Reta-induced insomnia — how long does it last?

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damy2604

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I'm at my wit's end with this. Since starting reta I've been unable to sleep at all. Tesamorelin was added to my stack too, yet sleep still won't come. Melatonin does nothing for me either. Is there anything else I can try? How long does this insomnia typically go on?
 
For me, the sleep problems mostly went away at around the six-week mark, though I was taking a lot of Benadryl and melatonin at the same time. These days I'm on sermorelin and epithalon.

You can either quit, lower your dose, or just ride it out.
 
I get where you're coming from. I'm out cold until 11:30 or 2, and then I'm awake for good.
 
Normally my wake-up time lands near 5, yet while on Reta it has settled at about 3:30 every time. What I've also picked up on is that my mind instantly shifts into gear — there's no real grogginess, it's straight into action mode. Occasionally I can shut it down again and drift back off near 4-4:30, though other times I just decide forget it and remain awake. That tends to be the window when I'm firing off the bulk of my replies in here lol
 
Reta can make sleep hard to come by. Dropping your dose slightly and adding some Cargi is one option. A lot of users take it later in the day because it makes them drowsy. Best of luck.
 
Update: spent the whole night restless, repeatedly jolting awake convinced it was 3am. Eventually, when I was sure only minutes remained before my alarm, I grabbed my phone. 3:23am. Getting back to sleep probably took a solid 20 minutes, but I did manage to rest some before the 5am alarm. So I'm in the same boat as you, OP.

My usual bedtime falls between 9-10, so perhaps I'll shift it to 11 and see whether that helps my night without cutting into my morning workout.
 
damy2604 said:


How long does insomnia from reta last? I’m so desperate. I can’t sleep at all. I also added tesamorelin to my stack, but I still can’t sleep. Nothing seems to work, not even melatonin. What can I do?

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That's news to me — I had no idea this was a thing! Reta is something I'm hoping to begin before long, though I'm still gathering information at this stage, so learning about this certainly adds a significant new consideration for me to think about.
 
Reta makes insomnia brutal. And if you happen to have Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS), it will flare up badly too!

This is what worked for me. Your results may differ.

Roughly 1 hour prior to going to sleep:

360mg Magnesium plus 25mg easy Iron.

If it's available where you live, the thing that really made the difference for me was a 10mg THC/CBD/CBN gummy. I never smoked, not even as a kid, so this was a first for me. It genuinely delivers deep sleep, and the next day I could wake up as usual and head to the gym.
 
Insomnia blamed directly on Reta may be somewhat overstated — secondary factors such as heart rate, low glycogen, and heartburn are often overlooked.

On the low glycogen point:

Gemini said:


Nocturnal cortisol/adrenaline surges triggered by low glycogen stores wake the user up prematurely (often around 2–4 AM). Low overnight glycogen stores are actually a primary mechanism of how retatrutide accelerates fat oxidation.

Take 1 teaspoon of raw honey with a small pinch of sea salt right before bed.

Why it works: Honey contains a ~1:1 ratio of fructose to glucose. Fructose preferentially replenishes liver glycogen (the primary site of nighttime blood sugar regulation) rather than muscle glycogen.

The Math: 1 teaspoon is only ~5 grams of carbs (~20 calories). It won't halt fat oxidation or mess up your daily deficit, but it gives your liver just enough fuel to maintain baseline blood glucose for 6 to 8 hours without triggering a stress-hormone surge.

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Fatigue and insomnia are both hard to quantify. For a long stretch people complained about tirz fatigue, and then those complaints eased off. After that it was reta fatigue. Which one is worse? My guess is tirz fatigue, since reduced food intake was the real culprit much of the time.
 
Calm Logic said:

Insomnia blamed directly on Reta may be somewhat overstated — secondary factors such as heart rate, low glycogen, and heartburn are often overlooked.

On the low glycogen point:



Fatigue and insomnia are both hard to quantify. For a long stretch people complained about tirz fatigue, and then those complaints eased off. After that it was reta fatigue. Which one is worse? My guess is tirz fatigue, since reduced food intake was the real culprit much of the time.
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For me, I believe that was what happened, and I'd guess it's true for most people as well.

What's surprising is that insomnia isn't discussed much — I've only come across a handful of posts about it.
 
damy2604 said:


How long does insomnia from reta last? I’m so desperate. I can’t sleep at all. I also added tesamorelin to my stack, but I still can’t sleep. Nothing seems to work, not even melatonin. What can I do?

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It's been roughly 9 months now with poor sleep. Dementia is a real fear for me. I've given EVERYTHING a shot — DSIP, Tesa, got my hormones in balance, exercise, eating before bed, fasting before bed, hot baths, every supplement, every gummy. For me, NOTHING helps. On a good night I might make it from 9pm until around 1 am. And every morning my fitbit has to tell me — ANOTHER POOR NIGHTS'S SLEEP. THANKS fitbit!

Currently on 4mg Reta.

If you ever come across the fix, please share it with us!
 
~.15mg sermorelin, .25mg epithalon

Both injected subcutaneously roughly 30-60 minutes prior to bedtime
 
SoCalGirl said:

It's been roughly 9 months now with poor sleep. Dementia is a real fear for me. I've given EVERYTHING a shot — DSIP, Tesa, got my hormones in balance, exercise, eating before bed, fasting before bed, hot baths, every supplement, every gummy. For me, NOTHING helps. On a good night I might make it from 9pm until around 1 am. And every morning my fitbit has to tell me — ANOTHER POOR NIGHTS'S SLEEP. THANKS fitbit!

Currently on 4mg Reta.

If you ever come across the fix, please share it with us!
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Are you referring to the gummies that contain 10 mg of THC?
 
One of the reasons I moved from Reta to Tirz was the sleepless nights. Falling asleep has been difficult for me for years, and that hasn't changed, but HGH has made a huge difference in helping me stay asleep. Not long ago I gave a new cannabis edible a try, and I've been very happy with the results. They need roughly 2.5-3 hours before they take effect, and after that I'm asleep.
 
Before I ever started reta, my sleep was already poor, so I follow the Huberman sleep stack, which does help. Reta worsened things, though at 9 weeks the effect appears to be fading for me.

Core Sleep Stack — everything taken 30 minutes before bed

  • Magnesium L-Threonate or Magnesium Bisglycinate: 145 mg to 200 mg (magnesium threonate passes the blood-brain barrier well, supporting neurological calm).
  • Apigenin: 100 mg (a flavonoid from chamomile that binds to calm-promoting receptors in the brain).
  • L-Theanine: 100 mg to 400 mg (an amino acid that encourages relaxation without making you drowsy).
  • GABA: 500 mg, (gamma-aminobutyric acid) the main inhibitory neurotransmitter of the central nervous system
  • Glycine: 4 g, an amino acid that supports better sleep quality by reducing core body temperature (a sleep signal) and soothing the central nervous system
Every item is OTC. When that isn't enough, I sometimes add 25 mg doxylamine succinate. For some people, 3 mg of melatonin also helps.
 
Tomorrow night will mark 2 weeks since I started 1.5mg of IR/XR melatonin, the first sleep aid I've used specifically for sleep.

Falling asleep isn't my problem — it's waking at 3am and having a hard time getting back down, which is why I went with the XR version.

I didn't expect much, but it has done better than I hoped. On average, my total nightly sleep has gone up by an estimated 50-75%. I still wake up, but definitely less often, and returning to sleep is far more likely. I've had just one truly rough night since I began.

SoCalGirl said:

It's been roughly 9 months now with poor sleep. Dementia is a real fear for me. I've given EVERYTHING a shot — DSIP, Tesa, got my hormones in balance, exercise, eating before bed, fasting before bed, hot baths, every supplement, every gummy. For me, NOTHING helps. On a good night I might make it from 9pm until around 1 am. And every morning my fitbit has to tell me — ANOTHER POOR NIGHTS'S SLEEP. THANKS fitbit!

Currently on 4mg Reta.

If you ever come across the fix, please share it with us!
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For a while I stopped wearing my Oura Ring, since the sleep score wasn't helpful and wasn't especially accurate. Leaving it off made my quality of life better.

I've put it on a few times to measure my time asleep while I've been trying out melatonin.
 
I used 7.5 mg of TRZ for more than a year. A few months ago I chose to add some RETA, beginning at a really low dose such as .25 MG, and eventually worked up to 2.5 MG. For some reason that gave me severe insomnia lasting a couple of months. I never connected the two, but I quit the Reta and during the past six weeks my sleep has come back, thank God. If I remember right, I noticed improvement after about a week and a half or two. The insomnia was extreme, though — sleeping felt impossible for me. I had never experienced anything like it before.
 
riposte said:

I used 7.5 mg of TRZ for more than a year. A few months ago I chose to add some RETA, beginning at a really low dose such as .25 MG, and eventually worked up to 2.5 MG. For some reason that gave me severe insomnia lasting a couple of months. I never connected the two, but I quit the Reta and during the past six weeks my sleep has come back, thank God. If I remember right, I noticed improvement after about a week and a half or two. The insomnia was extreme, though — sleeping felt impossible for me. I had never experienced anything like it before.
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That genuinely got an out-loud laugh from me. Going "ripped" "eventually" to .5mg above where the trials started.

Maybe the melatonin is giving me better sleep, and that's why I'm finding this funnier than usual.
 
I used voice-to-text and said “ramped,” but the transcription came out as ripped… so why not, lol.
 
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