ronin365 said:
I began Reta at 2mg, titrating aggressively and making changes according to what I observed in results and side effects. During that first week at 2 mg, I couldn't sleep at all the first night. For the remainder of the week I had mild insomnia, plus powerful appetite suppression and the edema in my ankles disappeared completely. I was down two pounds, which I figure was mostly water rather than fat, since the swelling vanished.
Week two I moved to 3mg and, because injecting at night had caused insomnia, I began injecting in the morning instead. Mild insomnia still showed up but faded as the week went on, and I lost slightly under two pounds. Nothing else stood out as a side effect.
Week three I went to 4mg, divided into 2mg shots — one in the morning, one in the afternoon. That's when altered skin sensations began, very minor and tolerable. They were mostly located around the shoulders, across the abdomen, and on the thighs. At weigh-in I had lost roughly a pound and a half.
I held at 4mg for another two weeks, with nothing new beyond those skin sensations. At this point I was stacking MOTS-c and GLOW. During the third week of 4mg dosing, weight loss stopped. I also noticed the appetite suppression wearing off before day six arrived after the previous dose.
So I raised it to 5mg. Appetite suppression became far stronger — honestly, extreme. The altered sensations, both inside my body and on my skin, ramped up a lot. It felt like chills, burning, and the start of the flu hitting me simultaneously. Being bumped or jostled hurt. Even so, it was tolerable, just extremely noticeable.
Around the bellybutton, near the injection sites, I had a few episodes of intense itching. That resolved within a few days.
Red-light sauna, hot showers, and exercise gave me short-term relief from the altered skin sensations, though they weren't unbearable. I kept up the GLOW and MOTS-c stack. Weight loss picked back up and another pound came off.
As I remember it, I stayed at 5mg for two weeks. The loss was consistent, about a pound each week. I was curious whether 6mg would accelerate the weight loss. At 6mg I started having an aversion to meat, and the altered sensations were maybe a touch stronger — still tolerable. Eating became far too hard, though, and my gym performance dropped. I went back down to 5 mg and have remained there. Weight loss has stayed fairly consistent at a pound to a pound and a half.
Through the holidays and past the new year, I kept losing weight.
Most of the altered skin sensations are gone now, and since starting in early November last year I'm down 30+ pounds.
From what I understand, 6mg is still a sizable dose, even though studies have gone up to 12mg. Based on my experience, bigger doses don't automatically mean better outcomes, and side effects clearly depend on the dose as well as how much time you allow your body to adapt.
All in all I'm happy with how my research is going, and for the time being 5mg appears to be my sweet spot. My main gripe is feeling more fatigued at the gym, and I've been napping more since I stopped cycling MOTS-c (it seems it was helping me more than I realized).
