirolimus in clinical studies of organ rejection prophylaxis in individuals with kidney transplants include: peripheral edema, hypercholesterolemia, abdominal pain, headache, nausea, diarrhea, pain, constipation, hypertriglyceridemia, hypertension, increased creatinine, fever, urinary tract infection, anemia, arthralgia, and thrombocytopenia.
Source: Sirolimus - Wikipedia