Rapamycin Cost
Let me clear some things up for people considering rapamycin (generic sirolimus). I am taking it and so are my dogs!! (I have a very open-minded vet who trusts my judgement.)
Dr. Green, a very impressive individual, gave me my personal prescription for sirolimus. I have a very good PPO (Blue Cross/Blue Shield). I took it to CVS, the affiliated pharmacy, and got a great price of about $2.90/mg. (Remember, you are only going to take about 3-6 mg/week.) With a PPO you can probably do this also. CVS wants to meter it to you with a month's worth of doses at a time, but that's just how they do things. You still have access to the full quantity prescribed.
With the prescription from my vet for my dogs, I was forced to take to the open sea. Armed with only a prescription and no insurance, the picture is quite different, but you can still get a good price. Cutting to the chase, I ended up at Walmart. The prescription was for 90 mg - price $1440. But wait! after presenting a coupon downloaded from GoodRX (that's right, just anonymously downloaded and printed) - price $396!!!! As my vet remarked, that's a hell of a charge for not looking around first! ($4.40/mg is better than taking a risk buying online, in my opinion.) Costco is pretty close to that price. At CVS/RiteAid, etc., you will pay vastly more.
You can't touch the original drug rapamune (Pfizer) unless you are wealthy or go to Canada. The problem with the online pharmacies is that a lot of them are scams. Just because they have a website doesn't mean anything. At least check to see if they have a brick and mortar location. Example: At one point I was excited by the online infomercials and wanted to take NMN instead of NR; however, when I looked up the reputations of the suppliers only one was unsullied, and on further investigation their brick and mortar location turned out to be a residential dwelling!
FYI, more than one company makes sirolimus. From CVS the sirolimus was made by Greenstone, LLC, apparently a wholly owned subsidiary of Pfizer.
Hope that helps some people who are considering rapamycin but think it might be out of their reach. If you know a doctor, great, but if you don't a visit to Dr. Green is worth the trip, and I live in CA! (round trip less than $300) Do your homework first and you will learn a great deal.
-
Has anyone tried commercial Rapamycin cream for the skin with any success? Any brands that work best? Does one also need a doctor’s prescription for just the cream? I’ve read people make it themselves but don’t know how they’d mix it effectively or even if the skin absorbs it well.
-
Paula Marie In the states I believe you do need a doc's script. I got one from a plastic surgeon I was talking with about blepharoplasty, but you could probably get it here: https://www.goodrx.com/fluorouracil (I have no affiliation)
My experience over one year - in order of what actually worked for me:
1. Retin-A
2. Fluorouracil
3. Home Brew Rapamycin cream ( As outlined somewhere on this forum, by Dr. Mark)
I tried a MULTITUDE of creams, oils, vitamins, supplements, red light, some other deally, where you rub a dildo looking thing on your face that heats up... I mean, it was disgusting the amount of things I tried and not because I'm a narcissist, but because I started looking like absolute shit. I spent more money on all of the above things than the 6K for my upper and lower bleph and an $80 a month script for the Retin-A.
Here's a side note. The whole HGH longevity thing is bullshit. You don't LOOK any younger on GH. You absolutely feel younger, though I lost a lot of my gray hair while I was using it. Skin-wise, I'm afraid you'd have to get into the body builder daily doses to seriously see a positive impact, if at all. However, I did have some positive objective aesthetic facial improvements, using a combination of CJC and BPC-157.
-
chuck stanley I'm unsure. I just started using what my doc wrote a script for and I seriously cannot believe the results AND it's only like $80 a pop. It's been far superior to my rapamycin home brew endeavors (according to Dr. Mark's formula) and I made several variations of differing strengths - because I'm generally impatient as hell.
There's tele-docs everywhere and I've tried a few. That route might work.
The doc that wrote this particular Retin-A script is located in Dallas and I guess he MIGHT be willing to consider a tele-client? though, he performed my bleph - in person. lol
Ivan Vrcek. He looks like he's 17 years old but he's absolutely amazing.
-
Michael Michael Thank you very much for your in-depth information! I just spent a considerable amount of money on a red led light therapy device (still waiting for it to arrive, and was also considering the electrical pulse skin devices) and already have the feeling it won’t work for all the skin rejuvenation claims it makes. I could slap myself. Hopefully, it will at least have some use for my dog’s arthritis, which it also claims to be able to help. I guess I just felt desperate.
-
-
Take into account "the most definitive role in dermatology for DMSO lies in its ability to act as an effective vehicle. It greatly enhances percutaneous penetration when used in combination with other substances. DMSO facilitates diffusion through the stratum corneum, triggers the formation of deposits in the dermis, and promotes transport into the local blood vessels" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3460663/). Meaning that it will take pills' fillers, if dissolved by DMSO, past stratum corneum, into your local blood. Fillers are designed to get transformed into innocuous substances in your stomach or gut, not to get straight into you skin and blood vessels. Just my two cents.
-
Engadin Zermatt well, that's an interesting point. Are there particular fillers that you would have concerns about? Dr. Thimineur did make a point that the mixture would be cloudy since the fillers would not be completely dissolved. But there is risk associated with using do-it-yourself topical rapamycin cream in the first place, so I think anyone who wants to use crushed tablets instead of powder would want to know if that poses an additional significant risk.
-
Engadin Zermatt Thank you for the interesting article!
-
Engadin Zermatt
For those with cosmetic skin issues throwing tarot cards.
Upper and Lower Bleph and Retin-A.
Far superior to any Rapamycin voodoo and the results are acquired in an extremely short period of time.
It's amazing.
-
-
2 of 2 – reply to Jay’s question
Jay Orman asked Mark Thimineur: Do you have any thoughts on how an average guy can find a doctor who will provide a prescription for weekly rapamycin therapy? (continues . . .)
Under the direction of Bill Faloon, and with assistance and direction by Brian Delaney (President, Age Reversal Network) and Maximus Peto (our website and forum administrator) we will soon go live with a new concept Age Management Telehealth Physicians. I’m managing the operations.
As the name implies, client/patients have consultations with an experienced age management physician remotely via our telehealth video portal. Clients will have personalized age management therapy programs created for them. There will be exceptions, but in general we will follow Bill's stairstep approach to biological age control, which includes rapamycin.
After lengthy preparation, we are close to beginning.
If you are interested please go here to send us your information.
-
JohnnyAdams This looks good. I hope it will be successful.
-
-
I've been searching for this kind of medical expertise in advance of my current physician who is retiring. When I submitted my information I got a message that says "processing". Its been over 5 minutes and its still processing. Is there another route to reach you?
-
chuck stanley Best to try again on the Age Reversal Network web site. Try a few different times, some days there's exceptional traffic or maintenance.
https://age-reversal.net/age-management-telehealth-updates/
But if that still doesn't work, send an email to AgeMgmtTelehealthPhysicians@gmail.com or call me at 949-922-9786
-
JohnnyAdams thanks, yes we already emailed and I live in Maryland so I understand I'm not eligible at this time.
-
-
I am reporting on the sad conclusion of my Sirolimus aquisition adventure. As some of you remember from my posts about 2-3 months ago, I ordered 10g Sirolimus for roughly 190USD and 1g dasatininb for also about 190USD from a Chinese company: Zhejiang Multinpharma Co., Ltd. The contact there was a "Rene" (rene@multin.cn). Took 200mg "dasatinib" powder over 2 days once and 6mg "Sirolimus" powder for the last 9 weeks (plus a face sirolimus face cream). Finally this week I got my blood tested for sirolimus at a German reference lab.
This Monday at 7am, I took 6mg sirolimus (600mg of a 1:100 dilution, carefully prepared, of the pure powder). At 9.30 am at roughly peak blood concentrations according to earlier studies, blood was withdrawn. Today, I got the result: <1µg/l (ng/ml). Basically not detectable Sirolimus levels in my blood.
I will discard all of the powder that Zhejian Multinpharm sent and tick it off as an important learning. No need for you to repeat this costly learning, that's why I am sharing this. Will have to look for an Indian supplier. chuck stanley - you will also be interested in this...:-)
-
Chris Los That is extremely disappointing! From a 6mg dose I would have expected at least 24ng/ml.
Thanks for sharing that information. In retrospect I believe the reps at Zhejiang Multinpharma served as middlemen, so the others of us who purchased from Zhejiang may or may not have been duped. It may depend on the agent as to which supplier's product is traded. (in my case, and those who recommended Zhejiang to me, our agent was "Rainbow").
In any event I will stop using my powder until I can get around to testing. And for the heck of it I may contact "Rainbow" about this to see if she wants to offer any explanation.
-
Chris Los I regret your very bad experience. Thanks for sharing this valuable information. I will certainly avoid Zhejiang Multinpharma Co., Ltd. You may want to share this experience with https://www.rapamycin.news/ . The more we can share information about reliable and unreliable companies the better for all of us.
-
-
Chris Los/Stanley. I can report the same experience.
My first sourcing foray into Rapamycin was with http://rapamycin.store/. This was referenced as a reputable outfit out of Australia, selling 4mg capsules. Very professional packaging, both the bottle and customs avoiding labelling (Rapa-Taurine). Cost approx 1 USD/mg landed. And I also understand why they only took bitcoin as payment, yet again, to avoid regulators. On the surface, seemed like a ton of effort to sell a fraudulent product? I had good technical support in my dosing (pre lab Sirolimus blood testing) phase.
After reading the Rapamycin pharmacokinetics literature (https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/S0009-9236(97)90192-2), learned that to capture Cmax peak, would require blood sampling within 30 mins-2hrs. To increase the chances of getting a positive signal, I designed a blood sampling experiment with full GFJ protocol (prior night intake, and AM prior to blood sampling). I drew baseline fasted AM blood as time = zero, consumed whole GFJ, then waited 60 mins, then took 8mg capsules, then sampled blood at 30, 60, 90, 120 minutes. All time stamp lab results came back as <2 µg/l (ng/ml), when it should have caught a level 10+.
I shared the results with provider, they were dumfounded to explain, but re-assured they were 100% legitimate providers of a certified Rapamycin product, but could not explain away my experiment. One of their principals was going to do their own personal n=1 Sirolimus blood experiment to replicate, but as of time of writing (my experiment conducted Sept 1, 21), I have had NO response to explain my results. So I abandoned them.
What is interesting though, is that my liver (GGT, ALP, ALT) and kidney markers (eGFR, Uric Acid), noticeably improved after I started on this Rapamycin source. Much of the recent blood DNA methylation literature has been focused on liver/kidney correlations.
Did I run a flawed experiment in someway?
I am expecting 2 gm powder from WuHan Hengheda Pharm Co.,Ltd any day, a provider that has been independently lab verified (multiple occasions) by another poster.
Will have the sample tested for Rapamycin, and if verified, will repeat same experiment shortly, and will report back.
-
MAC. Please keep us informed about WuHan Hengheda. This company is on my list of possibly reliable, but I'm still investigating.
-
MAC. thanks a lot for sharing. fingers crossed for the new shipment. pls do share blood results from the WuHan sirolimus. grateful for the intel! good luck
-
-
Hi MAC i have also used the same supplier and they informed me that due to customer feedback about blood levels (must have been yours) that they have created a new formulation which is absorbed subcutaneously. I have just received my first order in this form and will be trying it this evening.
http://rapamycin.store/transdermal-rapamycin-cream
They also sell D&Q and I have found them to be reliable if a bit slow.
-
Vega Rejuvinated Are you buying this transdermal product for internal systemic mTOR modification or simply for topical skin anti-aging benefit? I assume you are looking for systemic, since you made reference to your interest in vendor offering cream as "replacement" for capsules.
The vendor makes the following claim:
"Transdermal delivery is a perfect way to deliver Rapamycin into the body as it bypasses the digestive system which can breakdown rapamycin. This type of delivery is used to deliver such treatments as hormone replacement therapy. Transdermal cream will deliver Rapamycin into circulation through the skin...which bypasses any absorption issues"
There are NO scientific references/data to support their product claims. They take extreme license by equating their cream with HRT cream systemic efficacy.
The key is "into the body", which appears to be equating bioavailability similar to traditional oral route.
Some digging on topical/transdermal cream Rapamycin dosing formulations.
This study of topical Rapamycin:
"Topical Rapamycin reduces markers of senescence and aging in human skin: an exploratory, prospective, randomized trial"
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11357-019-00113-y
utilized a 0.001% concentration, and no results/discussion in relation to any measurable levels of blood Sirolimus.
This study
"Efficacy and Safety of Topical Rapamycin in Patients With Facial Angiofibromas Secondary to Tuberous Sclerosis Complex: The TREATMENT Randomized Clinical Trial"
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29800048/
utilizes a topical Rapamcyin for Facial Angiofibromas Secondary to Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC), at two dosing regiments, 0.1% and 1%. These are orders of magnitude more concentrated than the study above for anti-aging skin rejuvenation.
As for dosing, "Patients were provided the experimental product and instructed to apply 1 pump (1.0 mL) of product at bedtime to areas designated at the time of enrollment for 6 months."
So 1.0mL of the highest 1% concentration cream would deliver 10mg of Rapamycin to a very localized TSC area (in this study, facial)
What is most notable in this study "Serum Rapamycin was assessed in patient blood samples by immunoassay (lower limit of detection <0.5 ng/mL). Initially, blood samples were collected monthly from all patients. After Rapamycin was not detected in the first several hundred samples, monthly blood sampling was discontinued" So even daily dosing of 1% concentration did not deliver any systemic Rapamycin.
From my brief read of the the topical Rapamycin literature for human application, there is NO intention to deliver systemic wide detectable levels of Rapamycin akin to oral dosing. There is no FDA approved use of topical Rapamycin for any SYSTEMIC disease. https://www.drugs.com/pro/sirolimus.html#s-34067-9
Now back to Rapamycin.store transdermal cream product and the "into the body" Rapamycin delivery claim.
Vendor claims 120 mg in a 20ml of "transdermal cream". Assume the cream has the room temperature density of DSMO (1.1 g/cm3). So 120mg in 20 ml (22g) is equivalent to approximately 0.55% Rapamycin cream solution. Vendor also instructs "apply the desired amount to freshly washed and dried skin once weekly"
Now clearly from the Topical Rapamycin/TSC study above, there was NO RAPAMYCIN DETECTED at 1% cream concentration on DAILY dosing? So why would a 0.55% Rapamycin cream applied ONCE WEEKLY deliver systemic, blood detectable levels of Rapamycin? Even daily dosing would not produce blood detectable levels.
It would appear this vendor has replaced one unproven product with yet another.
-
MAC. very much agree with this! Keep in mind that Sirolimus is routinely used orally in organ transplant patients at around 2mg per day. Blood levels in steady state are around 4-10 ng/ml.
If our 6mg dosis measured at peak levels after ingestion (around 2 hours) does not show up in blood tests, this has nothing to do with absorption but everything with the nature of the substance! No sirolimus in the blood - no sirolimus in the powder or pill that you took.
Too many companies are feeding on our desperate efforts to get the magic pill...:-) Any changes in generic blood parameters then become a self-fulfilling prophecy...
Sometimes science is simple - if there is no sirolimus in the blood then you did not take sirolimus.
-
-
Thanks for the update. I haven't researched much this means of delivery, although yes, it does bypass gastric issues. The fact they abandoned oral capsules should be a signal to anyone taking oral Rapamycin outside a clinical setting...unless you do a blood test, it's hard to confirm the same pharmacokinetics of published scientific studies.
Do you have any references on pharmacokinetics of this route of administration? I also wonder how grapefruit juice might impact this modality, as CYP3A4 is expressed in both liver and intestines, and I assume transdermal goes directly to the liver, bypassing gastric?
This may be a "better" way (certainly very convenient, and not much more expense than their capsules per mg) AND possibly higher bioavailability per mg dosed compared to oral, which without GFJ, is typically less than 15%. Notwithstanding, transdermal in no way dismisses the long and proven history of oral administration and efficacy of clinical Rapamycin. Buying powder and self compounding also has a significant economic savings benefit although requiring some effort (but superior transdermal bioavailability might mitigate cost advantage of powder),
Would love for you to run a Sirolimus blood experiment and share findings, or any other symptomatic/blood marker results. Do you track your blood markers regularly, so you can possibly visualize impact of the cream?
-
Hi MAC I haven’t run any blood tests so far but I could easily do so. What markers would be interesting to follow?
-
Vega Rejuvinated Need a baseline reference panel, and then another after the Rapamycin dosing (assuming no other dietary/med/supplement changes, controlling for just Rapamycin). Not sure how long you should wait after you start dosing for the next panel. You need to allow for the full half life cycle build up, and your body to adjust to the Rapamycin. Maybe couple months? Also monitor your weight.
What is your dosing plan?
As for blood panel:
Sirolimus (preferably a multi blood draw every 30 mins for 2 hrs post dose)
Lipids
CBC
Glucose
hbA1c
hsCRP
eGFR
Albumin
Creatinine
Albumin/Creatinine
Uric Acid
ALT
ALP
GGT
Ferritin
-
-
The price is good, but is it just me, or does something seem not quite right about what I am hearing about rapamycin.store?
Mac tests less than 10% of what I would have expected in terms of blood level of sirolimus from an 8 mg dose, yet individual organ markers show noticeable improvement. How could that be?
Then manufacturer is dumbfounded and tells him they will run a test and get back with the results but never do?
They then promote a transdermal cream explaining that it was created because customers have complained about sirolimus blood levels from their oral capsules. Meanwhile they still sell the capsules.
It doesn’t add up yet.
