It is odd the range of side effects that people get from taking rapamycin. I wonder why this is and what it means.
Personally I have never felt any side effects except diarrhea the next day after taking massive doses.
It has never affected my sleep or made me tired. In fact, when I first started taking rapamycin, I often felt slightly elated the next day. Now I feel nothing.
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I have often wondered if some side effects might be ameliorated by lengthening the dose interval enough to create a rapamycin free period, especially for older individuals. Other important benefits might also follow.
The study most often cited for “immune rejuvenation” did not test continuous weekly sirolimus exposure. It tested brief mTOR inhibition followed by complete withdrawal.
The 2014 Mannick trial gave adults aged 65 and older six weeks of everolimus, followed by a two-week drug-free interval before administering an influenza vaccination. Vaccine responses improved by approximately 20%, and PD-1–expressing CD4 and CD8 T cells declined. The immune benefit was therefore expressed after treatment had stopped, not merely while the drug was present.
The 2018 trial similarly treated older adults for six weeks with low-dose mTOR inhibitors (different arms using Everolimus and/or dactolisib), followed by withdrawal. Similar to the 2014 study, the most effective regimen enhanced antiviral gene expression, improved influenza-vaccine responses and reduced reported infections during subsequent follow-up.
These trials do not prove that the washout was necessary because they did not randomize participants to vaccination on-drug versus off-drug. They did establish that a transient course can produce immune benefits that survive drug clearance.
Given the other forms of evidence that a strong immune system accounts for much of the variance in surviving intact into old age, a regimen that created drug free intervals might lessen side effects and produce the most useful effects. Even a months on followed by months off regimen is not ruled out by current evidence.
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I also feel nothing and cannot say if I have any side effects.
Unfortunately I just had a horrible experience with a bacterial infection and Rapamycin. 11 days ago, I contracted a bacterial gastrointestinal infection (food poisoning). It coincided with a 7 mg + GFJ dose shortly after. I had bad diarrhea for 10 days and needed to go on antibiotics. In the past my body would clear it up after about 3 days without antibiotics.
So be careful and realize Rapamycin will make any bacterial infection much worse than it normally would be.
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What a coincidence, I went through the exact same thing ten days ago 
. Unfortunately, I also threw up two or three times, and I only just got back to normal in the last two days.
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Yes, bacterial infections tend to be exacerbated by rapamycin (whereas viral tend to be milder). Especially high doses can be problematic. Surgery - get off rapamycin - that’s what I did in December '25 when I had my ACDF procedure. And recovery - wound healing and postoperative infections are negatively affected by rapamycin. Rapa is a great drug, but like all drugs it has downsides and limitations. Many also avoid rapa for a couple of weeks before and after vaccinations - I personally don’t, but we all have to be cognizant of potential risks with any drug and rapa is no exception. YMMV.
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The night I took rapamycin, I slept very poorly and kept waking up. Then the next day, if I walked for more than half an hour, I felt extremely tired and experienced muscle weakness.
I took Pfizer Rapamune 2mg/week + grapefruit.
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That sounds like you had real rapamycin.
It seems there’s at least one other protocol for dosing rapamycin (for rheumatoid arthritis), this time 0.5mg taken once every 2 days. Now I’m wondering since seeing user Satchel’s 2mg/wk dosing experience, if there isn’t some room for tuning dosage to the current state of one’s immune system?
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I’ve had the same side effects, like fragmented sleep, and I get extremely exhausted in the afternoon. My fingers also feel like they have tendinitis, but it’s basically back to normal by day three.
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I’m not sure at all if I would keep taking rapamycin if I got 2 days of exhaustion after my doses. Nobody has a standard protocol for responses like this, but if I were getting these types of side effects I would definitely do some significant blood tests (perhaps the day after dosing) to see if I can identify the blood level changes that might be contributing to these side effects. Perhaps a less frequent dosing schedule, or lower dose, is appropriate?
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Maybe the dose is too high. I will try lower dose later.
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If you have a possibility of extending your life 10-20% (we truly don’t know), but you’re spending 25% of that extension in a sleepy stupor and feeling bad, it probably isn’t worth the trade-off, right?
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I personally don’t feel bad!
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For me it has more to do with preventing old age maladies as opposed to extending life. and if we manage to extend it some then that is icing on the cake. So, I am maintaining all my blood and other markers at optimal/normal and that goes a long way in preventing common old age diseases of today i.e. CVD, diabetes, dementia etc. and to some degree cancer. So, I don’t know about the “sleepy stupor” state as what I (and most if not all) in here are doing is to actually prevent exactly that. So, no I’m not worried about the scenario you describe.
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I meant my response for this. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze here.
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Restarting Rapamycin at once every 3 weeks. Now that winter has ended I think this infrequent dosing shouldn’t result in respiratory infection.
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Have been taking rapamycin 6 mg once per week for 13 weeks then 4 weeks off and repeat for the last 15 months. Blood work data relatively unchanged except LDL cholesterol increased from 96 to 121 mg/dL. I have been on rosuvastatin at 5mg per day for the last 6 years which dropped my LDL from 136 to 96 mg/dL. Triglyceride levels have been stable at about 70 mg/dL. It looks like the rapamycin has bumped up my LDL a fair amount.
Is it a good idea either up my statin dose or add Ezetimide to my routine?
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I added ezetimibe and bempadoic acid - in part to counter the bump up in LDL, but really to get my LDL-C / APO-B down as low as possible. I would probably have adopted these two additional medicines regardless of the impact on rapamycin on lipids. See this related discussion on cardiovascular risks and how to lower them: Cardiovascular Health 2026
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Ditto: I added ezetimibe and bempedoic acid.
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