I first heard about BPC 157 in this thread I started about my torn meniscus and what to do. Someone there mentioned it then and it didn’t sink in.

At first…

But I kept on looking into surgical options, PRP, stem cells, etc. and kept running into BPC 157 and other peptides. So I decided to give them a whirl as they sounded pretty good.

I ordered BPC from an Alibaba shop.

Then I got it about Jan 24th and did my first injection.

Yeah, so needles are weird.

I never thought I’d be injecting my self with anything. But when you’ve got pain and you know that it will help then you do what you got to do.

So I injected it everyday about 3 times a day for 2 weeks. A day anywhere from about 700-1000mcg.

I mostly injected it in my knee (knee capsule), around my knee (sub cutaneous) , and then my shoulder and a few times in my belly fat.

But you don’t want to inject the same spot many times. And BPC has a short half-life that’s why you have to inject it more often.

I even combined it with blood on a couple of occasions. Yeah can you believe that.

Withdrawing your own blood is super hard.

Recently I have taken it orally by squirting it on my gums that are receding. And wonder if that has had a different effect.

If you take it orally it needs to be twice the amount and a bit more according to Jean Francois Tremblay.

Did I have side effects?

Not really. The first time I injected it I got a bit of anxiety or fear after, but I think that was psychological.

After that not.

I got a little burning sometimes immediately following the injection.

For 2 weeks I felt fine and then the last 2 days or so after injections I felt some pain and inflammation where I injected so I stopped and took it orally.

Could have been because the needle was dull. I reused the same needles after cleaning them. I would typically use one needle a day, but those last days I might have used one needle in 2 days.

I would either boil them to disinfect or wipe with an alcohol wipe that contained ethanol, paraben and benzlkonium chloride.

But IDK something caused irritation in the last two days.

Of course best practice is to use a new needle every time.

Also could have been the bacteriostatic water went bad or something and caused irritation like the alcohol.

I made my own.

Which is normally .9% benzl alcohol and water, but I couldn’t find benzl so I got ethanol and used about 1%.

Like I said I was fine for 2 weeks.

I think a dull needle was part of the problem especially in the one location that caused the most pain – the skin over my patella tendon.

But I always used a ‘new’ needle when I would inject in the joint space.

Anyways those were my minor side effects.

Dosage?

What’s the right amount?

IDK. If you look online you will see 250-1000mg a day suggested or common is 250mg 2-3 times a day.

But one of the more popular studies that you will see is the one about rats that had their ligaments sliced up and then repaired with BPC.

After MCL transection BPC 157 was effective in rats when given once daily intraperitoneally (10 microg or 10 ng/kg) or locally as a thin layer (1.0 microg dissolved in distilled water/g commercial neutral cream) at the site of injury, first application 30 min after surgery and the final application 24 h before sacrifice.
Source

Another site said:

“Rats and mice ingesting BPC 157 in their drinking water, the typical dosage ranged between 10 nanograms to 10 mcg (micrograms) per kg.”

Which kind of looks like the quote above, but in the study above they were injecting or applying with a cream.

Jean Tremblay said that if you take it orally you need 2 times the amount and a little more.

So I am about 155 or 71kg or so normally.

So I guess the dose would be around 700mcg a day.

So how has it helped?

My knee feels a bit more stable and stronger than it did before. I had pain for a good 6-7 weeks especially standing still and after about 3 pm.

Walking was o.k. for a while early in the day but then later in the day would start hurting more.

And I had to move more cautiously.

Now I feel it is more stable and stronger at about 9 weeks post injury.

But it still has a way to go and I will be trying some other peptides and continue using this until finished.

I haven’t noticed it helping my shoulder much although I injected it there less often. Jean Tremblay says it doesn’t actually matter much usually where you inject it because the peptide will find it’s way to the injury.

He says it’s systemic.

Although if it’s in a place like your knee: meniscus, acl, pcl, etc. then it’s going to travel around your blood stream before it makes it’s way into the joint and the knee is a capsule so really if you have an injury there you should inject into the joint space.

Of course you ‘shouldn’t’ do it yourself they say. You ‘should’ get a professional.

But I knew I had to do that to get the best results so I did.

In the course I created I share more details on how I did that amongst other things to heal your knee.

Every situation is unique but know you can heal your meniscus without surgery.

I think TB500 which I ordered would be a bit better for that one perhaps or used in conjunction with because it has a longer half life.

I heard maybe 7-10 days vs. BPC’s 4-6 hours.

I don’t want to inject everyday into my knee capsule because the space is small and it’s not good to keep injecting into the same area.

Other people suggest injecting it locally near the injury.

So I’ve also done 2 blood injections of about 2-4ml into my knees. One time my left and right and 2 times into my right and one time with BPC.

Oh, there was another time I tried blood, but it coagulated in the syringe and wouldn’t come out. I did managed eventually to squeeze out most in the sink and it had a little residue left and then I added BPC to that and injected that.

One time my left knee was hurting in the morning when I woke up more than my injured right knee.

In the past my left knee was the worst of the 2 (old MCL injury+patella tracking issues), but has been compensating for the right as I have been limping around.

So I injected both knees inside the joint and I felt a little burning feeling for about 30 minutes in my left knee and then the pain was gone.

And actually since then that knee has also bothered me less.

One of the times I did DIY blood injections was also about 1ml of blood and bpc in that knee.

Anyways…

I think the BPC does have some anti-inflammatory response like is said.

Most other times I noticed no immediate relief and the process of pain reduction and improvement has been slow.

One thing I noticed is that since I’ve taken it orally (last 4 days or so) yesterday I drank ‘raw milk’ and this time it did not cause any sort of tummy rumble like it often did in the past.

Can’t say for sure if it was the BPC. But it is supposedly good for your gut.

I’ll try it again and see if I get the rumble.

I will continue to use it until gone and then update this.

The placebo effect

I’ve wondered about the quality of the BPC I got because I got it from China (Alibaba) from a vendor that a few people recommended on Reddit.

They say 95-99% of the peptides out there come from China. Even most of the sites that sell them in the US or UK are still selling peptides from China.

They buy them in bulk and then raise the price a lot.

So if you are savvy financially you might just buy them from China.

But…

Then if you start researching you may hear that they may be fake or under dosed or have bacteria or ____.

There is probably some truth to that but I think there is a lot of fear mongering out there and a lot of the people saying those things have self interests.

Also the the bacteria one was an isolated case as far as I know.

So it’s like bad news and fear.

You fear the water and sharks more than you do driving your car, but in reality driving your car is way more dangerous.

If you want to get USA made peptides or Canadian made peptides you could try Tailor made compounds or Canlabs.

But you are going to pay 5-10X the price.

The placebo effect I think can go both ways.

You start to think ok these peptides are from China and they don’t work or the fragment is broken or it’s under dosed or maybe there is bacteria in it.

So it becomes true.

Or what the anti-doping organization in Australia made some claim that 80% of peptides are fake or under dosed.

Maybe, but I don’t really trust that bit of news because it’s in their self interests to say so.

And possibly the people who keep saying it.

So if you want to get the most out of the placebo effect then you can buy from one of those places that do regular testing in North America.

But is it possible that what you can buy on Alibaba is the exact same thing?

Yep.

All of the vendors on Alibaba try to make it look like they are the factory, but they are not.

I found two companies on there that used the same building with their photoshopped name on it to make it look like it was their factory.

Those sellers there are definitely not transparent as to who they are. A good business would be to be a seller there who is.

Make a video about who you are and what you do, but they don’t.

From what I’ve learned from Jean Francois Tremblay is that there aren’t that many factories in China that make peptides, but the vendors on Alibaba all probably buy their peptides from the same few factories and then resell them.

And there are rules and regulations in China.

It’s the middle men you got to watch out for.

There is a lot of fear out there (sinophobia) about China too. And maybe some is true, but perhaps I am less fearful because I lived in Asia and China for like 8 years.

Sometimes if you feel that you got fake peptides it’s possible that it’s from a bad batch. Like the peptide fragment chain broke and wasn’t that they were trying to make a fake peptide.

It’s that they are big factories selling lots of peptides to resellers and they probably don’t test every batch.

So you may be getting inert amino acids.

Could there be factories out there making and selling fake peptides?

IDK. Maybe little ones, but you know they won’t be in business long. And the cost of setting up a factory just to make fake look alike peptides is too high I would think.

I also recently ordered from Canlabs a couple peptides and will see how they go and I will probably get a better placebo effect too since I know more about who made them.

But they were way more expensive.

How to do intraarticular knee injection

Related:

• Heal your meniscus naturally
• Learn more about peptides (good videos and podcasts with Jean Tremblay). Or read this article.
• Healiscus  – A full program on how to heal your knee (if you have surgery or if you don’t)

Have you tried BPC157? How did it go?

This is a blog post about injecting my blood into my knee because I tore my meniscus and didn’t really want to do surgery and a $1000 for PRP seemed ridiculous.

And my knee hurt.

I did a lot of research about surgery, PRP, stem cells, etc.

Then I decided to take matters into my own hands…

Whoa…

Of course it’s not something you ‘should’ do. You ‘should’ always have a ‘professional’ do it.

But sometimes you do what you got to do.

This started with a desire to do PRP, but the cost was too much and it was a little difficult the first few times that you can see below.

I failed twice and stabbed myself countless times.

But basically I ended up doing autologous blood injection (ABI) which is a whole blood injection vs. PRP which is when they separate the red blood cells and just use the plasma and platelets.

Actually autologous just means your own and PRP is that too, but not usually referred to as.

This goes from most recent to lesser so.

Update Feb 26th, 2020

I did a fast for 66 hours and towards the end of the fast I withdrew almost 3ml of blood. This time I didn’t inject it into my knee but I mixed it with peptides and injected it around the knee in three locations: sub q lateral side, medial side near MCL and intramuscular near where the hamstring attaches to the bone.

Why?

They say if you injure your knee it’s not only the specific area that is affected and sometimes you have to treat the whole knee.

So it’s likely the MCL was also injured when that careless guy tried his flying judo move and collapsed my knee inward.

Anyways…

Since in the past I had a problem with coagulation and I used sodium citrate which is basically baking soda and citric acid about 3-4% to the blood and that stopped coagulating.

A few days prior I had made centrifuge out of a fan, but the blood coagulated in the tube and then it would be best to put the blood in a separate container.

As opposed to leaving it in the syringe because if you do (even if it is capped) some will likely come out when you spin it.

Update Feb 9th, 2020

So it’s been a few weeks… maybe 3. So since the last time I’ve tried 3 more times.

The 2nd time did not work because I could not get blood and got tired of pricking myself.

The 3rd time (a few weeks ago) I did get blood, but then it coagulated in the syringe and wouldn’t come out. I lost 96%, but there was still a little blood residue in the syringe and I added BPC 157 to it and then injected that.

The 4th time (about 4 days ago) I did get blood easy compared to the 1st time (below). It took one prick and before I did I added a little BPC to the syringe and then withdrew about 4.ml.

So I learned I have to work fast or the blood will coagulate. They use something called sodium citrate??? I think for PRP to stop the blood from coagulating.

I was going to centrifuge my blood this time, because I know it will work, but my down transformer broke a few days before so I could not use the dremel tool.

Oh well, I will use the whole blood and BPC.

And this time my plan was to do my right knee, left a bit and shoulder.

Success 🙂

I learned some tricks to make withdrawing blood easier by opening the syringe a little so it has a little suction to begin.

As the 1st time I had pain for about 3 days post injection, but it’s less. I injected mostly into my right knee about 2.5ml and about 1ml in my left and 1ml in my shoulder.

In my shoulder I did intramuscular injection and that actually felt good^^. IDK I hit the right spot.

Recently I have been doing those in my shoulder with BPC.

Learn more about my experience with BPC 157 (blog post coming soon).

Probably the best knee injection video I found:

Update a few days later (January 20th, ’20)…

I felt a bit increase in pain in the days to follow, but gradually decreasing as it’s 3 days later.

I have done a little bit of research regarding injecting whole blood vs. PRP. And it seems some people say that red blood cells have more inflammatory markers in it.

Which may not be what you want, but…

My limited research shows that there are cytokines (which can be positive or negative), and maybe hormones in red blood cells too that could help.

So it seems to depend on what your goal is.

If you have arthritis then maybe the PRP would be better to reduce inflammation, but if you have an acute injury like I do then I don’t think it will hurt to inject whole blood.

Actually it might hurt more initially in the few days prior. As I am updating this as we speak and I felt more pain after the injection. Now it’s 3 days later and the increased pain has gone down some.

• PRP + whole blood injection (ABI)
• This study said whole blood was a little more (6%) effective than PRP for treating tennis elbow.

I think more tests have been done around PRP than whole blood.

I could not find much information on whole blood injections and how they compare to PRP.

I do think that it might be better to take your blood in a fasted state. Eating does cause inflammation (no matter what you eat) and those markers may be in your blood when you draw it.

Some studies show that fasting for 24 hours or longer will increase stem cells in the body. Some said 24 hours and others 2-3 days.

And if that means they are floating around in your blood or if they are released after eating or before or where they are exactly I don’t know.

Some questions I had were:

• Where is testosterone in your blood? (red cells or white cells)
• Where is IGF-1 in your blood? (red or white cells)

I think those would help to heal an injury. It sounds like platelets are good, but are they the only good thing in blood that could help an injury?

Are ‘whole blood injections’ cause for concern?

I am not sure what I have read or completely understood some studies, so do correct me if I am wrong but I think I found a few studies suggesting whole blood injections into the knee could adversely affect it and cause articular cartilage damage.

Maybe many whole blood injections could be bad.

Not sure on this. I emailed one of the doctors on Researchgate I found to try to clarify what I read.

If I understand correctly this study with dogs suggests whole blood injections are bad. Although they used both “homologous” and autologous blood.

And it’s related to hemophilia.

This one suggests that if IL-4 or IL-10 is added no adverse affects are found.

Wonder if PRP would be included?

I found another page by the Stone clinic about blood in the joint.

Said that there are good things and bad things to blood in the joint.

Red blood cells bring oxygen to the area to help heal and repair, but said repeated exposure is “toxic” to articular cartilage.

He said that white blood cells are inflammatory, but consume bacteria and injured tissues.

And he said platelets are the ones that contain growth factors that stimulate healing.

In regards to the needle size

I did further research as maybe I was thinking the needle wasn’t long enough, but I found an interesting post saying that for thin individuals 1 inch is fine and for obese people 1.5 is better.

I used a 1 inch needle.

Now I feel more confident that the blood was injected into the knee since pain increased in the days following and I may have had some sort of leakage from the puncture to the knee capsule that leaked to the outside membranes, but not externally.

OG post… mid January 2020

In a previous post I mentioned I had a torn meniscus. Being the moron that I am I decided I wanted to give DIY prp (platelet rich plasma) a go.

I was super happy yesterday that my needles arrived. I wasn’t sure that they would since Japan is so strict and you can’t buy them here. I was actually so excited last night that I hardly slept.

Then today we got the rest of the tools we needed: some rubbing alcohol and alcohol wipes and then I went home to begin.

And I learned…

Withdrawing blood is hard.

Way harder than I thought.

I had very little luck. I went first for the veins they usually go for and once got a little with a syringe and doing it myself was very difficult with one hand and I was moving too much.

Really stupid.

You need this thing called a butterfly needle adapter thingy.

So then I did a little more googling and saw that I could stick myself in the foot since that would be easier since I could use 2 hands.

But it wasn’t.

I probably stuck myself in the foot 20-30 times and then later I tried my hand (you can also do that). But no luck.

It’s easy to get under the skin, but not easy to get in the vein and draw blood. And then doing it to yourself makes it twice as hard.

About 2-3 hours later and probably like 50 or so needle pricks later I finally said, “what the hell”.

I’ll try my left hand and go into my right arm since those veins look big.

And I actually I had some luck.

With my left hand???

It’s really retarded though trying to do this yourself with the tools I had. But I managed to withdraw maybe 3-4ml of blood.

Awesome.

Ohh…

Yeah, it’s really scary at first sticking yourself with a needle, but then after a few times lesser so.

I did some googling before and saw some different make shift centrifuges to separate the platelets from the red blood cells.

I made one with a dremel tool I have and some of that instamorph moldable plastic.

I didn’t actually use it though.

Because I just spent like three hours trying to get blood and ideally I wanted to get two syringes full and actually inject both knees.

But I didn’t want to lose the blood that I had worked so hard to get should something go wrong with my DIY centrifuge and I didn’t really have a lot to begin with.

So next step.

This was way easier.

So I had watched a lot of videos on knee injections and decided to try it sitting.

You can get it done sitting or lying down depending on the doctor.

And some doctors will use an ultrasound too.

Since my injury is in the meniscus there is little blood flow there. So even if I inject pure blood in there it still has platelets and that can help, however it’s not as concentrated as the PRP.

Anyways I did it sitting.

Like the videos I saw I marked off the upper and lower bones and the patella tendon with a pen and then marked a spot with an unclicked pen in the middle roughly.

And of course clean the skin with alcohol before.

Then you want to inject towards the center of the knee so it’s at an angle.

You don’t want to hit the meniscus so you go about an thumbs width above it.

This guy explains knee injections way better than I could.

Took some concentration that’s for sure cause you don’t want to hit the bone, meniscus, or patella tendon.

So you are going in on an angle like roughly 45 degrees or so.

Yeah, so at first I felt a light prick and the needle is 1 inch long and I am going slow and then it breaks the skin, “ouch” and then it goes in a little and then I felt a give (which from what I learned was that was when it entered the knee capsule).

And then I slowly inserted it until all the way inside.

And then I made it all the way in (1 inch) so I try squeezing the blood out and it was kinda resistant and I had to squeeze it pretty hard.

I was a little frightened that I might suddenly move. Like when the doctor used to test your reflexes by tapping on your knee??

And be in a sh** load of pain.

But o.k we gradually fully injected the blood into the knee. And now we are slowly taking it out.

Yay.

I did it.

It’s been about an hour and it feels a little sore and funny since there is more fluid in the knee.

At first there was a little swelling out side the knee so I thought maybe it didn’t go into the knee capsule.

I got a 1 inch needle and some said that was fine and one even said 13mm which I think is 3/4 of an inch, but most others said 1.5 inches. Next time I would get the 1.5.

So if it didn’t go into the knee capsule then that’s not good.

But I remember the “give” like they said. So I am hoping that it did. Anyways…

They say some pain after a shot is normal and I feel it so…

I am going to take it easy. And then in a week if I am still alive;-)

I’ll try it again.

With my learned lessons…

And I’m looking forward to BPC 157 (peptides were mentioned in the last post).

Since that is just an injection in the knee vs. trying to withdraw, separating the blood and re-injecting it.

It’s more simple and the results sound pretty good.

Advice

If you are crazy enough to try this… At least get a butterfly needle. That thingy or even better find a friend who is a nurse to withdraw your blood. That’s what I need.

The next steps won’t be nearly as hard.

I think making a centrifuge is not hard.

You can search.

• DIY centrifuge

It was almost a total failure, but I’d say I may have had some success if that blood when into the joint. The swelling initially on the outside of my knee after the injection made me think otherwise, but that went away.

I feel a little more pressure on the front side of my knee, but more pain inside now than at first which I think is good.

Next time will be a bit better.

Really PRP should be way cheaper. It’s way overpriced and it should be covered by insurance.

So what they do is…

Withdraw your blood, spin it in a machine, dump out the red blood cells, inject the rest of it into your injured area and then charge you $1000 (for one shot).

That’s what they charge here in Japan and in most other places I have seen.

Although in some places you may $500 or maybe even less in some countries.

Related:

How to withdraw blood if you’re an amateur

Trying to heal my meniscus…

And other injuries… so here are some other things I am throwing at it.

1. The usual intermittent fasting which actually may improve the quality of your blood before PRP. Eating increases inflammation in your blood.
2. Lots of spirulina
3. Lots of chlorella (CGF)
4. Taking collagen (not a fan as it’s animal or fish parts) anyways until…
5. I got some colostrum
6. BPC 157 is in the mail
7. And we’re doing rehab

Lots of isometrics…

And a girlfriend would help… especially if she is a nurse;-).

Lastly, it’s been a long day of sticking and stabbing myself so I am looking forward to eating something now.