INTRO I'm New Retatrutide user

[Clyde22]

bullshark said:

Chunky113 said:

AsterixNYC said:

iTs_Goochy said:

Hi everyone, I've just started using retatrutide. Tomorrow marks the beginning of my second week. My starting dose was 2mg, and so far things have been going well. I joined to hear about other people's experiences. Also, the KLOW blend has caught my attention.

That's intriguing! I'd like to know—what made you choose 2 mg as your starting point rather than something smaller? Was there a particular rationale behind it?

I'm not the original poster, however my reason for beginning at 2mg was that this is the latest starting dose used in trials. I followed the trial titration plan until the point of switching to 8mg, but rather than jumping from 4mg straight to 8mg, I moved up to 6mg, and that's the point where side effects finally appeared for me. At present I have to make a conscious effort to get enough protein in, so I'm staying at this dose for now.

I still haven't started reta, or any peptide actually, largely because I can't decide on a dosing plan. From what I've read, most folks say going low and slow beats starting at 2mg, particularly given that Lilly's clinical trials are designed to prove as convincingly as possible that their drugs perform really well. Right now I'm stuck between two approaches: sticking to the trial titration protocols, or simply paying attention to my body and adjusting up or down as needed. Most likely I'll blend the two.

Starting low is a smart move. Once you've administered the dose, it's not something you can undo, but I shared that same excitement. My current regimen is Tirz at 7.5mg each week. I divide it into 2 doses of 3.75mg. Trying Reta on its own or stacked with Tirz is something I'm interested in. Best of luck. I'm also new here, and the amount of information available is impressive.

 

[bgddy32]

Zeptide said:

I ran Tirz for 3 months, dropping 30 pounds. Wanting the glucagon agonist effect, I made the call to move over to Reta. Before doing anything, I put in a bunch of research on the right way to transition, and I weighed 3 paths: 1) a 2 week washout, which is what clinical trials call for 2) taper tirz down while ramping reta up, beginning at .5mg 3) swap over completely on the day my next tirz dose was due. Option 3 was my pick, since food noise isn't something I deal with and even at 5mg of tirz I had zero side effects (and yes, that's not a particularly high dose).

Because I was eager to reach an effective dose where glucagon would meaningfully kick in, I went with an aggressive titration schedule. Looking at the sigmoidal dosing curve for glucagon, as validated in the trials, I aimed for 3.5mg of reta.

How I titrated:

Day 0: 1mg

Day 5: 1mg

Day 10: 2mg

Day 15: 2.5mg

Day 20: 3mg

Day 25: 3.5mg

Day 32: 3.5mg

Maintain at 3.5mg weekly

Everything went smoothly, no side effects, until roughly a week after I reached 3.5mg, when dysesthesia showed up, which is that skin tingling and the sensation of a sunburn under your clothing. My guess is that titrating up too fast brought it on, though I see that 20% of trial participants get it. From what I read, it clears in about 2 weeks whether you quit reta or keep going, so I kept going. It has eased a lot, but about 2 weeks in it's still there.

My advice to others would be to titrate up more slowly than I did and give your body time to adjust to the new triple agonist. If anyone has gone through something similar or can speak to how long the dysesthesia took to resolve, I'd really like to hear it.

I've moved to split dosing and I'm wondering whether your weekly total was already above 6mg within the first month. My original plan was to copy the trial schedule of 1 injection per week, but 2mg in a single shot hit me too hard, so splitting it up is what I can tolerate. The trade-off is that it will take roughly 4 weeks before the amount built up in my body matches what 2mg once weekly would give.

If this is news to you, the half-life means the actual amount present after each injection works out like this:

DayDose AdministeredDays Since Last DoseAmount Remaining Before ShotTotal Peak Level After ShotDay 01.0 mg00.00 mg1.00 mgDay 51.0 mg50.56 mg1.56 mgDay 102.0 mg50.88 mg2.88 mgDay 152.5 mg51.61 mg4.11 mgDay 203.0 mg52.31 mg5.31 mgDay 253.5 mg52.98 mg6.48 mgDay 323.5 mg72.89 mg6.39 mg

 

[Pete369]

My first dose was .5mg taken twice a week, and by injection number 4 I moved up to 1mg. That low an amount still triggered GI trouble for me late in week 1 and on into week 2.

By week 4 I had stepped up to 1.5mg twice a week, and that is when appetite suppression became really noticeable.

At 2mg twice a week the effect was unmistakable, along with a rise in HR. Month 2, however, brought heavy fatigue. I turned in early many nights and ended up getting some excellent sleep. A big part of that was surely the combination of still training at the gym 4-5 times per week while running a large caloric deficit.

Next I moved up to 3mg twice a week and held that steady through the past 4 weeks. Over the last 2 weeks, evening food noise began returning, so with my most recent injection I went to 4mg. Feeling good once more, and the fatigue is gone at last.

The single most important factor in my case has been cutting back on alcohol, because dehydration can hit like a freight train.

 

[Zeptide]

bgddy32 said:

Zeptide said:

I ran Tirz for 3 months, dropping 30 pounds. Wanting the glucagon agonist effect, I made the call to move over to Reta. Before doing anything, I put in a bunch of research on the right way to transition, and I weighed 3 paths: 1) a 2 week washout, which is what clinical trials call for 2) taper tirz down while ramping reta up, beginning at .5mg 3) swap over completely on the day my next tirz dose was due. Option 3 was my pick, since food noise isn't something I deal with and even at 5mg of tirz I had zero side effects (and yes, that's not a particularly high dose).

Because I was eager to reach an effective dose where glucagon would meaningfully kick in, I went with an aggressive titration schedule. Looking at the sigmoidal dosing curve for glucagon, as validated in the trials, I aimed for 3.5mg of reta.

How I titrated:

Day 0: 1mg

Day 5: 1mg

Day 10: 2mg

Day 15: 2.5mg

Day 20: 3mg

Day 25: 3.5mg

Day 32: 3.5mg

Maintain at 3.5mg weekly

Everything went smoothly, no side effects, until roughly a week after I reached 3.5mg, when dysesthesia showed up, which is that skin tingling and the sensation of a sunburn under your clothing. My guess is that titrating up too fast brought it on, though I see that 20% of trial participants get it. From what I read, it clears in about 2 weeks whether you quit reta or keep going, so I kept going. It has eased a lot, but about 2 weeks in it's still there.

My advice to others would be to titrate up more slowly than I did and give your body time to adjust to the new triple agonist. If anyone has gone through something similar or can speak to how long the dysesthesia took to resolve, I'd really like to hear it.

I've moved to split dosing and I'm wondering whether your weekly total was already above 6mg within the first month. My original plan was to copy the trial schedule of 1 injection per week, but 2mg in a single shot hit me too hard, so splitting it up is what I can tolerate. The trade-off is that it will take roughly 4 weeks before the amount built up in my body matches what 2mg once weekly would give.

If this is news to you, the half-life means the actual amount present after each injection works out like this:

DayDose AdministeredDays Since Last DoseAmount Remaining Before ShotTotal Peak Level After ShotDay 01.0 mg00.00 mg1.00 mgDay 51.0 mg50.56 mg1.56 mgDay 102.0 mg50.88 mg2.88 mgDay 152.5 mg51.61 mg4.11 mgDay 203.0 mg52.31 mg5.31 mgDay 253.5 mg52.98 mg6.48 mgDay 323.5 mg72.89 mg6.39 mg

Unlike my approach with Tirz, I decided against dividing the dose, since retatrutide has a longer half-life. My goal was to keep blood serum levels above 3.5 mg for most of the period I was targeting (which I hit after 15 days), so I picked the dose according to the trough rather than the peak. As you can see, by the close of the titration schedule my low serum level comes out to 2.84mg.

I've concluded this is too low, because I want the glucagon agonist active at all times, and that requires a trough nearer to 3.5 mg. So I've moved to splitting the dose: 1.75 every 3.5 days, which holds me at a 3.5 mg floor and a 5.25 mg ceiling. I'll follow this for a month and evaluate the results. Worth mentioning: my side effects of a pronounced resting heart rate increase and dysesthesia have largely disappeared. Whether they come back with the split dose will be interesting to observe, though I doubt it. A lot of people go with split dosing to manage side effects. That's what I'm hoping for.

 

[bgddy32]

Zeptide said:

bgddy32 said:

Zeptide said:

I ran Tirz for 3 months, dropping 30 pounds. Wanting the glucagon agonist effect, I made the call to move over to Reta. Before doing anything, I put in a bunch of research on the right way to transition, and I weighed 3 paths: 1) a 2 week washout, which is what clinical trials call for 2) taper tirz down while ramping reta up, beginning at .5mg 3) swap over completely on the day my next tirz dose was due. Option 3 was my pick, since food noise isn't something I deal with and even at 5mg of tirz I had zero side effects (and yes, that's not a particularly high dose).

Because I was eager to reach an effective dose where glucagon would meaningfully kick in, I went with an aggressive titration schedule. Looking at the sigmoidal dosing curve for glucagon, as validated in the trials, I aimed for 3.5mg of reta.

How I titrated:

Day 0: 1mg

Day 5: 1mg

Day 10: 2mg

Day 15: 2.5mg

Day 20: 3mg

Day 25: 3.5mg

Day 32: 3.5mg

Maintain at 3.5mg weekly

Everything went smoothly, no side effects, until roughly a week after I reached 3.5mg, when dysesthesia showed up, which is that skin tingling and the sensation of a sunburn under your clothing. My guess is that titrating up too fast brought it on, though I see that 20% of trial participants get it. From what I read, it clears in about 2 weeks whether you quit reta or keep going, so I kept going. It has eased a lot, but about 2 weeks in it's still there.

My advice to others would be to titrate up more slowly than I did and give your body time to adjust to the new triple agonist. If anyone has gone through something similar or can speak to how long the dysesthesia took to resolve, I'd really like to hear it.

I've moved to split dosing and I'm wondering whether your weekly total was already above 6mg within the first month. My original plan was to copy the trial schedule of 1 injection per week, but 2mg in a single shot hit me too hard, so splitting it up is what I can tolerate. The trade-off is that it will take roughly 4 weeks before the amount built up in my body matches what 2mg once weekly would give.

If this is news to you, the half-life means the actual amount present after each injection works out like this:

DayDose AdministeredDays Since Last DoseAmount Remaining Before ShotTotal Peak Level After ShotDay 01.0 mg00.00 mg1.00 mgDay 51.0 mg50.56 mg1.56 mgDay 102.0 mg50.88 mg2.88 mgDay 152.5 mg51.61 mg4.11 mgDay 203.0 mg52.31 mg5.31 mgDay 253.5 mg52.98 mg6.48 mgDay 323.5 mg72.89 mg6.39 mg

Unlike my approach with Tirz, I decided against dividing the dose, since retatrutide has a longer half-life. My goal was to keep blood serum levels above 3.5 mg for most of the period I was targeting (which I hit after 15 days), so I picked the dose according to the trough rather than the peak. As you can see, by the close of the titration schedule my low serum level comes out to 2.84mg.

I've concluded this is too low, because I want the glucagon agonist active at all times, and that requires a trough nearer to 3.5 mg. So I've moved to splitting the dose: 1.75 every 3.5 days, which holds me at a 3.5 mg floor and a 5.25 mg ceiling. I'll follow this for a month and evaluate the results. Worth mentioning: my side effects of a pronounced resting heart rate increase and dysesthesia have largely disappeared. Whether they come back with the split dose will be interesting to observe, though I doubt it. A lot of people go with split dosing to manage side effects. That's what I'm hoping for.

That perspective on low serum levels is a fascinating angle. Appreciate the background — it's logical that certain people would aim to keep a baseline serum concentration at all times. My situation is reversed with split dosing: reaching the peak target takes a while, so I'm about to crunch some numbers to locate a comfortable middle ground!

 

[Rawbiotix]

Glad to have you here iTs_Goochy, this is a solid place to start.

Pete369, your point about alcohol deserves more attention, because on Reta the dehydration stacks with everything else much more severely than most folks anticipate when they begin.

As for how fast to move up, going slow is the better call with Reta in particular, and that comes down to the glucagon piece. This is exactly what sets it apart from Tirz. You have some room to push the GLP-1 and GIP sides, but when the glucagon receptor gets activated too aggressively, that is what triggers the skin sensitivity and the rougher GI effects. What Zeptide went through with dysesthesia is a classic example of moving up too fast. That 20% number from the trials does hold up, but it leans strongly toward those who escalate quickly. Plenty of people doing .5mg every 2 weeks never get hit that hard.

Those sulfur burps iTs_Goochy brought up tend to show up in the early stretch too, and they normally fade over the first few weeks while the body gets used to things.

 

[dzl515]

Beginning at 2mg was more than I could handle — I felt far too anxious to do it. Still, it's good to know things are going smoothly for you. My own approach was 0.5mg during week one, then 1mg. Roughly every 4 weeks I'd raise the dose by 1mg, continuing until I reached 4mg, where I remained for a stretch. 3 weeks back I moved up to 5mg. Side effects have been essentially absent for me, aside from skin sensitivity that stays quite localized. Wishing you the best with your research!

 

[Zeptide]

Rawbiotix said:

Glad to have you here iTs_Goochy, this is a solid place to start.

Pete369, your point about alcohol deserves more attention, because on Reta the dehydration stacks with everything else much more severely than most folks anticipate when they begin.

As for how fast to move up, going slow is the better call with Reta in particular, and that comes down to the glucagon piece. This is exactly what sets it apart from Tirz. You have some room to push the GLP-1 and GIP sides, but when the glucagon receptor gets activated too aggressively, that is what triggers the skin sensitivity and the rougher GI effects. What Zeptide went through with dysesthesia is a classic example of moving up too fast. That 20% number from the trials does hold up, but it leans strongly toward those who escalate quickly. Plenty of people doing .5mg every 2 weeks never get hit that hard.

Those sulfur burps iTs_Goochy brought up tend to show up in the early stretch too, and they normally fade over the first few weeks while the body gets used to things.

On the glucagon point, your breakdown matches my thinking. I should own that I was so focused on reaching a level where glucagon would actually matter that I overlooked my peak serum concentration. Hearing from @bgddy32 that my max blood serum level came in at 6.48 caught me off guard, and it bothered me that I had not factored that in. I am fairly sure that explains the dysesthesia I ran into, though the encouraging part is that after 2 weeks it has largely resolved.

 

[Zeptide]

bgddy32 said:

Zeptide said:

bgddy32 said:

Zeptide said:

I ran Tirz for 3 months, dropping 30 pounds. Wanting the glucagon agonist effect, I made the call to move over to Reta. Before doing anything, I put in a bunch of research on the right way to transition, and I weighed 3 paths: 1) a 2 week washout, which is what clinical trials call for 2) taper tirz down while ramping reta up, beginning at .5mg 3) swap over completely on the day my next tirz dose was due. Option 3 was my pick, since food noise isn't something I deal with and even at 5mg of tirz I had zero side effects (and yes, that's not a particularly high dose).

Because I was eager to reach an effective dose where glucagon would meaningfully kick in, I went with an aggressive titration schedule. Looking at the sigmoidal dosing curve for glucagon, as validated in the trials, I aimed for 3.5mg of reta.

How I titrated:

Day 0: 1mg

Day 5: 1mg

Day 10: 2mg

Day 15: 2.5mg

Day 20: 3mg

Day 25: 3.5mg

Day 32: 3.5mg

Maintain at 3.5mg weekly

Everything went smoothly, no side effects, until roughly a week after I reached 3.5mg, when dysesthesia showed up, which is that skin tingling and the sensation of a sunburn under your clothing. My guess is that titrating up too fast brought it on, though I see that 20% of trial participants get it. From what I read, it clears in about 2 weeks whether you quit reta or keep going, so I kept going. It has eased a lot, but about 2 weeks in it's still there.

My advice to others would be to titrate up more slowly than I did and give your body time to adjust to the new triple agonist. If anyone has gone through something similar or can speak to how long the dysesthesia took to resolve, I'd really like to hear it.

I've moved to split dosing and I'm wondering whether your weekly total was already above 6mg within the first month. My original plan was to copy the trial schedule of 1 injection per week, but 2mg in a single shot hit me too hard, so splitting it up is what I can tolerate. The trade-off is that it will take roughly 4 weeks before the amount built up in my body matches what 2mg once weekly would give.

If this is news to you, the half-life means the actual amount present after each injection works out like this:

DayDose AdministeredDays Since Last DoseAmount Remaining Before ShotTotal Peak Level After ShotDay 01.0 mg00.00 mg1.00 mgDay 51.0 mg50.56 mg1.56 mgDay 102.0 mg50.88 mg2.88 mgDay 152.5 mg51.61 mg4.11 mgDay 203.0 mg52.31 mg5.31 mgDay 253.5 mg52.98 mg6.48 mgDay 323.5 mg72.89 mg6.39 mg

Unlike my approach with Tirz, I decided against dividing the dose, since retatrutide has a longer half-life. My goal was to keep blood serum levels above 3.5 mg for most of the period I was targeting (which I hit after 15 days), so I picked the dose according to the trough rather than the peak. As you can see, by the close of the titration schedule my low serum level comes out to 2.84mg.

I've concluded this is too low, because I want the glucagon agonist active at all times, and that requires a trough nearer to 3.5 mg. So I've moved to splitting the dose: 1.75 every 3.5 days, which holds me at a 3.5 mg floor and a 5.25 mg ceiling. I'll follow this for a month and evaluate the results. Worth mentioning: my side effects of a pronounced resting heart rate increase and dysesthesia have largely disappeared. Whether they come back with the split dose will be interesting to observe, though I doubt it. A lot of people go with split dosing to manage side effects. That's what I'm hoping for.

That perspective on low serum levels is a fascinating angle. Appreciate the background — it's logical that certain people would aim to keep a baseline serum concentration at all times. My situation is reversed with split dosing: reaching the peak target takes a while, so I'm about to crunch some numbers to locate a comfortable middle ground!

In case this is news to you, there's a site called glp1plotter that's really good at showing serum levels graphically. You can use it to put different strategies side by side — for instance, splitting your dose versus taking it all at once each week, or shifting the interval between doses from 7 days down to 6.

 

[iTs_Goochy]

I've got something I want to ask: based on what I've come across, KLOW shouldn't be used forever, yet the positive effects are incredible. From what I understand, BPC-157 is the reason behind that. So then, why hasn't anyone begun compounding a mix along the lines of GHK-Cu / TB-500 / KPV? Maybe they could brand it with a catchy name such as FLOW. To me it looks like a clever move for controlling inflammation and preserving what GHK-cu offers, while TB-500 enables the compounds to be transported so they keep working effectively? Would this count as a revolutionary concept? I'm curious what other people think. Currently I'm taking 4mg of Reta and have dropped 20 lbs so far. Resisting unhealthy foods has become far simpler. I'm really enjoying it. In the past I could never turn down sweet snacks, I'd want them the way a vampire wants blood, honestly it was that extreme, but these days I feel like the vampires in Twilight.

 

[GBlad]

Overnitesuccess said:

AsterixNYC said:

iTs_Goochy said:

Hi everyone, I've just started using retatrutide. Tomorrow marks the beginning of my second week. My starting dose was 2mg, and so far things have been going well. I joined to hear about other people's experiences. Also, the KLOW blend has caught my attention.

That's intriguing! I'd like to know—what made you choose 2 mg as your starting point rather than something smaller? Was there a particular rationale behind it?

I'd like to understand the reasoning behind beginning with 2ml as well. From what I've observed, most individuals tend to start somewhere between .5-1ml

most likely it comes down to how much you weigh and your body makeup. i’m 5’8, 67kg, 21% bf and i’ve only just begun at 0.25mg. however if you’re bigger (similar to those in the trials, or if you’ve already been on other GLP’s) then beginning at 1-2mg is okay

 

[slimcharles]

iTs_Goochy said:

Hi everyone, I've just started using retatrutide. Tomorrow marks the beginning of my second week. My starting dose was 2mg, and so far things have been going well. I joined to hear about other people's experiences. Also, the KLOW blend has caught my attention.

Good to have you here. I only recently joined this forum too, and my experience with peptides overall is still fairly limited. Reta has been part of my routine for 2 months now, and I've worked my dose up to 3mg/week. Next week I'm planning to bump it to 4.

It definitely has a way of feeling like a lot to handle.

What I'd suggest is picking a single issue and focusing your effort there. After that's sorted, you can start looking into what comes next.

I ended up in a spot where I was trying to solve every piece at the same time, and that just left me lost in the details.

Still, you've found a really good spot to be in.