Pinealon Experiment: Round 2

First pin is in the bag. 500mcg was 7.4u based on the pinch of an overfill in this vial. I'll only be dosing in the AM and will go outside to get some sun on my face for a few minutes after pinning as there are reports of this helping. I'll go into this detail in my next update post. Short on time today.

Injection was painless. No sting. No injection site reaction at all such as welts or redness. Almost as big of a nothing burger as Reta, which for me Reta is the most painless pin around –– like it never even happened.

Is that a 10mg or 20mg vial? You didn't specify and I can't see from the label in the picture.

My bad, yeah it's a 10mg. Will update the og post. I'm off to the gym here in a few and I'm curious if it will have any effect on training focus. We shall see.

Good call switching routes for round two. Nasal on a 3-aa peptide is a coin flip for delivery in my view. Subq at least gives you a consistent systemic pulse. Funny you are starting this because I was literally planning to do a cycle of it soon with all the talk online about it. Maybe I'll wait for your feedback. Following this thread.

Pinned dose two this morning at the same 500mcg amount. I expect to say on this dose size for at least a week. The pin scores a 1 on the pain scale. It's so minimal that nobody should have a problem. Zero ISR that I can see.

How did I sleep last night? Honestly, pretty good. I was exhausted from a busy day and come 11pm sitting on the couch with the TV on and I was nodding off. Was this because of the Pinealon or just being tired in general from a rough week? I guess we'll find out tonight. No strange or vivid dreams to speak of. I got a straight 8hrs of sleep from the point I woke up naturally. I then checked my phone for 5 minutes and still felt tired, so rolled back over for another 2.5hrs with some tossing and turning. Once I finally got out of bed I felt pretty good. Ready to knock some tasks out which I did and felt "in the zone".

I'll see how the rest of the day goes and report back at some point tomorrow.

Pin #3 happened this morning. Staying at that 500mcg dose. Sleep last night was not very good. Tossed and turned a lot. Did not want to get out of bed. Also my stupid Oura ring appears to be dead which is immensely frustrating as I was going to use this to report sleep data for this cycle. I'm not spending another $400 on a new one as the model I bought only lasted about 15 months and resulted in a giant waste of money. Sucks, but it is what it is. Maybe I'll look at the Garmin unless anyone else has suggestions. I'm not really keen on an Apple Watch.

As far as the cognitive angle, I do feel focused, but not overly.

Go with the Garmin. I haven't bought one yet myself, but I've done quite a bit of researching comparing all of these (Whoop, Apple watch, Oura, etc) and it seems as though the Garmin is the best choice for features, battery life, and price.

Worthwhile update to report with some actual effects. I can't really say whether I feel any cognitive benefits as I usually always feel focused and in the zone for the most part during my work day, but it's certainly not causing any slips in that area. Hard to judge to be honest.

As for sleep last night, I was ready for bed and relaxed. Fell asleep quickly and finally had some of those vivid dreams people talk about. I slept pretty deep as far as I could tell. Maybe my best night of sleep yet in terms of no tossing and turning and waking up like I actually got real sleep. Still on the 500mcg dose and of course I dosed again this morning which was pin #4. I'm going to keep that 500mcg dose into Saturday. Then starting Sunday I'm going to push up to 750mcg for a few days before pushing to the 1mg to close out the cycle.

Pin #5 in the books. Sleep was solid again, but I started waking up about an hour earlier than my alarm was set to go off. More dreams, but not as vivid. Focus today has been great. Probably the first time I've noticed something rather than just baseline levels. So I'm intrigued but we are still early. Still on the 500mcg dose.

Is your Pinealon the same for Round 1 & Round 2? Or different sources?

@JGOLD wrote:

Is your Pinealon the same for Round 1 & Round 2? Or different sources?

Different sources. First one I bought from Mile High. This was is obviously Glacier from the picture. I try to cycle my buying around various vendors so I can test them all.

Pin #6 was completed this morning. Feeling tired at the end of the day continues, but it's not a strong overwhelming feeling. When I did that Epitalon cycle, I was ready to sleep standing up by 10pm each night. The effect on my circadian rhythm was impressive. Pinealon doesn't seem to have that same effect or least not to nearly the same extent. Once again today I did wake up before my alarm. I did have dreams once again. I don't necessarily feel more rested than any other day really. I've only had one day where I woke up so far and felt like I had a fabulous nights sleep. On the focus angle, that still seems to be there. I've never really had focus issues in my daily life anyway and just get into a roll, so I wouldn't really put this on Pinealon. I'm still on the 500mcg dose and won't switch that up until Sunday, so I'm hoping once I get to 1mg I'll see greater effects.

Pin #7 is done and we're a full week into 500mcg subq dosing. Tomorrow I will increase the dose to 750mcg.

What have a I noticed so far....

Dreams or at least dreams that I can recall seem to have increased. I'd say they are more vivid or detailed.

My sleep feels better, not great, but I keep waking up earlier than I want and not getting 8hrs. I'm getting around 6.5 - 7hrs of consistent sleep which is a bit frustrating because upon waking up I don't have that rested feeling until I get up and out of bed. I'm consistently waking up before my alarm goes off. For comparison when I was doing nasal DSIP, I would consistently sleep until my alarm went off.

Hard to measure this, but I do feel in the zone each day and just want to work or be task driven. This however is not far off from how I am in general, so I can't really say with confidence that Pinealon is contributing here, but I think it is.

Here is the new piece I've noticed the last few days: any time I'm deep thinking or have my brain racing, it is super visual. It's like I'm thinking in dreams if that makes any sense. I just keep visualizing what I'm thinking with everything. It's strange and so hard to explain, but it's happening.

Are you going to switch up pinning at all and maybe try at night time?

@Lab Rat wrote:

Are you going to switch up pinning at all and maybe try at night time?

Not for this cycle. I'm going all mornings within an hour of getting out of bed, combined with natural sunlight in my eyes. I did try evenings when I first did the nasal cycle several months back and I came away thinking that did nothing at all.

Pin #8 was made this morning. The is the first increase of the cycle and we're now up to 750mcg.

Still no pain or any sting on injection. Perfect for an abdomen shot. This one was technically in the side flank.

I still feel focused. Again I'm not really sure if it's just me with a lot of stuff I know I need to get done or if the Pinealon is throwing me an assist. Either way I'll take it.

On the sleep front, I slept through the entire night and then woke up right at the 8 hour mark naturally. I view this as a win. Actually felt decent as if I'd gotten proper sleep. No dream recall which is surprising. I'm going to go another 1-2 days at this 750mcg before making the jump to 1mg to finish off the vial.

Got busy yesterday and lost track of my window to pin, so I skipped my dose yesterday. Today I dosed back at the 750mcg. Not noticing anything new at all. Feel pretty status quo. I'm hoping for something to come about in this last week of daily dosing and I'll be moving up to 1mg in a day or two.

I've been following along hoping for some revealing info, but it sounds like a dud of an experiment unfortunately. You should do more of these.

Lots more N=1 experiments coming. I really enjoy these to be honest and my next one is going after more of the Khavinson names. Got about 7 days left of Pinealon, so hopefully maybe we get a little more substance as the finish line gets closer. Calling it a dud at this point seems unfortunately accurate. Since this is my second cycle of it, clearly I want to be excited and say this compound works great. The results are uninspiring....thus far.

Sleep last night was actually really good. I was also exhausted from a long day so that was probably part of it. I know I had dreams, but I can't remember them or how vivid they were. Doesn't really matter. As for the cognitive part which is what Pinealon is mostly about (sleep is secondary), I feel normal. I feel sharp. Is it the Pinealon? Probably not.

Big update today. I had super vivid and lucid dreams last night. They seemed to last forever. Not sure if that means my REM sleep was extended or what, but this is first time I've had dreams like this since taking Pinealon and it does coincide with the larger 750mcg dose. I got just under 9 hours of sleep woke up ready to take on the day. I've felt super sharp all morning, more so than normal. Maybe we're finally seeing some benefits.

Sounds like we may be onto something with your last post. As of now larger doses appear to be the answer. Maybe I'll run a similar experiment. Actually next time you want to do an N=1 we should both do the exact same protocol and see how it comes out. I think that would be really interesting for others to follow.

That's not a bad idea. If you're up for it, grab 10mg vials of Vilon and Vesugen because they are up next on my list and I'm going to do those at the same time, albeit staggered.

First 1mg shot completed this morning. I'm now double the starting dose from the beginning of this experiment. Sleep is definitely different and I'm dreaming a lot more. Sleep quality does feel better and I feel more ready to tackle the day upon waking up. Starting to see the benefits now at larger doses.

Probably too late now for this experiment, but I just bought an Apple Series 12 Watch and I pick it up this afternoon. Will be using to help provide some actual data when it comes time for Vilon and Vesugen experiment. For now I've got 2-3 days left of this Pinealon N=1 and I'm going to skip today's dose so I can at the least get a bit of data from the watch before this experiment ends.

Pinned another 1mg this morning. Looks like I have 2 doses left in this cycle. I picked up my Apple Watch Series 12 yesterday, which was a miserable experience that I'll save for another date, but I've got at least 24hrs of data now. Apparently my sleep score was 100 and I've got some data on deep sleep, REM, etc. Not sure how to interpret all of this yet as I'm just getting familiar with how to read it, but I'll post what I've got.

For one night, that data looks pretty normal. No red flags that I can see except you woke up for 2 hours. What were you doing? What it looks like after a week will be more telling.

Forgot to update yesterday, but this cycle is now over. Took my last 1mg pin yesterday morning. My overall evaluation of this 14 day cycle is that I won't be doing another cycle of Pinealon. I don't just don't notice any significant improvements in cognitive ability or sleep or any other life changing events. If it helped with rem sleep I guess we'll see in next weeks data if the rem metrics drop. See below screenshot for sleep data over the last 3 days while on Pinealon, as I didn't get my Apple Watch until Sunday. Grok analyzed it as the following: REM is fine. Deep and wake time are the weak spots.

1 hr 38 min REM on 7 hr 6 min asleep is about 23% of sleep. That’s a normal-to-good REM share for a 46-year-old. Typical target is roughly 20–25% (about 90–120 min in a 7–8 hour night). You’re in the window.