“Heal like Wolverine!” says the marketing pitch.

Well, BPC-157 is a peptide and it can’t be patented so there’s not actually any marketing done, any more than generic paracetamol is marketed. No money in it, is there? What I mean is that’s what all the internet yahoos are saying about it. BPC is an abbreviation of Body Protection Compound and BPC-157 is a peptide produced naturally by the human body in the gut. It’s legal to buy in the UK but has not been approved for human use and is therefore labelled as “research only” and “not for human use” [1].

Woah there, Nick! Back up a bit. Peptides?

It was all new to me two months ago so let me fill you in on what I’ve found out. Peptides are long chains of amino acids produced naturally in the human body. We produce tens of thousands of them and each functions as a signalling device to regulate all kinds of normal bodily processes. Scientists have so far isolated about 200 of them to get a good idea what each of the 200 does and how to synthesise them in a laboratory. Most are of no interest to us, covering boring processes, but a few stand out and have been claimed by the sports science and anti-ageing communities.

The reason you don’t hear much about them is because drug companies cannot patent a naturally-occuring amino acid and thus there’s no pot of gold at the end of the human trials and FDA approval rainbow. Additionally, most peptides cannot survive stomach acids (they get broken down fast) and thus are a waste of time administering orally. So, unlike vitamins, you have to inject them. That immediately rules out almost all normies from wanting anything to do with them [2]. Peptides are “underground” in that hardly anyone talks about them but they are scientifically researched, synthesised and administered. It’s not homeopathy.

BPC-157 is already in widespread use amongst physiotherapists and conditioning coaches for elite athletes. The drug testing authorities such as USADA are well aware of it and have not placed it on the controlled substances list because they don’t judge its effects performance enhancing according to their criteria.

So, what does it do?

BPC-157 reduces inflammation and aids the healing of soft tissue, particularly ligaments and tendons. It has a sister peptide called TB-500 which does much the same thing but with a bias more towards muscle repair [3]. It’s long been used in race horses to aid healing and now pro athletes get it to reduce their time recovering form injury.

Word on the street is it more than halves recovery time from soft tissue injuries.

What got me interested were all the internet testimonials that it can also heal stubborn long-term injuries that have been previously resistant to other methods, such as rotator cuff, ACL, and tennis elbow. I’ve had a nagging tendonitis in my right shoulder for over ten years [4] and nothing has fixed it. The physios gave me exercises to no avail. A long time away from bag work didn’t help. BPC-157 sounded like a good shot to sort it once and for all.

I bought mine from UK-Peptides for £109 for five small 5mg bottles, each reconstituting with water to be a week’s supply, five weeks total. I also bought bacteriostatic water to mix into it, and a box of 100 insulin needles (0,5ml with tiny 0,30mm points) and sterile swabs from Medical Supplies UK.

Internet advice was conflicted on the best dosage protocol. One school of thought says reconstituted BPC-157 is unstable and extremely short ester (like, half an hour) so you should inject it as close to the injured area as possible. Others say that doesn’t matter so do it anywhere that’s comfortable, such as thigh or subcutaneously around midsection, is fine. Yet another school of thought says BPC-157 is reasonably resilient to stomach acid (it does actually exist there naturally) so it will have a more systemic effect orally and additionally promotes gut health.

What I settled on was: one 15mmg in the bad shoulder, another 15mmg in my left shoulder (similar issue but far less pronounced), and then 15mmg orally by spraying from syringe directly onto my tongue.

I did that for three weeks.

The results were immediate and encouraging. The anti-inflammatory effect was noticeable within one day and by the end of week one the pain was completely gone. My shoulder trouble comes and goes, with long periods of barely noticeable discomfort and then periodic flare ups, of up to a week, of very bothersome aching and occasionally even sharp pain. Just two weeks before beginning the BPC-157 my left shoulder had flared so badly that any kind of movement anywhere on my upper body sent shooting pain along my shoulder. It was so bad I couldn’t find a comfortable sleeping position and it took me a minute to slowly get out of bed, and a further hour before my shoulder felt normal. That’s what had spurred me to take a chance of BPC-157, deciding this was no longer tolerable.

So, within a week all that was gone. My shoulders still felt a bit hollow and bothersome, but no actual pain. By the end of week two my left shoulder felt 100% and my right shoulder the best it had in years. My right shoulder has been twitchy for years and by the end of week three that was gone too. Both felt 100%.

I stopped my course then, as I was flying to Serbia.

I hesitate to say BPC-157 fixed my shoulder problems due to the following confounding variables:

1. I wasn’t at the gym this period, due to lockdown, so my shoulders weren’t coming under their usual weight-lifting pressure. The recovery could be as much due to a lay-off as to the BPC-157 itself.
2. The shoulder pain would always wax and wane naturally, so maybe I was injecting the peptide during a period my shoulder pain would’ve reduced naturally.

It’s too soon to talk about anything permanent. For all I know, the BPC-157 had a temporary anti-inflammatory effect to reduce pain but did nothing to heal the underlying injury and thus it’ll all flare up again once the inflammation resumes.

So, my personal anecdotal results are optimistic but inconclusive. I’ve still got two bottles of the stuff left (and I’m told by my coach it’s legal to purchase in Serbia). If my shoulders act up again, I’ll resume my above protocol. There’s also an additional slightly comical reason why my research is inconclusive.

Once constituted with water, BPC-157 is unstable and is best kept in a dark, cold place such as the refrigerator. Some internet sources say it doesn’t really matter so long as it is out of direct sunlight. Others say no, it must be refrigerated. Well, I couldn’t put mine in the fridge because I was staying at my parents’ house and thus (i) my mother would freak the fuck out if there’s a research chemical in the fridge and (ii) she’s so absent minded now she’d probably drink it herself or throw it in the bin. Thus I had to keep mine behind some books on my bookcase. It’s quite possible that only day one of each week’s injection was the full-strength stuff and the rest might’ve been no more than a placebo.

Obviously now that I’ve got my big boy pants on in Serbia I can put the next lot in the fridge.

Blah blah anti-ageing who gives a fuck. Daygame Overkill is where it’s all at. Almost six hours of daygame video instruction including ten wowser infields of me in action and detailed breakdown of what’s going on and how to reproduce it for yourself. Buy it here.

[1] Seeing as bodybuilders will inject themselves with Trenbolone designed to bulk up the Belgian Blue dairy cow, obviously that is not going to stop them trying BPC-157
[2] And, initially, ruled out me too for that very reason.
[3] I haven’t tried it but might do so.
[4] Due to boxing. I’m southpaw and really like jabbing. After thousands of rounds punching the heavy bag, with a heavy predisposition towards my lead hand, I started to damage my shoulder.