Severe fatigue in a super responder on Reta

Mcnugget2026

Mcnugget2026

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Has anyone else dealt with serious fatigue while taking Reta? I spent a year on Tirz and reached my goal weight.

Then I switched to Reta to burn fat, at 1.5mg per week, and after three weeks I was too tired. I returned to Tirz for a month. When I gave Reta another 3 weeks, I ended up taking two naps a day.

My sleep habits are solid, vitamin B is fine, D is slightly low but I'm addressing it, iron is a bit low and I'm supplementing (I don't eat red meat). Every day I take creatine, sublingual NMN, NAD+ nasal spray and NAC. Also CoQ10 supps.

I figured Semax could help, but it knocked me out. I've used MOT-C three times. I meant to keep it for workout days, but right now I barely exercise since I'm so wiped out. I get 8 hours of sleep at night and another hour in the afternoon. My diet is good, no fasting, with regular meals and snacks.

I'm 55 and have been using HRT pellets for five years. My energy has never been this low and I'm out of ideas.
 
Mcnugget2026 said:

Has anyone else dealt with serious fatigue while taking Reta? I spent a year on Tirz and reached my goal weight.

Then I switched to Reta to burn fat, at 1.5mg per week, and after three weeks I was too tired. I returned to Tirz for a month. When I gave Reta another 3 weeks, I ended up taking two naps a day.

My sleep habits are solid, vitamin B is fine, D is slightly low but I'm addressing it, iron is a bit low and I'm supplementing (I don't eat red meat). Every day I take creatine, sublingual NMN, NAD+ nasal spray and NAC. Also CoQ10 supps.

I figured Semax could help, but it knocked me out. I've used MOT-C three times. I meant to keep it for workout days, but right now I barely exercise since I'm so wiped out. I get 8 hours of sleep at night and another hour in the afternoon. My diet is good, no fasting, with regular meals and snacks.

I'm 55 and have been using HRT pellets for five years. My energy has never been this low and I'm out of ideas.
Click to expand...
After a month back on Tirz, did the exhaustion clear up? By that point, a low Reta dose should largely have left your system.

When you restarted Reta, were you feeling okay?

My worry is that if this kept dragging on, you might not have excluded a cause unrelated to GLP-1s.

If it continued across the Tirz phase and the Reta phase, I'd probably see a GP or arrange labs.

I'd be interested in what other people think.
 
Mcnugget2026 said:

Has anyone else dealt with serious fatigue while taking Reta? I spent a year on Tirz and reached my goal weight.

Then I switched to Reta to burn fat, at 1.5mg per week, and after three weeks I was too tired. I returned to Tirz for a month. When I gave Reta another 3 weeks, I ended up taking two naps a day.

My sleep habits are solid, vitamin B is fine, D is slightly low but I'm addressing it, iron is a bit low and I'm supplementing (I don't eat red meat). Every day I take creatine, sublingual NMN, NAD+ nasal spray and NAC. Also CoQ10 supps.

I figured Semax could help, but it knocked me out. I've used MOT-C three times. I meant to keep it for workout days, but right now I barely exercise since I'm so wiped out. I get 8 hours of sleep at night and another hour in the afternoon. My diet is good, no fasting, with regular meals and snacks.

I'm 55 and have been using HRT pellets for five years. My energy has never been this low and I'm out of ideas.
Click to expand...
Only 3 hours each night, plus a late-morning nap and another in the early evening (I cannot avoid it...).

That pattern is polyphasic sleep, the default human arrangement prior to industrialization: a first sleep, a second sleep, and a midday rest (though my schedule does not match those traditional timings).
 
Skidude said:

Mcnugget2026 said:

Has anyone else dealt with serious fatigue while taking Reta? I spent a year on Tirz and reached my goal weight.

Then I switched to Reta to burn fat, at 1.5mg per week, and after three weeks I was too tired. I returned to Tirz for a month. When I gave Reta another 3 weeks, I ended up taking two naps a day.

My sleep habits are solid, vitamin B is fine, D is slightly low but I'm addressing it, iron is a bit low and I'm supplementing (I don't eat red meat). Every day I take creatine, sublingual NMN, NAD+ nasal spray and NAC. Also CoQ10 supps.

I figured Semax could help, but it knocked me out. I've used MOT-C three times. I meant to keep it for workout days, but right now I barely exercise since I'm so wiped out. I get 8 hours of sleep at night and another hour in the afternoon. My diet is good, no fasting, with regular meals and snacks.

I'm 55 and have been using HRT pellets for five years. My energy has never been this low and I'm out of ideas.
Click to expand...
After a month back on Tirz, did the exhaustion clear up? By that point, a low Reta dose should largely have left your system.

When you restarted Reta, were you feeling okay?

My worry is that if this kept dragging on, you might not have excluded a cause unrelated to GLP-1s.

If it continued across the Tirz phase and the Reta phase, I'd probably see a GP or arrange labs.

I'd be interested in what other people think.
Click to expand...
That's a helpful idea, appreciate it. 🙏
 
During roughly the first 6 weeks at 2mg per week, I was exhausted too. What made a difference for me was bumping up electrolytes — sodium and potassium through the day, plus magnesium glycinate in the evening. These days, at 6mg every 5 days, I feel like myself again.
 
Mcnugget2026 said:

Has anyone else dealt with serious fatigue while taking Reta? I spent a year on Tirz and reached my goal weight.

Then I switched to Reta to burn fat, at 1.5mg per week, and after three weeks I was too tired. I returned to Tirz for a month. When I gave Reta another 3 weeks, I ended up taking two naps a day.

My sleep habits are solid, vitamin B is fine, D is slightly low but I'm addressing it, iron is a bit low and I'm supplementing (I don't eat red meat). Every day I take creatine, sublingual NMN, NAD+ nasal spray and NAC. Also CoQ10 supps.

I figured Semax could help, but it knocked me out. I've used MOT-C three times. I meant to keep it for workout days, but right now I barely exercise since I'm so wiped out. I get 8 hours of sleep at night and another hour in the afternoon. My diet is good, no fasting, with regular meals and snacks.

I'm 55 and have been using HRT pellets for five years. My energy has never been this low and I'm out of ideas.
Click to expand...
My dose is in a similar range, though I've been injecting 0.5mg roughly every 3-4 days for a while now. Tiredness and sluggishness haven't been an issue for me at all. The only thing off is my sleep. Given how the past few days have gone, I'm thinking my electrolytes need to go up because I've been getting muscle cramps at night.
 
To give a useful answer, I would need to know your start weight, current weight, and goal weight. What are your tirzepatide and reta doses as well? I am also unclear on why reta was chosen when tirzepatide already produced the weight loss you were after. Is your aim to gain muscle while simultaneously lowering body fat?

If tirzepatide is effective and well tolerated, the straightforward option is to stay with it; nothing shows reta does a better job of protecting muscle. That said, the decision hinges on your reason for preferring reta over tirzepatide.

Broadly speaking, reta raises sympathetic nervous system activity, which can make a faster heart rate or poorer sleep more likely, and most reports describe it as less tiring than tirzepatide. Even so, reactions to these medications differ enormously and are not always logical.

When fatigue appears only while on reta and disappears with tirzepatide, a physical illness as the root cause becomes less probable, though a routine exam and bloodwork would still be reasonable. Tiredness can stem from many things, such as eating too few calories, but none of those would shift based on whether you are taking reta or tirzepatide.
 
How long did you manage to keep going with it before you went back to tirzepatide? My own situation is a lot like sheila's. During the first 2 months it hit me hard — I simply had no energy at all, all the time, and because of that my workouts were mostly done with minimal effort.
 
In our case, the exhaustion and daytime sleeping caused by Reta disappeared by week 4-6. Even when increasing the dose now, it doesn't come back. It appears this happens to many people.
 
For roughly the first 6 weeks, I felt wiped out for a day or 2 following each pin, and that was at only .6mg. Now that 2 months have passed, it has eased up.
 
Mcnugget2026 said:

Has anyone else dealt with serious fatigue while taking Reta? I spent a year on Tirz and reached my goal weight.

Then I switched to Reta to burn fat, at 1.5mg per week, and after three weeks I was too tired. I returned to Tirz for a month. When I gave Reta another 3 weeks, I ended up taking two naps a day.

My sleep habits are solid, vitamin B is fine, D is slightly low but I'm addressing it, iron is a bit low and I'm supplementing (I don't eat red meat). Every day I take creatine, sublingual NMN, NAD+ nasal spray and NAC. Also CoQ10 supps.

I figured Semax could help, but it knocked me out. I've used MOT-C three times. I meant to keep it for workout days, but right now I barely exercise since I'm so wiped out. I get 8 hours of sleep at night and another hour in the afternoon. My diet is good, no fasting, with regular meals and snacks.

I'm 55 and have been using HRT pellets for five years. My energy has never been this low and I'm out of ideas.
Click to expand...
Are you ADHD? What effects does caffeine have on you?

Liquid IV, 2 on the day prior to pin day, 1 on the day itself with a PM pin Friday. Or perhaps it was 2 every day, I don’t have my notes. It got rid of my nappy Saturday (I’d go down for 4 hours!)
 
Foggy-Hollow said:

Mcnugget2026 said:

Has anyone else dealt with serious fatigue while taking Reta? I spent a year on Tirz and reached my goal weight.

Then I switched to Reta to burn fat, at 1.5mg per week, and after three weeks I was too tired. I returned to Tirz for a month. When I gave Reta another 3 weeks, I ended up taking two naps a day.

My sleep habits are solid, vitamin B is fine, D is slightly low but I'm addressing it, iron is a bit low and I'm supplementing (I don't eat red meat). Every day I take creatine, sublingual NMN, NAD+ nasal spray and NAC. Also CoQ10 supps.

I figured Semax could help, but it knocked me out. I've used MOT-C three times. I meant to keep it for workout days, but right now I barely exercise since I'm so wiped out. I get 8 hours of sleep at night and another hour in the afternoon. My diet is good, no fasting, with regular meals and snacks.

I'm 55 and have been using HRT pellets for five years. My energy has never been this low and I'm out of ideas.
Click to expand...
Are you ADHD? What effects does caffeine have on you?

Liquid IV, 2 on the day prior to pin day, 1 on the day itself with a PM pin Friday. Or perhaps it was 2 every day, I don’t have my notes. It got rid of my nappy Saturday (I’d go down for 4 hours!)
Click to expand...
I divide the Liquid IV powder between 2 Gatorade bottles. The sodium content is high.
 
I’m making the move from Reta back to Tirz, and the reasons are much the same. The exhaustion has been brutal, and on top of that I’ve lost any drive to do anything beyond forcing myself through the workday. I’ve spent 8 weeks on Reta, never went above 2mg, and increased the dose at a very gradual pace.
 
For a short while, I dealt with it, but fatigue hasn't hit me in quite a while. I've been outside in 98* conditions putting lights up on my house and working outdoors, and I'm not young anymore.
 
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