TAMUallen said:

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Im needing more BAC, is FarrisLabs still a good spot to buy?

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Yes very fast shipping. Has been great.

Since we're talking about TRT anybody tried micro dosing Testosterone?

Many men on TRT end up taking 2–3 extra medications… just to manage the side effects caused by 1 massive weekly injection. #microdosing

That’s the Side Effect Trap.

Here’s why intelligent TRT protocol design matters more than most clinics realize 🧵 pic.twitter.com/cRC3f8kPZh

— Matrix Reformed (@matrixreformed_) June 10, 2026

For those using Reta, how are you dosing? The trials are all 1x/week, but when you map that out with its 6 day half life using the group that titrated to 8mg/week, the swings in blood concentration are from 7 - 14 mg depending upon day of week. If you just bump that same weekly dose to a 2x/week doses of 4.5mg Sun, 3.5mg Thurs (for ease of calculating and consistent time of day) the concentration stays between 8.5 and 12 which seems like it would work much better. Am I just way over thinking this? Currently just starting out with 2mg, 1x/wk the past 3 weeks but no noticeable changes in appetite yet so trying to plan how best to increase to an effective dose.

HUEY04 said:

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For those using Reta, how are you dosing? The trials are all 1x/week, but when you map that out with its 6 day half life using the group that titrated to 8mg/week, the swings in blood concentration are from 7 - 14 mg depending upon day of week. If you just bump that same weekly dose to a 2x/week doses of 4.5mg Sun, 3.5mg Thurs (for ease of calculating and consistent time of day) the concentration stays between 8.5 and 12 which seems like it would work much better. Am I just way over thinking this? Currently just starting out with 2mg, 1x/wk the past 3 weeks but no noticeable changes in appetite yet so trying to plan how best to increase to an effective dose.

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I'm doing 1mg on Monday and 1 mg on Thursday. It's been a total of 8 weeks for me. Lost 25 lbs. started at 0.5 mg once a week then went to 1 mg once a week and changed 3 weeks ago to the current twice a week.

I'm still not even up to 4mg weekly and started last November. Maybe I'm just a super responder but start lowwww and I've only increased a small amount when it felt like I wasnt having a reduced appetite

jmcfar_98 said:

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HUEY04 said:

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For those using Reta, how are you dosing? The trials are all 1x/week, but when you map that out with its 6 day half life using the group that titrated to 8mg/week, the swings in blood concentration are from 7 - 14 mg depending upon day of week. If you just bump that same weekly dose to a 2x/week doses of 4.5mg Sun, 3.5mg Thurs (for ease of calculating and consistent time of day) the concentration stays between 8.5 and 12 which seems like it would work much better. Am I just way over thinking this? Currently just starting out with 2mg, 1x/wk the past 3 weeks but no noticeable changes in appetite yet so trying to plan how best to increase to an effective dose.

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I'm doing 1mg on Monday and 1 mg on Thursday. It's been a total of 8 weeks for me. Lost 25 lbs. started at 0.5 mg once a week then went to 1 mg once a week and changed 3 weeks ago to the current twice a week.

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I'm the same, maybe a little less. Have to work hard to remember to eat. I was doing 3x a week before I took a break for my colonoscopy. Seems to be working just fine. I honestly cringe at the idea of trying to take 8mg per week.


Little problematic because some days I get busy and forget, then I just get wiped out by the end of the day.

I split-dosed when I was at an 8mg dose to try and minimise side effects, I've gone back to single doses on Sundays. Honest reason? The people who designed it are really dang smart and they designed it that way for a reason, so I just went with that. Currently down to a maintenance dose of 4-5mg.

There was an interesting post on the peptideplug blog about this. Related to the half-life of the drug. Makes a good case for the 4 day interval.

I don't disagree that those folks are smart. But I always consider that in corporate settings, pharma, auto, whatever, there is a profit and marketability use component that is a major player. Things are not always optimized to the best option, sometimes those other factors come into play and create compromises.

End of the day, do what works for you but be open to improvements and advice from others seems a good policy to me for a lot of things. I am way past thinking any entity in our world ALWAYS has my best interest at heart.

Just curious where you got the information on the pre, mid and post bloodwork that is crucial to do a cycle of GH secretogues?

I mean if you were taking like 6+iu of exogenous HGH then yeah maybe, but I have never heard of that anywhere for the GH secretogues. Only concern for tesamorelin is someone that has bad diabetes or is pregnant.

I split my dose up 3 times a week. Some do even better at 5 or 7 days a week, but I have done great at 3 since I started.

Tesa is really good at shredding fat, and MOTsc is overhyped. It is a really good support agent and I think is helpful to run, but doesn't directly move the needle much.

I'm down to 1mg for maintenance split up 3 times a week. I'm done with fat loss now and just cruising.

But, I ran it at 4-5 mg per week split up 5 times per week for a couple years with a lot of success.

It's just what makes sense to me with how the mechanism works. A cycle of secretagogues will help show whatever your pituitary output ceiling is, which is a good value to know because any exogenous HGH supplementation would presumably either need to meet or exceed that level, since it would shut your pituitary pulse down. If secretagogues get you to the level of IGF you're targeting and maintain your natural pulsatile actions, in my eyes that's better than shutting down the pituitary for an HGH cycle followed by the resulting recovery period once you stop (if you stop). Not minimizing the benefits of either at all.

My personal journey on 2mg dosage of Tesamorelin uncovered a really big response to it at my mid-cycle draw, which put my IGF into supraphysiological territory and spiked my fasting insulin outside of optimal range. Having baseline levels before I started helped me understand how I responded to the dose, assess whether I needed to adjust mid-cycle (I did), and my post-cycle draw on Friday will help me understand where I landed afterwards.

To me the secretagogue vs HGH discussion is similar in feel to enclomiphene vs TRT discussion based around LH levels. Low LH usually means enclomiphene (fixing the signal) and normal levels of LH usually means TRT (flooding the receptor). I know it's not an exact corollary, but the approach feels similar enough to me.

Great response man, sorry if I sounded curt earlier (busy day) but that's the information I was looking for.

I have a little different experience and justification for my philosophy, but this is the discussion I enjoy.

One last thing, you don't completely shut down the pituitary on HGH. You can stack HGH and tesa for some exceptional results. You get the benefit of high HGH without the side effects.

Hunter Williams has a great video about combining them if you want to do a deep dive. But to oversimplify, exogenous HGH fills up the tank and tesamorelin pushes the gas.

I ran that at my first cycle this year in January and the results were phenomenal.

I inject 15 units a day. Comes out to a little over 1ml or 200mg per week.

Better with insulin needle than the larger ones. I am no longer as sore after injections.

I have been building on Reta the past 2 months. I probably didn't need it but wanted to try. I have been struggling with belly fat for years even though I train for Ironman. It's totally my diet. Think this has helped my habits and see how much food I can function on.

Started at 1mg per week. Did that 2 weeks. Then 2 mg 2 weeks. Then 4mg 2 weeks . 6 mg 1 week and now in my second week of 8 mg . Built up to 8 over a 2 month period. Been good. I am down 18 lbs. 205 to 187. I have 4 more doses at 8mg and then I'm done. Hope to be under 180. If not, no big deal. I've laid the ground work to get back into the swing of things.

Only real side effect has been dysesthesia at 8 mg. Could be fat loss around my lower back and waistline/thighs or the drug. It's not uncomfortable but feels like tingling or muscle soreness that's only skin deep.

Long runs are really tough. I like to run fasted in the mornings. After 45 min I hit a wall. Assume that's the glucagon effect. One more month. I have built some great consistency the past 5 months. Would like to do fall marathon and really try for Boston. After that maybe IMTX and Leadville. Last time I did Leadville I was 195 and way too big for the hills. If I can be 175 and train more climbing I should be ok.

Currently cardio has been running 3-4 days or 25-30 miles per week. Stairmaster 1 day per week (30-45min) and cycling 2 days or 2.5 hours per week.

Also lifting 4 days per week. Push, pull, legs, full body split.

I love the knowledge-sharing mate, I'm still learning too so please continue sharing and pushing back if I've earned it, I promise. And if you think I'm a total moron based on something I said, you're probably right.

I've heard of the lighter-dose HGH/secretagogue blend strategy, you're the first person I've heard that's run it, really cool to hear your experience. And you're definitely correct, the pituitary suppression of HGH is dose-dependent, I think it's just more of the typical exogenous HGH mindset that someone wants to determine the exact amount of GH in their system so they dose enough to maintain that level that I default to when I see someone talk about HGH.

Phenomenal results? Muscle building or fat loss or both?

I am pretty focused on attacking visceral fat right now as mine is so out of proportion with the rest of my body. I have five weeks till next scan. After that I go on two weeks vacation but will be tons of exercise so that's good.

When I come back I want to focus on putting some muscle.

Found my t levels from my yearly and it was 638. Doctor said I was good on everything but my doctor is pretty conservative

MosesHallEnforcer said:

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I split my dose up 3 times a week. Some do even better at 5 or 7 days a week, but I have done great at 3 since I started.

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Thanks for the response. I'm going to try starting this weekend when I do my normal high dose shot. I've got my bloodwork scheduled in July so it gives me a month to see how things go.

Need your free T. Total doesn't really tell you anything, as evidenced by my numbers I posted previously.

Both, went from 13% body fat to 11% and gained 4.53 lbs of lean muscle.

What's your free t? That number is just as important.

I can't find the free t level. Maybe I need to have Dr run another test. I only see total

TAMUallen said:

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Im needing more BAC, is FarrisLabs still a good spot to buy?

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Here's another place to order from too.

https://bacwaterdirect.co/

jmcfar_98 said:

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Since we're talking about TRT anybody tried micro dosing Testosterone?

Many men on TRT end up taking 2–3 extra medications… just to manage the side effects caused by 1 massive weekly injection. #microdosing

That’s the Side Effect Trap.

Here’s why intelligent TRT protocol design matters more than most clinics realize 🧵 pic.twitter.com/cRC3f8kPZh

— Matrix Reformed (@matrixreformed_) June 10, 2026

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2x a week for me. i like it better.

dagsa03 said:

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check out Rise Mens Health. They are based in Roanoke, TX, but are a virtual PCP. I've used them for approx 2 years for my TRT script and they've also made other recommendations in addition to TRT.

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@dagsa03 - I have a telehealth appointment with them in 30 minutes. Like everything I am seeing thus far.

Any questions I should be asking the provider or are these conversations pretty straight forward based on your lab results? TIA

I started doing once a week almost two years ago, developed really bad peripheral edema that never went away even with a ton of physical activity and healthy diets, she put me on anastrazole, then went to two pins a week, eventually three pins a week while still taking anastrazole, nothing. I decided on my own to start doing daily pins of 0.1 ml every morning, reduced anastrazole down to 0.5 pills a week and considering dropping it completely now because my blood work has been spot on across the board. The ankle swelling mostly went away, but since starting Reta, it's completely disappeared. I got off Reta about a month and in that time the water retention returned to the point that I don't know if I'll ever want to get off Reta again, LOL

Yikes, what was your estrogen? I have always heard to never take those. Fire that doc immediately. Plus you should probably have a male doc that's on it himself and in shape.

I can dig up some literature if you're interested. It's ok to run E2 a little higher.

AnyOtherName said:

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dagsa03 said:

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check out Rise Mens Health. They are based in Roanoke, TX, but are a virtual PCP. I've used them for approx 2 years for my TRT script and they've also made other recommendations in addition to TRT.

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@dagsa03 - I have a telehealth appointment with them in 30 minutes. Like everything I am seeing thus far.

Any questions I should be asking the provider or are these conversations pretty straight forward based on your lab results? TIA

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Well that was quick. Getting a baseline of lab work hopefully in the next 24 hours. Appreciate the recommendation and the encouragement in here to get my Testosterone levels checked out before fully jumping into this.

Excited to see what TRT does for me along with Reta/Tesa/Ida. Hopefully a new man by this time next year.

Way to take some action dude!

You'll be a new man sooner than next year if you follow the advice of this thread, and do your part lifting weights at least 3 times per week, eat decent etc.

Go get a dexa next if you can. You need to know lean muscle and body fat percentage.

Congrats on taking the first step. Yes, with your hormones in line, GH support, and reta, you are going to feel completely different in no time.

Shaun did switching to 2x per week on testosterone negatively affect libido? Or positively affect it?

Didn't notice a negative impact. I just didn't have toward the end of the week afternoon crashes but they weren't as bad as with no T. Just feel more consistent. I guess I would get more of a rush with 1x early.

Seeing different things on storage of peptides for long term.

*Always dark, dry environment

Lyophilized (powder form)
Reta - refrigerator
Ida - refrigerator
Tesa - refrigerator

Reconstituted - (mixed)
Reta - refrigerator
Ida - refrigerator
Tesa - refrigerator

Do you ever freeze anything for long term hold?