Ran my first 10-day block last month at 5ml IM daily, took about 3 weeks off, and i'm trying to decide what to do for round 2. The russian neurology protocol everyone references is the 10-on / break / repeat thing, but every western anti-aging clinic i've looked at seems to push 20-30 day continuous runs or even chronic low-dose. Those feel like totally different philosophies to me.

Has anyone actually tracked cognitive output across different schedules? Like cambridge brain sciences, dual n-back, quantified writing volume, whatever. I did a rough n-back baseline before my first block and want to compare but i have no idea if 10 days is even long enough to see the real curve or if i bailed too early.

Also curious if anyone noticed the effect plateau or fade on the longer western-style runs. That's my main worry with going 21+ days.

Ran my first 10-day block last month at 5ml IM daily, took about 3 weeks off, and i'm trying to decide what to do for round 2. The russian neurology protocol everyone references is the 10-on / break / repeat thing, but every western anti-aging clinic i've looked at seems to push 20-30 day continuous runs or even chronic low-dose. Those feel like totally different philosophies to me.

Has anyone actually tracked cognitive output across different schedules? Like cambridge brain sciences, dual n-back, quantified writing volume, whatever. I did a rough n-back baseline before my first block and want to compare but i have no idea if 10 days is even long enough to see the real curve or if i bailed too early.

Also curious if anyone noticed the effect plateau or fade on the longer western-style runs. That's my main worry with going 21+ days.

Ran my first 10-day block last month at 5ml IM daily, took about 3 weeks off, and i'm trying to decide what to do for round 2. The russian neurology protocol everyone references is the 10-on / break / repeat thing, but every western anti-aging clinic i've looked at seems to push 20-30 day continuous runs or even chronic low-dose. Those feel like totally different philosophies to me.

Has anyone actually tracked cognitive output across different schedules? Like cambridge brain sciences, dual n-back, quantified writing volume, whatever. I did a rough n-back baseline before my first block and want to compare but i have no idea if 10 days is even long enough to see the real curve or if i bailed too early.

Also curious if anyone noticed the effect plateau or fade on the longer western-style runs. That's my main worry with going 21+ days.

So i finally got around to reading the 2019 Cui et al Cochrane review on cerebrolysin for vascular dementia. Headline finding was that IV cerebrolysin courses improved cognition and general function with no signal of adverse effects, but the data aren't definitive, the analyses were limited by heterogeneity, and the included papers had high risk of bias. Authors basically said if benefits exist, the effects may be too small to be clinically meaningful, and there have been no new studies in vascular dementia since the previous Cochrane review. Then i saw a 2024 network meta-analysis in Neurology that put cerebrolysin ahead of rivastigmine on ADAS-Cog, which is a much rosier framing than the cochrane take.

The gap between "promising in NMAs" and "weak evidence base, mostly old trials, no new RCTs in a decade" is what's bugging me. Anyone here actually run a course of it, or know why no one's bothered to fund a clean modern trial?

Been doing intranasal semax in the morning (about 600mcg total split between nostrils) for focus work, and selank around mid-afternoon (~400mcg) when my anxiety/rumination kicks up. Roughly 2 weeks in. Semax is noticeable for me, like a clean push for deep work for maybe 4-5 hours. selank is subtler, more of a "i stopped caring about the dumb thing i was spiraling on" feel.

Question for people who've run both: do you actually get more out of stacking them same-day, or do they kind of blur into each other? And has anyone found a dosing pattern that keeps the semax focus effect from tapering off after a week or two? Mine feels slightly less sharp than day 3.

Not really interested in oral, the intranasal seems to be where the effect is.

Context: i'm 34, been running peptides on and off for about one year. First round i did the classic CJC/ipam combo at 100/100 5 nights a week for 12 weeks and felt great, but i had no idea what my IGF-1 actually did because i never tested baseline. just vibes. second round i pulled labs first, came back at 142 ng/mL which is mid-range for my age, ran the same protocol, retested at week 10 and was sitting at 248. that's a real number i can act on.

the part that bugs me is everyone treats secretagogues like they hit the same in every body. they don't. some people are already cruising at 220 baseline and a standard ipam dose pushes them into a range i'd want to back off from. others are at 110 and need more aggressive dosing or a longer GHRH analog to actually move the needle. without the pre-test you're just guessing whether you needed it at all.

i'm also convinced the "i feel amazing on week 2" reports are mostly placebo + better sleep from the GHRP pulse, not actual axis response. IGF-1 takes weeks to climb. if you feel incredible on day 5 that's probably ghrelin agonism and cortisol blunting, not GH doing work.

so question for the sub: who here is dosing off labs vs dosing off protocol cards? and if you test, are you pulling IGF-1 only or going further (IGFBP-3, fasted glucose, prolactin on the tesamorelin/MK crowd)?

Finally got around to reading the SURMOUNT-OSA paper in NEJM. Headline number: tirzepatide cut AHI by around 25 events/hour on average in people with moderate-to-severe OSA and obesity, vs basically nothing for placebo. That's a huge effect for what's nominally a weight-loss drug.

What i can't tell from the paper is how much of this is just the weight loss doing the work (less fat around the airway, less mechanical collapse) vs something more direct. The AHI drop tracks pretty closely with the weight loss curve, which makes me lean toward "it's mostly just the weight." But i'd love to see a comparison against a matched cohort losing the same weight through diet alone.

Anyone here running tirz primarily for sleep stuff, or got a CPAP + tirz stack going? Curious if you've seen your own AHI numbers move and how fast.

Been running a GH secretagogue stack for about 5 months now and trying to figure out a sane labs schedule. Pulled a full panel at week 4 (fasted glucose, HbA1c, IGF-1, lipids, liver) and almost nothing had moved enough to be meaningful, felt like i wasted the draw. But waiting 12 weeks between pulls feels like i could miss a glucose or IGF-1 drift until it's already a problem.

What are people actually doing? 6 weeks? 8? And are you running the full panel each time or just a cheap fasted glucose + IGF-1 check between the bigger draws?

Mostly asking because the cost adds up fast if you're doing full panels every month and i'd rather spend that on the actual compounds.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]