u/dad_johnny

I used to need lotion every day, and now my elbows are soft so is this an anti-inflammatory effect? My dermatologist was surprised too. I'm not complaining, just confused.

A new meta-analysis in Fertility and Sterility pooled data from 12 trials of GLP-1s in women with PCOS.

- Findings (significant improvements):

- Menstrual regularity: 2.3x more likely to have regular cycles

- Testosterone levels: decreased by 15%

- Hirsutism (unwanted hair growth): modest improvement

- Insulin resistance: HOMA-IR improved by 30%

Importantly: Many of these benefits were seen in trials that did NOT have significant weight loss. Direct effects on ovarian function, not just weight.

I don't have PCOS, but my sister does. She's been trying to get a GLP-1 for fertility reasons. Her insurance denied it because "not FDA approved." This meta-analysis is ammo for her appeal.

I was on Victoza (liraglutide) for 6 months. I was tolerating it well but only at the 1.8mg dose (not max 3mg). My doctor switched me to Ozempic 1mg instead of increasing Victoza.

I asked why. She explained that while both are GLP-1s, Ozempic (semaglutide) has a longer half-life (7 days vs 13 hours) and higher GLP-1 receptor potency. In the LEADER trial, liraglutide reduced A1C by 1.1% and weight by 2.5kg. In the SUSTAIN trial, semaglutide reduced A1C by 1.5% and weight by 5kg.

The switch was bumpy. I had to overlap doses carefully. But after 2 months on Ozempic, my A1C dropped from 7.3 to 6.4 and I've lost 8lbs.

the vague advice on this sub about enterprise cold email drives me up a wall so heres what actually works for me right now as a one-person outbound operation at a compliance startup

i should probably hire someone for this but were at $55k MRR with 3 people and every dollar goes into product so here i am, founder doing SDR work at 11pm. anyway.

first problem that almost killed our outbound: i was sending to garbage lists. pulled a bunch of compliance officer titles from Apollo, didnt verify anything, just loaded them into Instantly and hit send. bounce rate was over 9%. deliverability tanked within 2 weeks. i had to burn those inboxes and start over. that mistake cost me about 6 weeks of momentum and maybe $400 in wasted infrastructure.

what i changed: i run everything through Prospeo for enrichment now before anything touches a sending tool. email accuracy sits around 82-85% which is solid for the titles im going after (compliance directors, VPs of risk at mid-market companies). then i verify the output through NeverBounce as a second pass. double enrichment plus verification sounds overkill but my bounce rate dropped to 1.1% and hasnt gone above 1.4% in three months.

the bigger issue was sounding like every other SDR in their inbox. enterprise compliance buyers get hammered with cold email. my first templates were basically "hi {first_name}, i noticed {company} is in and compliance is complex..." just garbage. 0.8% reply rate over 400 sends. embarrassing.

what fixed it: i stopped writing about us entirely in the first email. the opener is now always about something specific to their company. not fake personalization like "congrats on the Series B" but actual stuff like referencing a recent regulatory change that hits their industry, or mentioning a specific framework they probably have to comply with. i write 3-4 variants per industry vertical and customize the regulatory angle. takes me maybe 45 minutes per batch of 30 prospects but reply rates went from 0.8% to about 3.7%. for enterprise compliance buyers thats honestly pretty good.

my actual weekly workflow since this is supposed to be tactical:

monday i spend about 90 minutes building a list in LinkedIn Sales Navigator. i filter for compliance/risk/legal titles at companies between 200-2000 employees. i export around 60-80 contacts using Clay, then run them through Prospeo for email enrichment. that usually gives me valid emails for about 50-65 of them. i verify the batch in NeverBounce, which knocks out another 3-5 that are risky.

tuesday and wednesday i write the personalized angles. i group prospects by industry (fintech, healthcare, manufacturing are my big three) and write the regulatory hook for each group. i load everything into Instantly with a 3-step sequence. first email is the personalized one, second is a short follow up 4 days later thats basically "did this land?" with one line of social proof, third is a breakup email 6 days after that.

i send from 4 inboxes, all on separate domains, all warmed for minimum 3 weeks before any cold sends. 22 sends per inbox per day max. i use Inframail for the infrastructure which runs me about $60/mo for the domains and inboxes. Instantly is $97/mo on the growth plan. Prospeo is around $99/mo for the plan i need. NeverBounce is like $20-30/mo depending on volume. Clay is $149/mo which honestly hurts but the enrichment waterfall saves me time i dont have.

so all in im spending roughly $430/mo on outbound infrastructure and tools. last month that generated 11 booked calls and we closed 2 deals worth about $14k ARR combined. the math works but its tight.

what really tripped me up for a while was the sending schedule. i was blasting monday mornings because thats what every blog post says. turns out for compliance people tuesday and wednesday between 7-9am their local time crushes monday. open rates jumped from 41% to 58% just from that change. small thing but it compounded.

one more thing - i stopped using my main domain entirely for cold email about 7 months ago. should have done that from day one. i use 2 separate domains that are similar but not identical to our real domain. DKIM, SPF, DMARC all set up properly on each. if you skip this step nothing else matters because youll eventually torch your primary domain reputation and thats a nightmare to fix.

anyway thats basically the whole operation. its not scalable and i know that. but for a founder whos also doing product and support and whatever else, spending maybe 6-7 hours a week on outbound and getting 8-12 calls a month from it... ill take it until we can afford to hire someone who actually knows what theyre doing

How much are you guys actually spending on your Reta journey in total? I want to know if the total amount eventually gets to be too much to handle after a few months. Whether you buy 10mg vials or bulk kits, what does that final number look like? I don't think I can continue like this because from what I understand this is a lifelong commitment. Can I stop and start at some points, or do I have to stay on it forever? Does the spending start to feel like a dealbreaker or is it still worth it for the results?

We're currently evaluating new HR tools (HRIS + a few other systems), and I've been going down the usual rabbit hole: G2 reviews, vendor demos, comparison sheets... you know the drill.And I came across services that basically, help you define your requirements, shortlist vendors and guide you through the selection processOn paper it sounds useful, especially since choosing an HRIS is a pretty heavy decision that impacts a lot of workflows long-term.But I'm a bit skeptical:Is it actually adding value vs just doing the research internally or is it something that mainly helps if you don't have time / experience?

Hello all, a friend of mine is also on glp-1s and he has psoriasis and when I saw this study I just thought of him. So here’s a bit of a rundown, also a disclaimer I am not the best at this whole thing but yknow we ball. The POETYK-PSO-1 trial is investigating whether oral semaglutide improves psoriasis in patients with obesity. The study enrolled 132 participants with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis and BMI over 27. At 34 weeks, 52.3% of participants on oral semaglutide achieved PASI-75 (75% improvement in skin involvement) compared to only 17.6% on placebo.

So there's basically a known link between obesity, inflammation, and psoriasis. I mean of course losing weight helps, but the trial suggests there might be direct anti-inflammatory effects independent of weight loss. Again I don't have psoriasis, but a friend of mine does and he started a GLP-1 for weight loss and noticed his plaques cleared up within months. Honestly he was shocked and his derma was too.