The 4 Most Impactful Peptides for my Chronic Pain

peptides are all the rage right now and rightfully so they can be extremely helpful for dealing with chronic pain but which peptides are most helpful in this video i'm going to walk you through the four peptides that i've personally used to help with my chronic pain and the peptides that we use most commonly in our patients and those are growth hormone secreted gogs bpc-157 tb500 and ghk copper at the end of this video i will cover the most common dosing strategies we use for each if you aren't familiar with peptides these are simply short chains of amino acids that are used to help improve and modulate various functions in the body ranging from reducing inflammation stimulating tissue repair and collagen deposition and reducing scar tissue formation these aren't like pharmaceuticals and so they have a broader set of actions and therefore most of them have a pretty large safety profile now it is important that you talk with your doctor before using peptides as this video is not medical advice it is also our belief that all injectable peptides should come from reputable compounding pharmacies through a doctor's prescription and not online research at chemical websites predominantly for safety reasons all right now that the medical jargon is out of the way let's talk about the peptides the first peptide to cover is the growth hormone secreted gogs which were the first peptides that i was introduced to way back in 2012 they started researching peptides at this time because of my back injury i herniated two discs and i was struggling to see improvement this was the same back injury that brought me into the field of regenerative medicine and so this is partly why i'm here currently we use growth hormone secreted gogs in our patients when we want to boost igf1 levels to stimulate tissue growth and healing well there are a wide number of peptides in this category the most common ones that we're going to use is a combination of cjc 1295 without dac or drug affinity complex which is a growth hormone releasing hormone abbreviated ghrh and ipamrelin which is a growth hormone releasing peptide which is abbreviated ghrp when used in combination these peptides stimulate the release of your own growth hormone from a part of your brain called the pituitary gland this pulsatile release of growth hormone results in increased release of igf1 which over time can be beneficial for helping connective tissue such as tendons and ligaments to heal while i first used these peptides after i herniated my disc back in 2012 and found it to be helpful knowing what i know now i probably would have started with another peptide that most people are aware of bpc 157 bpc 157 is a fragment of a peptide that is naturally found in our stomachs and of all the peptides we use this one has the wildest healing stories when taken orally or injected bpc 157 helps stimulate healing of two primary tissues gut tissue and musculoskeletal tissues such as tendons ligaments joints and even nerves we're going to focus on those now here's a pro tip because almost all the research on bpc shows improved tissue healing after acute injuries or damage we believe it works better when it's paired with some form of physical stimulus such as exercise physical therapy dry needling cupping or our preferred regenerative injections like prp or stem cells the next peptide in my journey was thymus and beta 4 but this is no longer available through compounding pharmacies i now use a fragment of thymus and beta 4 called tb500 now many people think tb4 and tb500 are the same thing and will even interchange the names but this is fake news as tb500 is actually a fragment of the larger peptide thymus and beta 4 we've used tb500 for its anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic properties which means that it can help to reduce pain and reduce scar tissue formation these are important as optimal healing and regeneration has none or minimal scar tissue so my goal with using tb500 after my most recent prp intradiscal procedure was to reduce the amount of scar tissue that formed during that normal healing process the last peptide i was introduced to and started using about three years ago was ghk copper which is a peptide that helps stimulate collagen production when we perform regenerative injections such as prp and stem cell therapy the most common thing we are trying to do is to stimulate little cells called fibroblasts to make more collagen more collagen in a tendon or ligament often means better tissue integrity and therefore less pain i specifically added in this peptide after i re-injured my vac in early 22 and i personally found it to be helpful with getting out of the pain flare faster than i normally would have we currently use in our practice ghk copper anytime we want to supercharge collagen production after our prp you stem cell procedures. All right, now that we've covered each of the four peptides, let's briefly talk about dosing, whatever one is probably here for. So we use growth hormone secretagogues in our patients when we want to boost IGF-1 levels to stimulate tissue growth and healing. While there are many different protocols out there, our most common dosing protocol is 100 micrograms of each GHRH and GHRP injected subcutaneously twice per day. It is important that these growth hormone secretagogues are dosed on an empty stomach, which means no food two hours prior to injection and then no food 30 minutes afterwards. When using this after an acute injury or a regenerative injection like PRP or stem cells, we usually continue this protocol for three months. We predominantly use TB500 when we want to reduce scar tissue formation. TB500 is probably the most confusing when it comes to dosing as dosing is usually inferred from the parent peptide TB4, which is no longer available. And so our most common strategy is 750 micrograms injected subcutaneously once per day. When using this after an acute injury or a PRP or stem cell procedure, we usually only use this for about six weeks. Of all the peptides we use, we use BPC-157 the most. We use it in patients who are generally slower to heal or conditions that have not responded to therapies in the past that should have worked. It is also the most common peptide that we use immediately after our PRP or stem cell procedures. The most common way that we're dosing it is 500 micrograms of the oral arginate salt once per day on an empty stomach. But we will sometimes use the injectable form in some patients if they haven't responded to oral in the past. When we use the oral version, we prefer the arginate salt over the acetate salt as it is more stable and therefore better absorbed in the stomach. When using this after an acute injury or a PRP or stem cell procedure, we usually continue this for three months. Now, contrary to common bro science, BPC-157 does not need to be injected in order to have beneficial effects on tendon, ligament, nerve, or joint pain. And if you're using the injectable version, injecting over the area of pain likely has no additional benefit. While GHK copper can be used topically for skin wrinkles and other aesthetic reasons, we found it to be most beneficial with chronic pain when it's in the injectable version. Our most common dosing strategy for that is two milligrams injected subcutaneously once per day. When using this after an acute injury or a PRP or stem cell procedure, we usually continue this for three months as this is the main time period for the body making new collagen in the injured area. GHK copper does have a little bit of a bite to it. And so it's not uncommon to have some stinging or some soreness in the area upwards of eight hours after the injection. Personally, I found that injection into the subcutaneous of the glutes helps to reduce this as opposed to doing it over your abdomen. All right, that covers it. I truly hope that you learned something of value today in the realm of using peptides for chronic pain.