Would you use a peptide with sterility problems if filtration fixed them?

[tendency]

So I got a kit of GHK-cu. After pinning for 2 days, I came down with a really bad rash. Naturally, I quit the pep. Then I tried another vendor and everything was fine. So it seems it wasn't a GHK-cu reaction. After that, I went back to the first GHK-cu pep that had caused the rash, but this time I FILTERED it. I've been pinning it again for several days now with no problems. That makes me think there's some kind of bacterial contamination in this original GHK-cu batch.

My question to everyone: if filtering took care of it, would you personally keep using this kit of copper even though it probably has a sterility issue?

 

[Redz]

Toss it.

 

[ladyj779]

GHK-Cu costs so little that my first instinct would be to bin it.

Hang on, actually, I'm a cheapskate too. What I'd likely do is blend it into a serum, then patch test it on my skin to check for any reaction. Assuming my skin didn't react, I'd go ahead and apply it topically.

 

[Silver]

100% bin it, personally

 

[tendency]

Initially I figured the same thing — 'meh, into the bin it goes.' Then I ran my filtering test, and it made me reconsider: someone who filters every pep without fail would have zero clue anything was wrong, and would go through the whole kit without a second thought.

Numbers differ by source, but the rough range thrown around is 15-20% of grey peps not passing sterility, which is among the main arguments for why filtering gets pushed so hard.

So honestly, I'm torn. Sure, GHK-cu doesn't cost much. But on the flip side, there's no guarantee a replacement kit wouldn't also fail. Hmmmm, hmmm..

 

[Calm Logic]

Maybe sterility was never the problem. What you experienced might have been a reaction to the excipients from the start. Or it could simply have been a stroke of bad luck.

 

[tendency]

Calm Logic said:

Maybe sterility was never the problem. What you experienced might have been a reaction to the excipients from the start. Or it could simply have been a stroke of bad luck.

Yeah, that thought had occurred to me too .. it's just strange that the filtering made it go away. Maybe I'll 'test' another vial. At first I figured it was copper uglies, but the rash showed up around the 2nd pin, which felt too soon for that — though I can't say for certain.

So far the rash looks harmless. It resembled eczema and went away fast once I quit the injections.

 

[Pocket]

Bacteria in the pep can be removed by filtration, but endotoxins cannot be filtered out. Once bacteria are present in your vial, endotoxins are present as well, and the toxins they produce increase the longer the bacteria remain. So personally, I would not keep pinning this at all.

 

[CNCCurrency]

tendency said:

So I got a kit of GHK-cu. After pinning for 2 days, I came down with a really bad rash. Naturally, I quit the pep. Then I tried another vendor and everything was fine. So it seems it wasn't a GHK-cu reaction. After that, I went back to the first GHK-cu pep that had caused the rash, but this time I FILTERED it. I've been pinning it again for several days now with no problems. That makes me think there's some kind of bacterial contamination in this original GHK-cu batch.

My question to everyone: if filtering took care of it, would you personally keep using this kit of copper even though it probably has a sterility issue?

yes

 

[tendency]

Pocket said:

Bacteria in the pep can be removed by filtration, but endotoxins cannot be filtered out. Once bacteria are present in your vial, endotoxins are present as well, and the toxins they produce increase the longer the bacteria remain. So personally, I would not keep pinning this at all.

I'm not convinced that's the mechanism. Several test reports I've come across showed peptides failing sterility, yet endotoxin results were clean. These are distinct contaminants, and the presence of one doesn't necessarily mean the other is there—or at least, that's how I understand it.

What evidence is this claim built on?

 

[BrightCandle]

A lot of vials don't pass sterility testing — most people just figure that's how it is instead of shelling out for the test. Like I've said before, if you mix with sterile water and grab a ready-made sterile agar (roughly $10 for 10 on amazon), you can drop a little of the reconstituted solution onto the agar right after cracking it open (keep air exposure down, and ideally use a flame too so airborne bacteria get killed), and that tells you whether the vial is sterile. They fail nearly every time.

So filtering isn't optional — once you've had the kit checked for mass, purity and endotoxins, it belongs at the front of your normal routine. Mass and purity prove you got what you paid for, while endotoxins can't be removed by a filter, so if they're there you're stuck with a risk you can't do anything about. Bacteria, mould and foreign objects, though, can be dealt with using a $1 filter plus a $1 sterile vial or cartridge, and correctly made BAC water also gradually kills them off across weeks, keeping levels down through the month you're using it.

 

[Pocket]

tendency said:

Pocket said:

Bacteria in the pep can be removed by filtration, but endotoxins cannot be filtered out. Once bacteria are present in your vial, endotoxins are present as well, and the toxins they produce increase the longer the bacteria remain. So personally, I would not keep pinning this at all.

I'm not convinced that's the mechanism. Several test reports I've come across showed peptides failing sterility, yet endotoxin results were clean. These are distinct contaminants, and the presence of one doesn't necessarily mean the other is there—or at least, that's how I understand it.

What evidence is this claim built on?

https://www.shieldscientific.com/gl...in-contamination-on-sterile-cleanroom-gloves/

 

[AcadiaPeptides]

ladyj779 said:

GHK-Cu costs so little that my first instinct would be to bin it.

Hang on, actually, I'm a cheapskate too. What I'd likely do is blend it into a serum, then patch test it on my skin to check for any reaction. Assuming my skin didn't react, I'd go ahead and apply it topically.

 

[tendency]

Pocket said:

tendency said:

Pocket said:

Bacteria in the pep can be removed by filtration, but endotoxins cannot be filtered out. Once bacteria are present in your vial, endotoxins are present as well, and the toxins they produce increase the longer the bacteria remain. So personally, I would not keep pinning this at all.

I'm not convinced that's the mechanism. Several test reports I've come across showed peptides failing sterility, yet endotoxin results were clean. These are distinct contaminants, and the presence of one doesn't necessarily mean the other is there—or at least, that's how I understand it.

What evidence is this claim built on?

https://www.shieldscientific.com/gl...in-contamination-on-sterile-cleanroom-gloves/

I went through the article quickly, and I can't find any part of it that supports what you said about a peptide vial that fails sterility also having endotoxins.

 

[Pocket]

tendency said:

Pocket said:

tendency said:

Pocket said:

Bacteria in the pep can be removed by filtration, but endotoxins cannot be filtered out. Once bacteria are present in your vial, endotoxins are present as well, and the toxins they produce increase the longer the bacteria remain. So personally, I would not keep pinning this at all.

I'm not convinced that's the mechanism. Several test reports I've come across showed peptides failing sterility, yet endotoxin results were clean. These are distinct contaminants, and the presence of one doesn't necessarily mean the other is there—or at least, that's how I understand it.

What evidence is this claim built on?

https://www.shieldscientific.com/gl...in-contamination-on-sterile-cleanroom-gloves/

I went through the article quickly, and I can't find any part of it that supports what you said about a peptide vial that fails sterility also having endotoxins.

With respect, I didn't claim that a peptide which fails a sterility test would necessarily have endotoxins as well. What I said was: if bacteria are present in a peptide, endotoxins will be present too, and the longer those bacteria remain, the greater the amount of endotoxin that is likely to accumulate.

 

[Calm Logic]

BrightCandle said:

A lot of vials don't pass sterility testing — most people just figure that's how it is instead of shelling out for the test. Like I've said before, if you mix with sterile water and grab a ready-made sterile agar (roughly $10 for 10 on amazon), you can drop a little of the reconstituted solution onto the agar right after cracking it open (keep air exposure down, and ideally use a flame too so airborne bacteria get killed), and that tells you whether the vial is sterile. They fail nearly every time.

So filtering isn't optional — once you've had the kit checked for mass, purity and endotoxins, it belongs at the front of your normal routine. Mass and purity prove you got what you paid for, while endotoxins can't be removed by a filter, so if they're there you're stuck with a risk you can't do anything about. Bacteria, mould and foreign objects, though, can be dealt with using a $1 filter plus a $1 sterile vial or cartridge, and correctly made BAC water also gradually kills them off across weeks, keeping levels down through the month you're using it.

Typically by 16 hours later, based on a study shared earlier:

Sterility and use patterns of multiple-dose vials - PubMed



The viability of microorganisms in multiple-dose vials (MDVs) and the use and in-use contamination rate of MDVs were investigated. Serial tenfold dilutions of stationary cultures of Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were injected into 30-ml MDVs containing bacteriostatic agents, and...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Deliberately contaminated...Only one product was positive in 16 hours, and none was positive beyond that time.

Click to expand...

Peppy's ran a fairly similar experiment, where filtering and BAC produced comparable outcomes individually, judged by a basic visual check.

 

[Chili777]

I run all my peps through a filter regardless, and up to now there haven't been any problems. According to Jano, whenever a pep flunks endotoxin testing it also flunks sterility testing, though the reverse isn't true—some peps that fail sterility still pass endos. If I filtered it and the second attempt caused no reaction, would I still use it? Absolutely. That's exactly the point of using filters.

 

[tendency]

Chili777 said:

I run all my peps through a filter regardless, and up to now there haven't been any problems. According to Jano, whenever a pep flunks endotoxin testing it also flunks sterility testing, though the reverse isn't true—some peps that fail sterility still pass endos. If I filtered it and the second attempt caused no reaction, would I still use it? Absolutely. That's exactly the point of using filters.

Yep, I've landed in the same place on this. Right now I'm taking it easy with a 2nd vial — reconstituted it, ran it through a filter, and I'm pinning that. No problems yet. What actually went wrong is anyone's guess. My guess was that sterility was somehow compromised, since filtering fixed things, but as Calm Logic pointed out, it might just as easily be the excipients.

 

[Chili777]

tendency said:

Chili777 said:

I run all my peps through a filter regardless, and up to now there haven't been any problems. According to Jano, whenever a pep flunks endotoxin testing it also flunks sterility testing, though the reverse isn't true—some peps that fail sterility still pass endos. If I filtered it and the second attempt caused no reaction, would I still use it? Absolutely. That's exactly the point of using filters.

Yep, I've landed in the same place on this. Right now I'm taking it easy with a 2nd vial — reconstituted it, ran it through a filter, and I'm pinning that. No problems yet. What actually went wrong is anyone's guess. My guess was that sterility was somehow compromised, since filtering fixed things, but as Calm Logic pointed out, it might just as easily be the excipients.

Mold and bacteria get taken out by filtration. A Jano sterility test looks at Total Aerobic Microbial Count (TAMC) plus Total Yeast and Mold Count (TYMC), and each one gets a Pass/Fail. From a childhood episode I already know I have an allergy to certain molds, and it needed treatment, so on its own that is enough to make me uneasy. So sure, the trigger in your case is anyone's guess, but filtration does the job. Excipients could be the culprit, though every pep contains them. My advice would be to just keep an eye out for a pattern from here on.

 

[Calm Logic]

ISRs are a common complaint with GHK-Cu. That's why I'd bet the first reaction came from the GHK-Cu compound itself. The most severe ISR I ever had resembled road rash, and it never came back. When I use GHK-Cu, my routine is to reconstitute with saline BAC and then add KPV. I also picked up plain GHK (no copper) to blend and test down the road.

As for excipients, they're a less probable culprit, but without an LCMS you can't really rule them out, and honestly even with one I'm not certain you'd get a definitive answer. A while back, SRY put out something with an odd excipient that turned out to be a recognized detergent or similar. Earlier still, BFF appeared to have a harsh excipient in their mix, at least until they reformulated.