Second injection: did the peptide degrade?

Date: 6/04/07
Time: 4:55 p.m.
Dose: 10 units, 0.54 mg
Location: Left hip
Comments: Slight burn at injection site, no big deal. Very mild flushing from about 0.5 – 1 hour afterwards. Mild grogginess, appetite not really affected.

I was expecting more side-effects… did I degrade the peptide? I hope not. Although 0.5 mg is considered a low dose, I still expected to feel it more. If I still get no major sides tomorrow with the same dose, I’ll bump it up to 2 injections per day.

Strange dreams

I had some trouble sleeping last night, but I’m not sure how much of that was from the M2. I had very vivid dreams, and woke up more than once with wood. If the wood gets worse, I can see how it could be difficult to sleep.

I did take valerian root and melatonin before bed, which can give vivid dreams, but it’s not unusual for me to take those. Once, I woke up from a dream and saw a lingering visual pattern that I’ve only ever seen before on salvia. So, I don’t know what to make of it.

First injection

Holy crap, I just injected myself with something I bought off the internet.

I procrastinated all day, and finally had to psych myself up to get it done.

Amount injected: 0.27025 mg
Location: Right hip
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Comments: No pain at all. Used a 45 degree angle. Went very smoothly. I like the fact that it was only 5 units, it wasn’t a lot of liquid.

It’s 6:16 right now, and there’s a very small burning sensation in the area, just like any injection I’ve ever had. Barely worth mentioning, though. More liquid might create more burning, I don’t know. Tomorrow my dose will be twice as large, so I guess I’ll find out.

I am flushed, although I don’t feel flushed. It could be because I’m still freaking out, my blood pressure is high because I just injected myself with something I bought over the internet. It does seem disproportional, though, so for now I’ll chalk it up to the M2.

No nausea so far. I purposely didn’t eat anything for 2 1/2 hours beforehand, just in case.

One potentially annoying side effect is the wood (none so far). At work, it would be embarrassing. It would be bad enough in jeans, but in the office of course I wear slacks, which is thinner material, and I’m afraid everything would be visible.

I bought a jock strap, to help disguise any wood. I have no idea if this will work. It was only $3, so no big investment.

Preload syringes

I laid everything out: needles, alcohol swabs, and M2 vial. I set the vial on top of an ice cube to keep it cool.

The process is not difficult: uncap needle, inject 10 units air into M2 vial, turn vial upside-down, withdraw 10 units liquid, recap needle and place in freezer bag.

It is difficult to withdraw the last bit of liquid. Here’s the troublesome amount I had left at the end:

I did end up getting it though, so no worries. It turned out to be exactly 5 units, which is nice because the others all had 10 units, so it was exactly half.

When finished, I had 18 10-unit needles (plus the 5-unit one):

Calculation:

10 mg / 18.5 = 0.5405 mg per dose (except for the 5-unit dose, which is half that.)

Damn. I was planning on doses of 0.25 mg, but since I used too little water to reconstitute, my doses will be 0.5 mg.

I’m going to take the 5-unit dose first, which is ~0.25 mg, and see how that goes.

Reconstituted, but may have messed up

Here’s what the vial looked like before I started:

I think I screwed up by not letting the peptide thaw. I took it straight out of the freezer and added the water. Hopefully the sudden temp change (although the water had been refrigerated) didn’t damage it. In addition, I didn’t run the water down the sides every time, I just sprayed it on the powder, and I’m also hoping that didn’t damage it.

I had planned on adding 4 mL water, which would give me 40 0.1 mL doses at 0.25 mg each. But I only have these small, 1/2 cc needles, so it required 8 full transfers. I need to get a large needle to use for reconstituting.

I think I got a lot of air in the syringes, so that I used a lot less than 4 mL. This means it’s more concentrated than I wanted.

Now, not knowing exactly how much water is in there, the only way find out how much M2 is in each dose is to preload all the syringes. By dividing 10 mg by the number of syringes I get, I’ll know how much is in each one.

Ready to go

Syringes: check.

M2: check.

Alcohol swabs: check

Nerves: Hella check!

I bought 10 mg from Melanocorp. They shipped fast (as soon as my PayPal e-check cleared), but didn’t notify me when it shipped, which is a pet peeve of mine. But otherwise everything looks good.

I didn’t have the cash to buy the 30 mg package, but figured that 1.) I need to buy 40 mg anyway (30 loading, at least 10 maintenance) so it doesn’t matter what order I buy them in, and 2.) You don’t get that much of a discount anyway ($5.00 per bottle, on $55.00 bottles).

I work tomorrow (Sat.) but I have Sunday off, so I’m going to wait until after work tomorrow to do the first injection. That way if I have sides, I can be miserable at home instead of work.

I still have a lot of questions about reconstituting and such, but I’ll study the website tomorrow and I’m sure I’ll muddle through.

I’m already seeing results from working out, but I kinda wish I hadn’t started, so there would be more of a physique change in the before/after pictures. Not that M2 has anything to do with physique, it’s just that I want to document not only my tan, but all changes to my body over the summer. That’s okay, they should still be very noticeable.