Ipamorelin Dosage: Solo Protocols, Timing & Unit Math

Ipamorelin is a ghrelin receptor agonist. It binds GHS-R1a in the pituitary and triggers a pulse of your own stored growth hormone.

Think of it as a doorbell, not a delivery truck. Pressing the doorbell tells the pituitary to release what it already stocked; pressing harder does not make the warehouse bigger. Literally stated: ipamorelin stimulates release of endogenous GH in a pulse, and past a certain dose the pulse stops growing.

The human pharmacokinetics back the timing rules. In 40 healthy volunteers, GH peaked about 40 minutes after dosing and fell back within roughly 6 hours, with a terminal half-life near 2 hours (Gobburu et al., Pharm Res, 1999, PMID 10496658). A short pulse that you can place deliberately is the entire point: put it on top of the natural slow-wave-sleep GH surge and the two stack.

Selectivity is what separates ipamorelin from the older secretagogues. At GH-releasing doses it does not push ACTH or cortisol beyond what GHRH itself produces, and it leaves prolactin essentially alone, unlike GHRP-2 and GHRP-6 (Raun et al., Eur J Endocrinol, 1998, PMID 9849822). Downstream, the GH pulse does what GH does: in rats, ipamorelin produced measurable longitudinal bone growth (Johansen et al., Growth Horm IGF Res, 1999, PMID 10373343).

Goal determines frequency more than dose size. The per-injection amount stays inside 100 to 300 mcg for almost everyone.

The community weight heuristic runs about 1 mcg per kg per pulse: 60 kg lands near 60 to 180 mcg, 80 kg near 80 to 240 mcg, 100 kg near 100 to 300 mcg. Be clear about what that number is: a GHRP-class tradition, not the product of an ipamorelin dose-finding trial. No such trial exists.

No validated women-specific dose exists either. Community practice runs 100 to 200 mcg per injection, and the saturation logic below applies identically. For a side-by-side of how ipamorelin dosing compares with the GHRH analogs, see tesamorelin vs sermorelin vs ipamorelin; the full multi-peptide reference lives in the peptide dosage chart.

The Gobburu PK/PD model found dose-proportional plasma levels but a saturable GH response: output approaches a ceiling as concentration rises, with a half-maximal stimulatory concentration of 214 nmol/L (Gobburu et al., Pharm Res, 1999, PMID 10496658). Past the ceiling, extra micrograms buy side-effect exposure, not growth hormone.

The practical rule: cap single injections around 300 mcg. If you want more total stimulation, add a second daily pulse instead of inflating the first one. Two 200 mcg pulses spaced 8 hours apart beat one 400 mcg pulse, because each catches the pituitary restocked.

This is also the argument against dose creep mid-cycle. Feeling less from week 6 is not fixed by 450 mcg; it is a signal to check timing, food spacing, and product quality first.

Once daily (bedtime). The entry protocol and the one with the best effort-to-return ratio. Inject 30 to 60 minutes before sleep, at least 2 hours after your last meal, and wait 30 minutes before any food. The injection rides the natural nocturnal GH pulse.

Twice daily. Add a morning injection, fasted, at least 30 minutes before breakfast. Keep pulses 3 or more hours apart so the pituitary restocks between doorbell rings.

Three times daily. Morning, mid-afternoon (2 hours after lunch), bedtime. Reserved for aggressive recomposition phases; the third injection adds the least and costs the most discipline.

The 5/2 schedule. Five weekdays on, weekends off. It is a community hedge against receptor desensitization with no trial evidence behind it, and it cuts the weekly dose by about 28%. If you run it, run it knowingly.

Cycles run 8 to 12 weeks on, 4 weeks off. Ipamorelin-specific desensitization data is thin; the off-cycle convention is imported from secretagogue class practice. Where the needle goes, and the site rotation that protects your tissue, is covered in the CJC-1295 and ipamorelin injection site guide.

Your dose in micrograms means nothing until you know the concentration you created. One worked example: add 2.5 mL of bacteriostatic water to a 5 mg vial and you get 2,000 mcg/mL, which is 20 mcg per unit on a U-100 insulin syringe. A 200 mcg dose is 10 units.

Use bacteriostatic water, never plain sterile water, for a vial you will puncture nightly for weeks; the bacteriostatic vs sterile water guide explains the preservative math. Full technique, including the two-vial single-syringe draw for stack users, is in the CJC-1295 and ipamorelin reconstitution guide.

After mixing, refrigerate at 2 to 8 degrees C and plan to finish the vial within 4 to 6 weeks; the reconstituted shelf-life guide covers the decay timeline. Check any vial-plus-water combination with the peptide reconstitution calculator.

Community-reported side effects at standard doses are mild and transient: brief headache, flushing, water retention, injection-site redness, and a wave of hunger 20 to 40 minutes post-injection. The hunger is mechanistic, a ghrelin-mimetic effect documented in animal models (Venkova et al., J Pharmacol Exp Ther, 2009, PMID 19289567). Tingling hands or carpal-tunnel-like pressure signals GH excess: drop the dose.

The best safety-ceiling data comes from a hospital trial. In a randomized study of 114 bowel-resection patients, IV ipamorelin at 0.03 mg/kg twice daily for up to 7 days produced an adverse-event profile comparable to placebo (Beck et al., Int J Colorectal Dis, 2014, PMID 25331030). For an 80 kg adult that is roughly 2,400 mcg per dose, about 10 times community subcutaneous levels, tolerated at placebo level for a week.

The honesty beat belongs next to that number: the same trial failed its efficacy endpoint, and no human trial has ever tested ipamorelin for muscle gain, fat loss, or anti-aging. The class review is equally blunt: efficacy and safety data in healthy adults are limited, long-term safety is unestablished, and anyone running a secretagogue should watch IGF-1 and fasting glucose (Sigalos et al., Sex Med Rev, 2018, PMID 28400207).

Skip ipamorelin entirely with active or prior cancer, uncontrolled blood sugar, pregnancy or breastfeeding, or open growth plates. Stack-specific reactions are covered in the CJC-1295 and ipamorelin side effects guide.

Chasing bigger single doses. The GH response saturates. 500 mcg delivers the side effects of 500 mcg and the GH of 300 mcg. Fix: cap the pulse, add a second one.

Injecting fed. Insulin and glucose blunt the GH pulse. A bedtime dose 30 minutes after dessert quietly underdelivers all cycle. Fix: 2 hours of fasting before, 30 minutes after.

Misreading the syringe math. At 10 mg reconstituted in 1 mL, 2 units is a normal 200 mcg, but drawing 0.3 mL delivers 3,000 mcg, a 10x error from one misread barrel. Fix: compute mcg per unit once, write it on the vial, and verify with the unit converter.

Running blend numbers on a solo protocol. Stack dosing from CJC-1295 combos assumes two compounds splitting the work. Fix: solo protocols use this page; if you want the oral secretagogue route instead, weigh it against MK-677.

Skipping the off-cycle. 12 weeks on, zero off, repeated indefinitely is unstudied territory on a compound with no long-term human data. Fix: 4 weeks off after every cycle, bloodwork if you run multiple cycles per year. Related GHRP dosing patterns are in the hexarelin dosage guide.

Solo is the right call for a first secretagogue cycle, for sleep-and-recovery goals, and for anyone who wants the cleanest side-effect profile in the class. One compound, one variable, easy to read your own response.

The stack earns its complexity when the goal is body composition and you have a solo cycle behind you. CJC-1295 raises the baseline GHRH tone while ipamorelin fires the pulse, two different receptors pulling the same lever. Those protocols, ratios, and the DAC question live in the CJC-1295 dosage guide, with draw volumes handled by the CJC-1295/ipamorelin dosage calculator.