When NOT to take Rapamycin

Thanks for that. I’ve tended to skip doses if I’m feeling unwell, but this time around as I was only taking a small dose I thought it would be ok.

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I think that sounds like good advice. Just out of curiosity how long have you been taking it?

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I stopped taking rapamycin two weeks prior to my flu vaccine and third booster shot. I combined both so I could start back on rapamycin with less breaks. The experience of Dr. Green and his patients with Covid was mild symptoms only. Clearly anecdotal, but he probably has an older set of patients.

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About 5 months. I stopped for 1 month when I had a bacterial infection.

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I was not prescribed an antibiotic. I was prescribed Molnupiravir for Covid virus which I did not take because it was prescribed too late (on day 4) and I already felt better. Antibiotics unfortunately are not prescribed for preventive use in the US. One needs an X-ray to show pneumonia/bronchitis to get a prescription. And it’s already late. Many people develop post-Covid bacterial infections - some cough for weeks, so I tried to prevent that. In Russia, for example, antibiotic is prescribed at the beginning of viral infection when coughing starts. They a kind of expect that a secondary bacterial infection will develop. I was taking a lot of supplements, and used a saline nebulizer and other steem inhaling herbs (eucalyptus, red potatoes, baking soda+iodine). It helped with head congestion. There’s an article about NAC and Guanfacine for brain fog. Even without Guanfacine, NAC may help. This is a link Potential New Treatment for “Brain Fog” in Long COVID Patients < Yale School of Medicine

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I also use sauna every day. It really helps with post Covid symptoms.

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That’s terrible, not only do antibiotics have side effects but using them wantonly also breeds resistance which will render antibiotics useless for us all

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Everything has side effects. In extreme situations like Covid, antibiotic can save you from pneumonia and its consequences. If you develop one, antibiotic will be prescribed anyway, but at a much later stage.

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It does offer protection according to statistics. Less risk of really bad outcome anyway. It doesnt perfectly protect. You’ve been lucky with the flu. Its a combination of things that effect susceptibility (genetics included), not the least of which is match to the flu variants circulating, which is a bit if a crap shoot. Similar to covid vaccine. Since everyone gets the vaccine tuned to specific variants, the most likely to gain momentum is escape variants. All i know is I don’t hear all the life flight helicopters (live near hospital that takes in rural overload) like I did in 2020, so its doing something.

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I work part time on the strip so I’ve got lots of exposure to the public. Had 1st 2 shots and 1 booster. Finally got covid for the first time about 4 weeks ago. I was taking a rapamycin break at the time. It was very flu like the first couple of days. I got the Pfizer Paxlovid anti-viral pills and they did work. It comes as a 5 day course.
After day 4 of the pills, I stopped. I really felt much better, tested negative for covid, and thought it was over. A few days later I took 5mg rapamycin with gf juice. 2 days after that, I tested positive for covid again but not as bad as the first time. Had a few days where it felt like a cold.
Still off rapamycin mostly because I got my first shingles shot 3 days ago. I’m going to take another week off rapamycin then get back to something like weekly dosing. Maybe I’ll go 3 weeks on and 1 week off.
So, the question is: did my recurrence of covid have anything to do with my rapamycin dose after my 1st round of covid?

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It is malpractice to treat a bacterial infection when someone does not have one yet and worse yet it it encourages resistance so antibiotics will become worthless for everyone

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I am currently taking rapamycin about every 4 months. I took my second dose last weekend. I do weekly blood tests sadly i could not use my normal lab. However, my WBC (which may not be directly comparable) went down by about 25%. I would not take rapamycin when infected. (or at a high risk of infection).

My current plan with rapamycin is to take it every few months when i am fasting.

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I asked myself the same question. I felt fine after about four days of getting Covid. I tested negative and felt much better. I took another low dose of Rapa, started to feel worse and then tested positive, although faintly the next day. It does seem like it was related.
Regarding Paxlovid, my wife also took it the 1st time she had covid and it cleared up her symptoms, but a day or two after finishing the course she tested positive again. I have read that this can happen. It could have been Paxlovid or Rapa in your case I suppose.

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Hey John,
Out of curiosity, why are you taking Rapa every four months? I’m planning on doing a five day fast at some point in the next few months and did wonder whether it might have a synergistic effect with Rapamycin.

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The 4 months figure is a bit of a coincidence. I decided to fast so I thought I had best take Rapamycin again. I am continually running tests with various molecules. If I am to have any chance of isolating out the impact of any one molecule I need to introduce it in isolation. Hence I have not got much space for Rapamycin as it has effects on its own (mainly on sleep although oddly enough not so much this time).

I have not decided on my ideal frequency of rapamycin, but fortnightly is too frequent. I think probably monthly or bimonthly would be a good steady state situation with a delay when infected. (or likely to be infected).

Fasting at the same time is clearly a good idea as its main mode of action is to encourage autophagy. Hence also take quite a bit of melatonin and possibly ferulic acid.

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I agree, however when it’s present, an antibiotic is a life savior. Glad it helped me. Timing is also important. The earlier you catch the bad guys the better :grinning:

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I am not taking Rapa every four months (even though there were 4 months between doses). I took Rapa because I had a fast. If I have a fast more than 4 weeks from previously taking Rapa I will take Rapa.

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John has a unique dosing strategy (though many people do seem to dose rapamycin as part of a fast). More common dosing protocols are outlined here: What is the Rapamycin Dose / Dosage for Anti-Aging or Longevity?

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I always thought Rapamycin worked similar to how some microbes can modulate their effectiveness against bacteria and viruses. By strengthening resistance to viruses it weakens it’s resistance to bacteria and vice versa.

So the thought is Rapamycin protects you against viruses at the cost of making you susceptible to bacteria. Am I correct in this assumption?

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I would think that in reducing WBC count Rapamycin causes a reduction in protection via WBCs against bacteria and viruses.

It, however, probably increases cytosolic ROS which cells can use to fight invaders without relying on the WBCs.

My figures are 6th Jan WBC 3.35 2mg Rapamycin 7th Jan 11th Jan WBC 2.7 about a 20% drop.

However, you cannot say Rapamycin necessarily caused all of that. My family had a lot of infections over Chrismas and my CRP went up which indicates that I was also infected (or some other cause). It is quite likely I was infected although I did not show any obvious symptoms. The infection would have driven up WBC.

I had a previous drop of WBC from 3.5 to 2.31. However, as WBCs have a relatively short lifetime and although Rapamycin’s half life is a comparatively long 60ish hours, that is really short in terms of weekly tests. Hence one would expect the curve in terms of WBC to initially go down as a result of Rapa and then build back up again perhaps with the minimum point in terms of WBC being a week after taking Rapa. To see that, however, would need more frequent blood tests. I could do the maths on this, but I don’t think it will necessarily give any more information.

I think it would be a useful piece of information and is something that is really easy to run not necessarily needing blinding or anything like that. However, I am going to stick to my weekly blood tests for now. I am testing a lot more than Rapamycin.

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