first time ordering MK-677, nervous about long term use - supplier comparison after 3 months (sorry for the long post)

[peptide_n00b_2023]

ok so I've been lurking here forever and finally decided to post because I have so many questions and I'm not sure anyone else has had the same experience or if I'm just doing everything wrong

so basically I started looking into MK-677 for recovery purposes, specifically joint stuff and sleep, and I ended up ordering from two different suppliers over the past like 3 months because my first order was kind of a mess. not sure if this is dumb but I'll just share what happened

first order was from PureRawz. shipping took about 8 days which I thought was normal? the liquid MK-677 came and the dropper was kind of leaking and I emailed customer service and honestly they did respond within like 2 days which surprised me. they sent a replacement. the product itself I cant say for sure about purity because I don't have any way to test it myself, does anyone even do that at home?? but I did notice something happening with my sleep around week 3 which I guess is what people talk about

second order I went with Amino Asylum because someone in another thread mentioned them. shipping was faster, like 5-6 days. no packaging issues this time. pricing was a little cheaper per mg I think

here's where I start second guessing myself though - I've been running it for about 90 days now at 25mg daily and I keep reading conflicting stuff about long term use. like some people say bloating and water retention gets better after a few weeks and for me it kind of did but I'm still puffy around my face in the morning. is that just how it is forever or does it go away? not sure if thats a supplier quality thing or just MK in general

also the hunger thing is REAL. nobody warned me how intense that gets in the first month. I've gained like 8 lbs and I genuinely can't tell how much is water vs actual muscle vs just eating too much because I was starving every night

I guess my actual questions are

1. has anyone used either of these suppliers long term and noticed consistency issues batch to batch, like does the product feel different

2. for people who ran MK-677 longer than 3 months did the side effects (water, hunger, that groggy morning feeling) actually level off or am I stuck with this

3. should I be getting bloodwork done?? I feel like I should be getting bloodwork done but I don't really know what to ask my doctor for without it being weird

sorry if these are obvious questions I just don't want to make a mistake with something I'm putting in my body for months at a time. appreciate any help from people who actually know what they're doing here

[IronGutPeptideBro]

lmao ok first of all you gained 8 lbs and "can't tell how much is muscle" bro I hate to break it to you but the midnight fridge raids DEFINITELY played a role the MK hunger is absolutely no joke though, I remember my first cycle I ate an entire rotisserie chicken at like 1am and just sat there staring at the empty container like what did I just do

also the hunger thing is REAL. nobody warned me how intense that gets in the first month.

honestly nobody EVER warns people about this adequately and its kinda hilarious every time a new person discovers it lol. its like a rite of passage at this point. welcome to the club bro, theres a buffet in the back

the face puffiness thing in the morning tho, I call that the "mk moon face alarm clock" because you wake up look in the mirror and your face is like hey buddy good morning I am SWOLLEN. my girlfriend thought I was having an allergic reaction the first time haha

but yeah for real the other guys in this thread will prob give you the more serious answers on bloodwork and supplier stuff, I mostly just wanted to say the chicken story is universal among us MK users and you are not alone out there suffering at the fridge at midnight

godspeed brother lol

[xX_SleepQueenXx]

omg

its like a rite of passage at this point. welcome to the club bro, theres a buffet in the back

LMAOOO the rotisserie chicken story is sending me I did literally the same thing with a bowl of cereal that somehow turned into 3 bowls of cereal at midnight my first week on MK

I've been running it for about 90 days now at 25mg daily

ok so I'm super curious about this - did you start at 25mg right away or did you work up to it?? I've been reading that some people start lower like 12.5 and ramp up to help with the water retention and hunger side effects but honestly idk if that actually makes a difference or if its just one of those things people say

also the face puffiness thing you mentioned, I get that too in the mornings!! I keep waking up looking like I slept face down on a waffle iron lol. I was told it gets better after like 2 months but I'm still waiting sooo

genuinely asking tho - when you say your sleep "felt different" around week 3, like what exactly did that mean for you?? did you feel more rested in the morning or just like you were sleeping deeper but still waking up groggy?? because for me it was kind of both at once which was confusing

[quantified_karen_lol]

ok so I'm going to come in here and be the annoying one who actually addresses some of the stuff in this thread because a couple things are being glossed over and I feel like that's a disservice to OP who clearly put effort into asking real questions lol

I've been running it for about 90 days now at 25mg daily and I keep reading conflicting stuff about long term use.

alright so let me address this directly because the cheerful midnight snack stories are cute but there's some actual stuff here worth talking about seriously

first the bloodwork question - YES you should absolutely be getting bloodwork done and I'm mildly alarmed that two replies came through and neither of them mentioned this. the specific thing you want to look at is fasting glucose and insulin sensitivity. this is not optional information it's actually kind of important. MK-677 is well documented to cause increases in fasting blood glucose and can affect insulin sensitivity with prolonged use, and at 90 days you are in the territory where this is worth checking. that's not me being alarmist that's just what the compound does mechanistically - it elevates IGF-1 and GH pulse amplitude but it also does a number on glucose metabolism for some people more than others.

the way you handle the doctor situation without it being weird is you just ask for a general wellness panel and specifically mention you want fasting glucose, HbA1c, and an IGF-1 level if they'll run it. you can frame the IGF-1 as "I'm interested in my hormonal aging markers" which is vague enough that most doctors will just order it. some won't but it's worth asking. I've been doing this for years and I've never had a doctor give me actual grief over asking for specific labs, the worst that happens is they say no and you order through a third party lab service online.

now here's the thing I actually want to call out

I've been reading that some people start lower like 12.5 and ramp up to help with the water retention and hunger side effects but honestly idk if that actually makes a difference or if its just one of those things people say

I see this floating around constantly and I want to push back on the framing here. the water retention and hunger with MK-677 are not really dose-dependent in the way people imply when they say "start low and ramp up." those effects are pretty consistent across the effective dosage range because they're downstream of the same mechanism causing the effects you actually want - elevated GH pulses, especially overnight. the idea that you can meaningfully escape the water retention by starting at 12.5mg is mostly forum mythology that gets repeated. what you CAN do at lower doses is slightly blunt the initial hunger spike while your body adjusts, but you are not going to avoid the water retention profile by tiptoeing into the dose. if anything the face puffiness OP is describing at 25mg daily is just... MK-677 doing MK-677 things. it typically does improve over months for most people but calling it "getting better after 2 months" as a universal experience is overstating it. some people deal with it the entire time they're on it.

the supplier question - ok so I have used both of those suppliers at various points and I have thoughts but I want to be clear I don't have HPLC data to wave around here. what I can say is that my subjective experience with Amino Asylum MK-677 has been more consistent batch to batch in terms of the sleep and hunger response, which is anecdotal but at 3+ years of logging everything I'm fairly confident I would notice significant purity swings. PureRawz I have had more variable experiences with across different products, not specifically terrible but definitely inconsistent. their customer service situation being decent as OP described matches what I've heard from others. the dropper leaking on a liquid product is kind of a basic QC failure though and it would bother me more than OP seems to be bothered by it lol

also the 8 lbs OP - I know IronGut was joking around about the fridge raids and obviously yes the hyperphagia is real and it absolutely contributes to weight gain, BUT you also have to account for the fact that on MK-677 you are holding a meaningful amount of intracellular water from the GH-mediated effects on body composition. 8 lbs in 90 days is not alarming and I wouldn't try to read too deeply into the composition breakdown yet. at the 6 month mark with consistent training and protein intake you'll have a much clearer picture of what actually happened.

anyway welcome to the community OP, get your bloodwork done, that's the one thing I will stand on lol

[T_Ortega_Lifts]

should I be getting bloodwork done?? I feel like I should be getting bloodwork done but I don't really know what to ask my doctor for without it being weird

quantified_karen already covered the bloodwork angle well so I won't repeat all of it. But I want to ask you a few things because some of your details are standing out to me and I want to make sure you're set up properly before anyone gives you more advice.

Quick questions:

- What does your training look like right now? Frequency, type of sessions?
- What's your protein intake roughly? You mentioned you were eating a lot from the hunger but didn't say what you were actually eating
- When are you dosing the MK? Morning or night?

The timing question matters more than people realize. If you're dosing in the morning you're wasting a chunk of the GH pulse benefit and you're also setting yourself up for that hunger hitting at the worst possible times during the day. Nighttime dosing about 30-60 min before bed is pretty much the standard recommendation for a reason.

the idea that you can meaningfully escape the water retention by starting at 12.5mg is mostly forum mythology

Agree with this completely. The face puffiness thing OP is describing is just the compound working. Not a supplier issue.

Answer those questions and I can give you more specific feedback on the stack side of things.