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BPC oral vs injectable for a stubborn achilles tendinopathy, what actually worked for you?

Posted by nof1_tara in Healing & Recovery - 3 points, 6 comments.

I've been dealing with low-grade achilles tendinopathy for about 8 months now. Eccentric heel drops, heavy slow resistance, the whole boring rehab block. Progress is real but slow and I'm impatient lol.

Thinking about adding BPC-157 into the stack since the tendon just won't fully calm down. The oral arginate version on the profile page looks interesting because no needles and I have read some people say it works on gut and systemic inflammation at the same time. But I've also seen plenty of folks swear the injectable form is the only way to go for tendon stuff specifically.

For those of you who ran BPC for a chronic tendon issue, did you notice a real difference between the two routes, or did oral feel kinda meh compared to the shot? I'm also wondering about timing it around the rehab sessions, like do you dose before or after the heel drops.

Curious what protocols people landed on after trial and error. Not chasing a magic fix, just trying to stack the odds.

Comments

  • rational_nomad: For what it is worth, i tried the oral arginate for about 6 weeks on a cranky patellar tendon and honestly couldn't tell if it was doing anything, then switched to subq near the tendon site and felt a real difference within 2-3 weeks. That could be timing bias, could be placebo, hard to say, but the difference was noticeable enough for me to keep going with shots. Most of the rodent data on bpc and tendon healing used injected doses, and the oral bioavailability number i've seen quoted is hones
  • restlesschris: Oral arginate didn't do much for my achilles either, switched to subq close to the tendon and had a similar experience to yours, felt something shift after a couple weeks. Bioavailability being that low would explain why the oral felt like nothing for me honestly.
  • coastal_gains368: Yeah the local injection thing seems to track for tendons specifically (gut stuff is a different conversation imo). Oral just felt like I was peeing out money for my knee, but I'll admit I'm biased toward shots already so placebo goes both ways here.
  • nof1_tara: Fair point on the bias thing, that's honest of you to acknowledge. The knee is a decent proxy for what I'm dealing with though since it's a chronic load-induced issue rather than an acute injury, so the recovery curve probably looks pretty similar. To answer your question, yeah I was running somewhere around 250 to 500 mcg on the injectable, starting low and working my way up over a few weeks to see how I tolerated it. Honestly the subQ route isn't that intimidating once you get past the mental
  • nof1_tara: Yeah that tracks with what I've been reading tbh. If the oral is barely getting through, no wonder it felt like I was just taking expensive water for my gut lol. How close to the tendon were you pinning, like right next to it or just on the same leg? And did you keep doing the heel drops the whole time or take a break from loading it during the first couple weeks?
  • nof1_tara: Yeah that tracks with my worry honestly. 6 weeks of nothing then a switch up and it works would drive me nuts though, lol. Did you keep the same daily amount when you switched to subq or did you bump it up? And that oral bioavailability thing is kinda what I was afraid of... If it's really under 10% then I'd basically be wasting money on a tendinopathy that needs every bit of help it can get at this point. Might just suck it up and do the shots. Timing wise, did you dose right after your rehab

Community discussion - research and educational context only. Not medical advice.