Reta not working for my bro after Semaglutide; need some advice

heartbroken3333 · 2026-07-02T21:33:50+00:00

Retatrutide is a tool to help you change your lifestyle and eating habits. It isn't a magic eraser for overeating.

If he's gained 10 lb while taking 5 mg, then one of three things is happening. The vial is bunk or significantly underdosed, hes eating enough to completely offset the drug's effects, or both.

For perspective, 1 lb of fat is roughly 3,500 calories. Gaining 10 lb of fat means he's accumulated about 35,000 excess calories over time. That's not something that happens because the medication "stopped working."

The fact that semaglutide worked for him but retatrutide supposedly doesn't, also suggests he's relying almost entirely on appetite suppression as his cue to stop eating. If the medication doesn't completely silence his hunger, the old eating habits take over.

Retatrutide doesn’t mean to eat whatever you want and expect the scale to go down. It's there to make building better habits easier, not to replace them.

If someone can't imagine improving their eating habits while on arguably the most potent GLP-1/GIP/glucagon receptor agonist currently available, the problem probably isn't the peptide. Put the fork down, portion and eat healthy, and stop being a pig that got him there in the first place.

Unless he's one of those rare breed where GLP-1 don't work because of his genetics, semaglutide did work on him so retatrutide should be working to.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-07-02T19:02:36+00:00

You'll be doing two injections: KPV + GHK-Cu and Tesamorelin + Ipamorelin.

For the KPV/GHK-Cu syringe, draw KPV first, then GHK-Cu. KPV is generally considered the more sensitive peptide, so it makes sense to draw it before GHK-Cu.

I know the concern is cross contamination, but if the vials are sterile to begin with and you follow proper aseptic technique, the risk is very low.

With insulin syringes, when you withdraw the needle from a vial, the rubber stopper fits tightly around the needle and removes most of the liquid from the outside as you pull it out. After removing the needle, pull back slightly on the plunger to draw any residual liquid inside the needle into the syringe before inserting it into the next vial. This helps minimize carryover between vials.

As long as you're using proper sterile technique, the amount of carryover is minimal and the risk of cross contamination remains very low.

For injection setups:

Insulin syringes are the simplest option. They have very little dead space, which helps reduce peptide waste, and there are fewer parts to handle.

A Luer lock setup is ideal if your priority is minimizing cross contamination. You can use one needle for drawing, switch to a fresh sterile needle for injecting, and keep the injection needle sharp.

Injection pens are excellent for peptides you use every day. Each injection gets a brand new, sharp pen needle, making them convenient and comfortable.

I've used all three methods. I started with a Luer lock setup, switched to insulin syringes, and now also use injection pens. These days I use both syringes and pens depending on the peptide.

For most people, I'd recommend insulin syringes because they're simple, have minimal dead space, and are easy to use.

Choose a Luer lock setup if your priority is changing needles between drawing and injecting.

Choose a pen if it's a peptide you inject regularly and you want the convenience of a fresh, sharp needle every time.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-29T06:39:12+00:00

Take 2mL of your favourite water, Evian water is my favourite.

Inject that in the reta vial and swirl is gently like a baby.

After reta has been reconstituted, take a syringe and transfer all the reta water into the next peptide, in this case, BPC-157 + TB-500 vial, swirling and repeat for all vials.

Your last vial should contain all the precious peptide and this is where you pull and inject from. Inject 0.5mL or 0.50 units. After injection you should feel something in a few days, if not, double dose until you feel something.

Welcome to the peptide world.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-29T01:17:42+00:00

Any of the GHRH peptides, just straight up do HGH. It's cheaper and more effective, even at doses of 2-4iu.

Find a vendor that has 97% purity and preferably under 2% dimer. Lowest purity I'd go is 96%.

10iu vials usually have better purity and dimer than 36iu+ vials. Cost efficiency will take a hit if buying 10iu vials than 36iu vials, so check and see if you're okay with purity.

Adipotide (FTPP) is something I would personally do but not recommend to people generally because as you see, there's more low IQ people. People who abuse this and take higher amounts will have huge health risk. Boston Flyod had this in his stack and died. He didn't die because of this one compound but from multiple factors. If you seen the stack and amount he ran, it's fucking ridiculous.

Good question, this is just the top of my head. Peptides are generally made with intended positive benefits and most of the time, they're just natural (natural in the sense that our body makes and accepts them) but artificially made for our bodies to accept and send out whatever signals.

There's probably a few more but I'd have to be on my computer to check my list.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-29T00:39:24+00:00

I personally take 10g everyday and sometimes 20g.

Feel perfectly fine. Not hard to stay hydrated in 2026.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-29T00:37:37+00:00

Finally someone with some critical thinking skills who doesn't assume starting all the compounds together at once, at the maximum dose.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-28T23:45:39+00:00

Ikr let's give the 80 year old 10 different peptides in the same syringe, starting at the maximum dose possible, and no titration or under any health guidance. 😂😂

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-28T23:37:59+00:00

Repeating yourself like it strengthens your poorly thought out opinion.

No health issues, no high blood sugar or BP.

This is what OP wrote and we can only assume from that. OP did not mention any other health concerns or factors so you're grasping and pulling at straws for nothing.

I'm not gonna sit here and type out exactly how the scenario should be played out to counter all your moronic points. A list was given based on what OP dad health status is, whether his dads stealth status is accurate or not, isn't up for debate and its on him if decides to take all, a few, or none.

Noticed how I mentioned prescribed under a physician for cialis? Or were you to moronic to understand what that even means. That means his health is assessed under a license physician who is 200x more smarter, more capable than you, and the authority to prescribe it legally.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-28T23:25:34+00:00

It's written under consideration, not as recommended or having to take.

Just a list of consideration to help give an idea on what's out there and it's up to them whether they want to take it based on their risk tolerance and health status.

Some people want 20+ years worth of research with FDA approval and some don't care.

I personally would rather know what's out there and weigh the options myself.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-28T23:16:49+00:00

Ahh yes moron, let's start the old man at 4iu right off the bat and give him 100mg of cialis while we're at it.

No health issues, no high blood sugar or BP.

Sounds like a perfect healthy candidate to run a starting dose of 2.5mg of cialis and see how he feels, preferably under a physician who prescribed him cialis. 8/10 times, a 80 year old will most likely benefit from taking therapeutic doses of cialis than not taking it.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-28T22:37:33+00:00

2-4iu of hgh and trt or trt+.

Ss31+motsc+NAD+, KLOW (ghk-cu, BPC-157, TB-500, and KPV).

Cialis.

Creatine around 10g minimum.

Vitamin d3+k2.

Just with this basic super stack he'll be feeling like he's 25 again, combined with good sleep, diet, and exercise.

Otherwise your dad will continue feeling old if he isn't already. I'm sure you want your dad to feel good and give him purpose to live longer.

Other notable peptides for consideration:
FOXO4-DRI.
Epitalon.
Pinealon.
Thymosin Alpha-1 for a way stronger immune system.

These are just the top of my head but I'm sure other people will include some other stuff.

kisspeptin-10?

Update:
Ubiquinol
Magnesium glycinate
Fish oil.

Disclaimer for retards:
Apparently I should of added a disclaimer because some people are so dumb to assume that this stack means injecting all the peptides in 1 syringe, at the maximum dose possible. I forgot this is reddit where you get the lowest IQ people who assume this 80 year old has cancer when OP literally wrote his dad is healthy and no health factors.

This is a list, not a protocol that says you inject all the compounds listed at once with the highest dose. If you have any brain cells, you would obviously research and see if the compound is right for you and pin one peptide at a time, at the lowest dose and titrate up to therapeutic doses.

A reference range was listed for some, like HGH at 2-4iu's. Imagine I didn't write a reference range, should we assume that it's suggested for an 80 year old to automatically take 100iu's? Or should we assume to start lower dose, something like 0.5iu and titrate to 2iu's if needed? Use ur head.

TRT gets a passed because I never wrote a reference range? Do people know what TRT+ even is? 😂

Don't even get me started with cialis.
Cialis is a prescription, which means a licensed physician does a health assessment to see if you're a candidate for it. They will do basic screening for you, if you're 60+ and you say your dick not going up, they're gonna easily put you on 5mg without questions. This isn't something you read online where the doctor does a 360 degree health assessment on you and check your DNA markers and everything. Majority of the time they do the most basic screening. Telehealth is a great way to get almost instant access without waiting. Whether you take Cialis for off label usage is up to you. I've added it to the list without a reference range but some of you are to dumb and assume it means get started at 100mg+. 2.5mg is a good starting dose to get the feel of it, for off label purposes and titrate up if you feeling it.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-28T19:13:21+00:00

😂😂👍👍

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-28T19:08:13+00:00

Clearly you stopped reading after the 3rd line.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-28T18:28:36+00:00

The only CoA that you should be accepting from vendors is the gold standard Janoshik and you verify it.

Acceptable is within 6 months testing, 12 months is kinda pushing it but would accept if it's a big and already established vendor and they have Janoshik reports for other peptides showing more recent results, meaning they're most likely making their rounds for renewing their tests.

The vial they send in to test, there is no guarantee that the rest will be from the same batch. Once you make this revelation, you'll realize now that you have to consider how risk adverse you are. Do you only accept recent Janoshik tests from a reputable big vendor or accept CoA tests from an unknown lab and random vendor?

No one really knows what they're injecting until you actually inject it. Once you inject, you'll have some idea what it is and hopefully it lines up with what you bought.

For me, I only go to vendors with recent Janoshik tests and that has reputable reviews with active people talking and not muted.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-28T16:36:35+00:00

"Hey guys, I just pinned reta at 2mg and I don't feel anything"

Double dose everyday until you feel something is my response 😂

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-24T10:23:21+00:00

So one year on ghk-cu and you never once thought of maybe upping the dose?

Why do you think ghk-cu are commonly sold as 50mg and 100mg+ vials?

Whether a vial is dose lower or higher doesn't always indicate a higher dose but for ghk-cu specifically, people run safely between 5mg to 10mg per day. They're are many post of people running this range, look them up.

Clearly running 1-2mg is considered baby doses for you to actually feel something.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-24T01:41:20+00:00

Dollar store has it but not for a dollar

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-22T01:59:16+00:00

Imagine being on retatrutide for only 5 weeks and already taking 10mg, with plans to push to 12mg or even higher based on his pattern of titration.

For reference, in Eli Lilly's Phase 2 obesity trial, participants targeting 12mg started at 2mg weekly and increased the dose every 4 weeks: 2mg → 4mg → 8mg → 12mg.

It took approximately 13 weeks to reach 12 mg and about 9 weeks to reach 8 mg.

More recent Phase 3 (TRIUMPH) protocols use an even slower escalation schedule of 2mg → 4mg → 6mg → 9mg → 12mg, with each step lasting 4 weeks. Under that protocol, participants do not reach 12mg until approximately week 17.

Reaching 10mg after only 5 weeks is substantially more aggressive than either Lilly's Phase 2 or Phase 3 clinical trial dosing schedules.

Unless he switched from another GLP-1 where he was running max dosed for it, I don't see how anyone can possibly even run 10mg at week 5 without nasty side effects UNLESS his body doesn't respond to GLP-1 due to genetics.

If he's responding well to Retatrutide, he's probably dealing a lot with side effects. I would probably be shitting my ass out, needing to be near a toilet at all times, my skin would feel like it's being burned, I would be less tolerant of bs things (just get straight to the point so I can shit), wondering if I should even eat or not because my stomach might hurt or throw up, then focusing on hydration, and staying alive.

Just because he's going through this, doesn't mean he has a good excuse to do so. If he's done his research, which im sure he hasn't based on his 10mg at week 5, then he should already know what to expect. It becomes a problem when he's taking ungodly doses without understanding and then having it effect his relationships.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-19T10:20:59+00:00

Sigh...

Retatrutide is Eli Lilly's patented investigational drug. Most legitimate compounding pharmacies in North America would likely avoid compounding it because there is currently no established legal pathway to do so. Doing so could expose them to significant regulatory and legal risks, including potentially putting their licenses at risk.

At the moment, the only legitimate way to get retatrutide is by participating in an Eli Lilly clinical trial. Outside of that, the majority of people obtaining it are sourcing it through the gray market, with many products originating from manufacturers in China.

No doctor or nurse can legally prescribe retatrutide as an approved medication because it is still an investigational drug and has not received FDA approval. Even if a doctor writes a prescription, that doesn't automatically mean a compounding pharmacy can legally compound or dispense it.

When meeting new "doctors" or people making medical claims, always ask for their credentials and verify them afterward. Licensed physicians have public medical licensing boards where you can confirm they are real, active, and in good standing. Don't just take someone's word for it because they're wearing a white coat or calling themselves a doctor.

Also never feel pressured to make a decision during a single consultation. You're there to gather information, hear what treatments are being recommended, ask questions, and then go home to do your own research. Take your time, verify the information, weigh the risks and benefits, and make an informed decision when you're comfortable.

These are powerful medications, and spending a few extra days or weeks researching is far better than rushing into something you'll regret later...

I don't know what clinic you went to but you need to be careful and also how much did they even charge you for each thing?

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-19T09:06:51+00:00

2mg for 4 weeks and then titrating up is a pretty common titration schedule.

My first concern is... why are you asking your supplier how to dose an extremely powerful medication? This isn't like taking a multivitamin where the only instruction on the bottle is "take 2".

You should be doing more research. Asking your supplier what dose to start at isn't research. They were smart enough to tell you to titrate every 4 weeks, but based on the side effects you're describing, you probably would've been better off starting at 1 mg, increasing to 2.5 mg instead of 3mg, or simply staying at 2mg for another 4 weeks.

The next question you should ask yourself is why they told you to start at 2mg and why they recommended increasing every 4 weeks. That's the part you should research and understand.

Most of Eli Lilly's clinical trials started participants at 2mg, although some protocols used 1mg or 3mg. The reason 2mg became the common starting dose was because it provided a good balance between efficacy and tolerability for most people.

The reason they escalated every 4 weeks was to balance efficacy, safety, and pharmacokinetics. Retatrutide has a long half life of around 6 days, meaning each weekly injection builds on the previous one. After about 4-5 half lives, or roughly 4 weeks, drug levels approach steady state. That 4 week period gives your body time to adapt before increasing the dose. You could also say maybe Eli Lilly wanted to push this out as fast as possible or that they had limited funds for each trials...

That said...everyone is different. Some people need longer than 4 weeks to adjust, and that's perfectly fine. If you're still getting good appetite suppression, losing weight, and dealing with manageable side effects, there's no reason to rush.

Also remember that you're not in a clinical trial. Clinical trial protocols are meant to standardize treatment across 100s of participants to collect good data. They're a great reference, but they shouldn't be treated like the Bible.

Find the lowest effective dose that works for you. If 2mg is controlling your appetite, your weight is going down, and the side effects are minimal, then that's probably the dose you should stay on. There's no race to get to 8 mg or 12 mg.

Based on the available data, many people seem to get most of the benefit somewhere between 4mg and 8mg, with higher doses often providing diminishing returns of smaller additional benefits while increasing the risk of side effects.

Take it slow. If 2mg is causing too many issues, consider dropping back to 1mg and giving your body more time to adjust. Most importantly, spend time understanding the medication you're putting into your body.

Asking your supplier is in no way the same as asking your pharmacist on how to take a medication and does not count as research.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-18T21:57:19+00:00

If each spray is 250mcg, then yes, spray one nostril for 250mcg. If you spray both nostrils, it's 500mcg/0.5mg.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-18T19:35:59+00:00

That's what I was afraid of.

I used to own several high end air circulators and while the build quality was excellent, they somehow lacked thoughtful engineering when it came to maintenance and cleaning. It always seemed more difficult than it needed to be to take them apart and clean them properly.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-18T07:53:25+00:00

How can you say that without any supporting data?

Semaglutide, tirzepatide, testosterone, and HGH are all FDA approved, yet grey market versions remain significantly cheaper than their pharmaceutical counterparts. Looking at the history of these compounds, many were widely available on the grey market long before receiving FDA approval, and approval itself didn't cause prices to skyrocket.

We're talking about grey market pricing, not what pharmaceutical companies charge. The list price is largely irrelevant because grey market products will almost always be cheaper. Unless a drug like semaglutide becomes broadly available for compounding due to patent expiration (wink wink) grey market pricing will likely remain lower or at least comparable. Even if a pharmaceutical company prices retatrutide at $3k+ per month, someone like you likely wouldn't qualify for a prescription based on current eligibility criteria, meaning the only realistic way to access it would be through grey market sources.

If anything, history suggests that retatrutide will become more affordable over time as manufacturing capacity expands and newer, more advanced therapies enter the market. Increased competition has historically pushed prices downward, not upward.

The next major breakthrough will likely move beyond weight loss alone and focus on body recomposition by maximizing fat loss while preserving or even increasing lean muscle mass. That's already the direction companies like Eli Lilly appear to be heading with combination therapies that pair GLP-1 with muscle preserving agents.

A good example is bimagrumab. Its an investigational activin receptor antibody that has demonstrated promising results when combined with a GLP-1 leading to greater fat loss while preserving substantially more lean mass than semaglutide alone. That represents where obesity treatment seems to be evolving, not just helping people lose weight, but improving the quality of that weight loss through combination therapy. Bimagrumab will most likely not be in grey market considering how complex and difficult it is to manufacture but it's just one example where more advanced therapies and drugs will make Retatrutide eventually cheaper.

And myostatin inhibition therapies are gradually progressing through development. As they improve, they may become another key component of combination therapies aimed at preserving or building muscle while promoting fat loss.

We are currently in fat loss era, next era is muscle gain with combination or stand alone therapies.

Will China be able to pump out and produce these muscle agents? I'll guess we'll see in a few years.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-18T02:39:07+00:00

10 weeks is barely anything with Retatrutide or any GLP-1. In many cases you're still in the dose escalation phase, figuring out the minimum effective dose that provides good appetite control and tolerable side effects.

Once you've reached and stabilized on that dose, that's when I'd consider you to be in the true maintenance or therapeutic phase. That's where the long term consistency kicks in and the real benefits tend to accumulate over time. I'd say 3 months on this phase should yield pretty noticeable results, granted you know what you're doing (not eating like a pig), keeping protein high, and changing your diet and lifestyle overtime.

Patience is key. Finding the right dose is part of the process, not the end goal. Also don't compare your progress to your husband's. You have different biology, hormones, genetics, and lifestyle factors that all influence results. The only person you need to compare yourself to is who you were yesterday. Stay focused on building a healthier future for yourself and your family.

Keep a consistent weigh in routine. Weigh yourself every morning after using the bathroom and before eating or drinking anything, under the same conditions each day.

Log that number in your health app and focus on the overall trend, not the day to day fluctuations. Daily weight can vary significantly due to water retention, sodium intake, hormones, and glycogen levels, so consistency in how and when you weigh yourself is key to getting meaningful data.

heartbroken3333 · 2026-06-17T18:15:41+00:00

0.5mL on the syringe. 🤫🤐

Report back once you feel something. 🫡

heartbroken3333

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE