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Comment by radicaldreamer | Hacker News Reader

Yikes, I know there are a lot of "healing" peptides sold online for various conditions. Very spare documentation though

It’s scary, but I’m taking some of these myself. I had food poisoning and was diagnosed with IBS-C a few years ago and my life has been pretty deranged since then. Couldn’t sleep more than a few hours a night, couldn’t think, went from a BMI of 22 to 18. No help from doctors, or years of different drug therapies; I’ve tried everything that medicine has to offer. Also could not get my blood pressure down to save my life even on multiple meds. Fecal matter transplants helped quite a bit but still couldn’t get BP down, get good sleep, etc. Only when I started using some peptide suggested on Reddit was I able to normalize my BP and see improvements in other areas. It’s scary and I don’t recommend it (my doc certainly doesn’t, but he doesn’t endorse any of the therapies that have improved my wellbeing); I don’t want to be a guinea pig for a peptide that has a limited amount of human data to back it up; but the alternative of not using it is just so unlivable and having it solve my BP problem alone is a gift in itself. I hope I’m not shooting my future self in the foot by using these but I don’t see any alternative option currently. It sucks to be sick when medicine still hasn’t figured things out.

I've got similar health problems, and I'd love to know more about what worked for you so I can research it.

Thanks; I'm sorry to hear about your health problems I know how debilitating they can be. Hope your case is not as bad as mine. I'm currently self administering FMTs which I get from someone in my local community. I have tested the stool of dozens of people (which is so expensive) and have settled on this donor who has a decent stool profile.

An alternative to that may be trying to get stool from humanmicrobes.org or a more "legit" way which is through the center for digestive diseases in Australia. I don't know if FMT's are helpful for all IBS patients (the research is not there yet) but anecdotally it seems like the most desperate IBS patients end up trying it to varying efficacy. I can't recommend FMT as I'm sure everyone's pathology is different and there are more traditional therapies that may work such as low FODMAP, rifaximin, or meds that increase/decrease intestinal transit time. For me, all of those therapies are embarrassingly ineffective and I think that IBS patients should at least know that FMT therapy is a thing; since it has lead to remission for many community members which gives hope that there may finally be a treatment for the most desperate.

So the FMT helps in my case as well as the BPC-157 which someone else linked in the comments. I was quite surprised when my resting heart rate and blood pressure returned to my pre-disease levels within a day or two of starting the peptides. I have probably tried 3 or 4 dozen drugs at this point (mostly doctor recommended but also some from my own research); none to any effect, so seeing quick results from this new compound was shocking. I now also have more of type 2-3 stools rather than the unescapable type 1 that has plagued me ever since the diseases' inception. So that's good. I've only been using the peptides for a month so don't know what to expect. I am hoping if I can mega dose with some FMT and keep using the peptides maybe I could get into remission. Who knows. Luckily I am able to function as an engineer again for the first time in years (the brain fog is less remarkable now) so I am hoping things will return to normal but only time will tell. I hope this information is helpful but feel free to reach out if you have questions or just would like to chat because I know how lonely and lost in translation these type of health maladies can be.

Does BPC-157 have to be injected? (I thought peptides were fragile and need to be refrigerated typically)

I don't know the answer to that; I inject mine, I have read that other people squirt them into their mouth, which I have not tried yet. The results are just so good from injecting it that I can't imagine ingesting it orally being better; but I should give it a shot.

You can take it orally for gut problems.

How long did it take you to see results after taking them?

Pretty much right away for both. I think it's because with my condition; eating seems to be incredibly inflammatory. So, whenever I eat anything, I my blood pressure spikes tremendously, heart rate jumps ~15 points, I get brain fog & all kinds of other symptoms, which last several hours only to subside when I start to get really hungry again. Of course.. at that point I'm hungry, and it becomes increasingly hard to not eat.. so once I cave and eat the cycle starts over again. I currently eat twice a day and have tried cutting that down to once a day but at that point my meals are so large that the falllout is just terrible. The goal is always to eat as little as possible while maintaining adequate nutrition, which is hard, because I also don't seem to assimilate nutrients from food very well either.

Anyways, if I am taking a lot of fecal matter and using the peptides; the fallout I get from eating is not as bad. There are still other issues, but it seems to work at at least within a few days with the fecal matter and instantly with the peptides. Very sadly, I've noticed the benefits go away pretty quickly once I stop using each treatment as well. It really is a nightmare, but I am sure others have it worse.

I'm curious: do you have noticed any connection between what you eat (macro and micro) and the symptoms level? Because what you're describing could match dysbiosis and/or leaky gut, and you seem to have already dug really well into your condition.

I've tried limiting certain macros and found that it doesn't really make a difference. I did try do to all meat at one point and got a lot worse. The devil is in the details in regards to the micronutrients. I am absolutely unable to tolerate most foods and can only really eat a handful. I can eat most fruits and can eat meat products but cannot eat most vegetables. Which sucks, because you can only eat so much fruit a day and I think a good diet should be vegetable based. Eating most vegetables though, causes me to lose weight, have panic attacks, vertigo, ezcema, peripheral edema, etc; all manners of strange symptoms. It probably is "leaky gut" related but I don't know.

Holy crap you pretty much just described me exactly. My stomach problems are minor but everything else you described is me to a tee. Interestingly the doctor has sent me to get tested for various stomach inflammatory diseases for completely different reasons, but they all came up negative.

Just googling now it seems there is no real test for IBS. How did you know that was the cause? Also, I've taken peptides before for different reasons, which ones helped you with your stomach?

That's crazy. Docs diagnosed me with IBS based on some tests that I had done at the time (anti-vinculin antibody, SIBO breath test, etc). I don't really know. I do know that I don't poop often enough and that the longer I go without pooping the worse all my symptoms get. Interestingly, like you, I was tested for many inflammatory diseases of the gut too, and they all came up negative; so the tests kind of give me a mixed bag of signals. I also have crazy food sensitivities so it certainly must have some relation to the gut. I'm just doing the BPC-157 right now; some people have recommended others but I haven't tried anything else yet.

This might sound a bit crazy given what you said, but have you tried light exercise straight after your daytime meal? I too get completely incapacitated by food, my heart rate goes up, and i usually just lie down (haven't measured my blood pressure), but if I go to the gym and do light aerobic exercise for 45 minutes (keeping my heart rate around 135-145) then the worst of the symptoms are abated. Also, the brain fog doesn't matter if you're on a treadmill, it's actually quite a good thing to zone out. Most importantly it allows you to be productive during that time, and later on when you are back to normal you have more time to do other things as you have already gotten your exercise out of the way.

That's an interesting idea! I have a walking treadmill that I use at my desk which I usually do a few miles a day on; but I'm definitely no where near 135-145BPM. I think I will give that a shot tomorrow after my next meal; thank you so much for the suggestion!

>The goal is always to eat as little as possible while maintaining adequate nutrition

That sounds like you're (involuntarily) on a CRON diet; calorie Restriction optimal nutrition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRON-diet

Pretty much. It's really hard to maintain long term because I end up eventually getting so hungry that my brain starts becoming obsessive about food. So my attempts are only half successful.

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