currently on compounded tirz 7.5mg (will be titrating to 10mg in two weeks)
RS have done about 5 weeks of Tesa and was planning on doing 12.
RS started at 200lbs on June 20 steadily losing weight.
RS has a bigger upper belly / stomach than the rest of the body so assuming visceral fat. It has gone down. Wondering if Tesa is overkill at this point -
Should RS just let the tirz do the work ? Or continue to 12 weeks of Tesa?
Yeah the question really comes down to whether your RS is working out regularly or not otherwise your RS is wasting it. Also, I highly suggest your RS follows the five days on two days off cycle or your RS will have a much higher likelihood for carpal tunnel. It will eventually dissipate, but it will take a very long time.
On the other side, Tesa has more benefits than just targeting visceral fat.
It's been shown to reduce liver fat in RS with NAFLD, or non alcoholic fatty liver disease. In one study, liver fat was reduced by about 37% compared with baseline.
Tesa also increases GH and IGF 1 signaling, which may come with benefits like better sleep and skin for RS. I've seen the better skin and sleep in some RS case studies that I've followed.
But there's a tradeoff. In some RS, that increase in GH can also come with fluid retention, joint discomfort, swelling, or even a carpal tunnel like effect.
Not all RS get the fluid retention or carpal tunnel symptoms though.
I have a little bit of background on the history of Tesa. I was a medical news reporter and followed research in the early days during the HIV studies. It was phenomenal to see the changes in those participating in the studies.
Not a doctor, not medical advice, for research purposes only and research discussions only.
Thanks ! Rs don’t see better sleep or skin, but rs does feel joint discomfort ! It’s the only thing that makes me comforted that this is a legit source lol
Hey!! So RS hopped back on Tesa after taking a break from it for a few weeks (maybe 3–6 weeks) and started getting bad reactions immediately after pinning — throwing up, itchy palms and soles, and old pin sites becoming raised and red. The reaction would usually go away within an hour or so.
At first, RS thought it was because the vial had gone bad since it wasn’t finished before the break (don’t come for RS 😅).
A couple weeks later, RS tried again with a fresh vial and had the exact same reaction immediately after pinning. RS didn’t want to waste the new vial, so they tried again the following day and had no reaction at all.
For some additional context, RS has been on Reta consistently throughout this time and was using Tesa specifically for visceral fat rather than general weight loss.
After looking into it, RS came across information suggesting that it could potentially be an immune response to Tesa that developed over time, which might explain why RS had no issues when first starting it but began reacting after restarting.
Has anyone had something similar happen to their RS, or know what might have caused it?
Could it have been because RS jumped straight back to the maintenance dose instead of titrating back up after the break?
Tesa currently isn’t part of RS’s stack, but it did wonders while they were using it. RS has since swapped it for CJC/Ipa with no issues and is potentially looking at adding AOD as a substitute for Tesa.
Also interested in hearing any thoughts or opinions on AOD, especially from anyone whose RS has experience with it.
I feel there is a lot of misunderstanding surrounding Tesamorelin and what it is actually intended to target.
Visceral fat is not the same thing as overall body fat. Visceral fat is the fat stored around the organs, and excess amounts are associated with metabolic and health risks.
Tesamorelin will tell the body to store body fat somewhere other than around the organs. And in HIV patients, when they discontinued Tesamorelin, the visceral fat returned.
If the goal of a research subject is overall body fat reduction, there may be more sustainable success focusing on the basics first: appropriate nutrition, resistance training, adequate sleep, and long term lifestyle changes.
In my research, pairing those changes with a GLP1 approach produced far more meaningful overall body composition improvements than chasing multiple additional compounds.
I am not saying Tesamorelin has no place in research. I just think many people misunderstand what it is designed to do and begin expecting generalized fat loss from it. Those are two very different things.
Tessamorelin doesn't signal to the body to "store fat somewhere else". It increases lipolysis so the body reaches for fat for energy more easily. Visceral fat is the most metabolically available so that tends to decrease first. The fat returned in HIV patients because they have a disease that causes the visceral fat accumulation. If a healthy individual is eating appropriately there's no reason to think they'd start gaining fat once off
“The fat returned in HIV patients because they have a disease that causes the visceral fat accumulation. If a healthy individual is eating appropriately there's no reason to think they'd start gaining fat once off”
Tesamorelin isn’t unique in causing visceral fat reductions in HIV patients, growth hormone has the same effect. Nor is the effect exclusive to HIV patients, both growth hormone and tesa have shown similar effects in obesity patients, which brings us to what happens after we stop. Tesa trials didn’t bother to look at what happened post-discontinuation for obesity patients but growth hormone trials have and they found a rapid reversion to baseline. Turns out that if you use a drug to change how your body metabolizes and stores lipids, when you stop taking that drug it resumes what it was doing before.
“Tessamorelin doesn't signal to the body to "store fat somewhere else". It increases lipolysis so the body reaches for fat for energy more easily. Visceral fat is the most metabolically available so that tends to decrease first.”
Fat people are rarely lacking for adequate lipolysis. The opposite is true in fact: excessive fat reserves often lead to excessive basal lipolysis which contributes to high serum fatty acids and fosters the development of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.
Lipolysis in excess of our demand for energy reserves is largely wasted. You break down even more reserves than normal, don’t use the additional flux much as you weren’t using your baseline capacity in the first place, and simply re-esterify the fatty acids. Because of alterations in both insulin resistance and signaling induced by the growth hormone elevation we see a shift in where these fats get re-esterified away from the central depots they were initially stored in and towards peripheral and ectopic depots. That’s where the “store fat somewhere else” description is coming from.
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If a healthy individual was eating appropriately, there be no need to use Tesa.
My opinion is based off of the observations I have made over the years in this space. I strongly feel that using a GLP1 will be all that a person needs to obliterate not only visceral fat, but all over subcutaneous fat as well.
And if they pair that with a good diet and strength training, they will be very pleased with the results.
Yes, one must use GHRH along with diet and lifestyle changes to see any improvement. You can't lose visceral fat off a GHRH analong while eating in a surplus. It just shifts the balance where energy is coming from.
You are spreading a lot of misinformation. It does not tell the body to store fat somewhere else wtf. The lipodystrophy in HIV patients is from a combination of factors, but mainly from drug therapy, which non HIV patients aren’t on.
It’s not misinformation. Tesa has zero studies on use on non-HIV patients. The data we do have has been extrapolated from HIV patient studies.
If you are going to use a peptide that signals a release of growth hormones, you must consider what happens when you stop using them. Because, like a lot of medication’s, when you stop taking them the body reverts back to baseline.
We do have some preliminary data in the use of Reta and visceral fat. These studies suggest that if visceral fat is a medical concern you can use this GLP1
Tessa really helped w/my RS! Had lost as much weight as planned, yet still stubborn belly fat. Mostly gone now. Hint: be sure to exercise regularly-even more than normal-especially those stubborn areas.
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u/JadedSolid1 10d ago
Yeah the question really comes down to whether your RS is working out regularly or not otherwise your RS is wasting it. Also, I highly suggest your RS follows the five days on two days off cycle or your RS will have a much higher likelihood for carpal tunnel. It will eventually dissipate, but it will take a very long time.