One thing about “forums” is that you will see more negative “results” than you will beneficial results. I see it all the time with respect to GLP1’s and yet I have over 100 people using those (Tirz and Reta) with zero long term complaints.
I did see some (4 people) with minor issues early on. The first 3 months these peptides are making significant changes to the body in adapting to GLP1’s but after that, all complaints went away. Some of my clients have been using GLP1’s for 2 years now.
I used my usual guinea pigs to try the first doses of Cagrilintide, my wife, my son and myself and none of us noticed any fatigue. We each took 1.0mg on Sunday along with our usual Reta maintenance dose. The max dose is 4.5mg per week for weight loss.
I will be starting people at 0.5mg per week in combination with either Tirz or Reta
Having said all that, there will be people with side effects to Cagri but a few vocal people on chat forums is not statistically significant when you consider the size of the trials that have been conducted on this peptide.
I do hang out on a number of peptide forums to evaluate potential issues and that has helped me modify my process for new GLP1 clients. I start below the clinical starting dose, I help people understand this is a life time process and to be patient with the process. I also do not make the huge jumps in dose as indicated in the clinical guidelines.
Compared to side effects from other peptides, I see far more complaints about significant fatigue and sleepiness from cagri than from the various GLP meds, on the same forums. It’s widespread. It’s too common and widespread for me to dismiss casually. And we know that pharma studies often downplay/underestimate the true incidence of side effects.
I’m not a big fan of this side-effect that I’m currently experiencing on 3.5 mg/wk. Did it ever improve/go away for you? Loving the appetite suppression and fat loss though.
No I’ve just accepted it as a necessary evil. I hate it too and use 15mg ivabadrine (7.5 BID) to help offset it (I’ve been mixed about it in previous posts of mine) and it does lower it a bit but not low enough to go back to baseline
I see a lot of people on social media having various issues with GLP1’s, most commonly “plateaus” or “stalled”. Some with the tiredness, and the other common side-effects that go away over time.
On social media, very few offer the correct advice on how to “fix” those issues so they dance around the reality (increase the dose) and offer a lot of weird and ineffective solutions. Cagri is becoming one of those “solutions”, it works but it’s not a crutch.
The MOST important thing to know about GLP1’s is that they are dose dependent. I see people who stall at 6 or 7 or 8mg of Tirz and complain about that. They have not even maxed out the dose yet. They are not “stalled” they have reached the homeostasis point of the dose they are using.
Because GLP1 performance is dose dependent, the bathroom scale is how the dose is managed. It’s one of the great things about these peptides, you can easily measure your response on a daily basis and use that data to mange your dose.
Tirz dose range - 2.5mg to 15mg per week
Reta dose range - 2.0mg to 12mg per week
Cagri dose range - 0.5mg to 4.5mg per week < in conjunction with Semaglutide when used for weight loss. It’s lower for T2D.
If someone is stalled/plateaued I always these questions;
what is your current dose
how long have you been at that dose
are you following the correct once weekly clinical protocol
how often do you weigh yourself (min 3 times a week first thing in the morning)
Have you improved your diet
Have you increased your physical activity
Do you plan to increase your dose
What I commonly see on chat forums is a mish mash of poor advice and the new one is to add Cagri. While is is a great peptide, it’s an adjunct, not a base therapy. While it can on it’s own promote weight loss, it’s no where near Tirz or Reta in performance on it’s own.
In my opinion Cagri is a last resort for people using Tirz and Reta who have maxed out their dose. IMHO Cagri should not be used as a “stall” buster with doses of Tirz or Reta that are below the max.
I think people increase their dose too early a lot of the time. Even though they might still be losing two pounds a week at 2mg, they go the next dose up because it’s on the schedule and screw themselves over on the long run.
I agree, I don’t follow the “schedule” we encourage people to be happy with 1lb per week and maybe 1.5lb. Low and slow is the way to go.
We often bump people 0.5mg per week but rarely 2.0 or 2.5mg as it’s not really necessary if one is looking for a long term lasting solution.\
I lost 55lb in 11 months, easy peasy, never went over 3.5mg and now maintaining on 2.0mg. Currently around 138lb’s down from 199lbs 2 years ago. Total weight loss is now at 61lb, without any issues.
Indeed. My latest Hct was 53, so I’ve stopped the empagliflozin and started irbesartan (ACE inhibitors and ARBs can lower Hct to an extent). I’ve also increasing my cardio exercise, prioritized hydration, and I’ve broken up my T injections to once daily “micro doses”. Donating blood would be an option, but my ferritin is low, so it would make me anemic.
With 3 people using Cagri, here are our experiences,
Steve - 69 - 1.0mg C + 2.0mg Reta - week one, some nausea early on dropping off as the week progresses, seems to be triggered after eating.
Joan - 68 - 1.0mg C + 3.0mg Reta - week one, nausea to a point where it is affecting her, seems to be triggered when eating, has not improved through the week, tiredness, going to bed 1/2 hour earlier.
Adam - 41 - 1.0mg C + 1.5mg Reta - week one, no apparent issues.
None of us “needs” Cagri, we are all at ideal weight and in maintenance mode.
I’m going to continue on at the 1.0mg dose this Sunday and see if this side effect goes away in 3 to 4 weeks
Joan, is going to stop Cagri as it’s interfering with her QoL.
Adam is going to continue on as part of our evaluation.
There seems to be some debate as to if high Hematocrit is bad or it’s ok. With the main argument being people that live in high altitudes have higher Hematocrit. I’ve read some strong counter arguments that TRT/SGLTi raises in Hematocrit produce a different blood profile than in high altitude conditions. Most of this is from ExcelMale. From a longevity lens and this is just me, my thought is that it’s best to keep Hematocrit below 53. Logically high Hematocrit would seem to make the heart work harder to move thicker blood around. But just my opinion. I’ve started TRT (Love it more than any other intervention) and it took my Hematocrit from 42 to near 50. Before starting TRT I took canagaflozin and it raised Hematocrit from 42 to 47. I paused canagaflozin when starting TRT to progressively analyze effects of each individually and then I will try them together. I’m still dialing in my TRT dose and want to complete that before trying canagaflozin again.
Yes, this exactly. It’s so frustrating that certain YouTube influencers push this dangerous idea that high hematocrit is ok because of the high altitude argument.
This well-known steroid-using physician just posted a video gushing about the benefits of SGLT2i drugs, in which he also boasts that he had recent bilateral pulmonary embolisms and he survived because the SGLT2I “made his heart so strong”. The knucklehead appears to be completely unaware that SGLT2I’s raise hematocrit and could very well have caused his PEs:
@RapAdmin sorry is there an easy way to move this discussion over to one of the SGLT2i threads?
Cardiovascular benefits in moderate increases of blood and plasma viscosity surpass those associated with lowering viscosity: Experimental and clinical evidence
I agree that with everything else you’re taking, it is by far a net positive even if you’re taking 300mg of testosterone. I really don’t think using that dose long term is going to do that much damage when you’re doing everything else correctly.
About the donating blood thing you said, just be careful not to do this too often. Too many of these will tank your ferritin, which would be far more problematic. Unfortunately, it happened to me and it’s not a fun experience having no energy to get off the couch. It’s good to donate once or twice a year for general health reasons but the hematocrit and hemoglobin will just go back up to baseline shortly thereafter.
Yes, my only bad biomarkers whenever I get labs done are that my hematocrit and hemoglobin get pretty high. Even on 20mg of testosterone a day (140mg per week), they’re high. They kind of hit a ceiling so even if I take more for the purpose of adding muscle, the numbers don’t go up any more. I am experimenting now with Enalapril to see if it helps lower them, but haven’t had labs yet to see if it works.
If it doesn’t, then the alternative is to make myself hypogonadal/testosterone deficient and that’s not something I am willing to do so I make sure I have no other risk factors.
