The Abdomen Said No
Week 5 of the protocol, three updates: a NAD+ technique that finally works, an abdomen running out of real estate, and a primary-site switch to the lateral thigh.
Five weeks into the protocol under Dr. José Luis Barrera at TRT Colombia. Three updates worth logging.
1. NAD+ — slow-push wins
The dosing question is settled. 100mg daily, five days a week (Wednesday through Sunday, AM), pushed over 2 to 3 minutes subQ. Five doses × 100mg = 500mg AUC weekly. Zero flush. Zero nausea. No chest pressure, no anxious heat, nothing that makes me look at the syringe sideways.
The variable was never the dose. It was the rate.
Previous attempts ran 250mg twice a week or 500mg in a single shot. Both versions delivered the classic NAD+ rush — flushing, jaw tightness, that “something is happening and I don’t like it” feeling that makes people abandon the protocol. Slowing the plunger to a 2–3 minute push at a lower per-session dose erased the entire side-effect curve.
Stacked with 500mL water pre and post for kidney clearance. The slow push is the protocol from here forward.
2. The abdomen ran out of real estate
I’ve been running a four-quadrant abdomen grid as the primary injection site since Day Zero — upper-left, upper-right, lower-left, lower-right. That’s fine for two compounds. It is not fine for eight.
At 4–5 sticks per week into the same four squares for four straight weeks, tissue heal rate fell below injection density. The result, by Week 4:
- Red patches that wouldn’t fade between sessions
- Bruising that started overlapping previous bruising
- Persistent scratch-urge over the lower quadrants
- A clear histamine reaction on Day 20 in the bottom-left, which then needed a full week off the rotation
The math doesn’t work. An eight-compound protocol — Test, HCG, BPC-157, TB-500, CJC-1295, Ipamorelin, Retatrutide, and NAD+ — generates more sticks than four quadrants can absorb if I want each site to rest 7+ days. The abdomen was the wrong primary.
3. Switching to the lateral thigh
From this week forward the primary site moves to the outer vastus lateralis — the lateral thigh, that flat zone along the side of the leg between hip and knee.
The new grid:
- 3 zones per leg — upper (near hip), middle, lower (near knee)
- × 2 legs = 6 thigh sites
- + 4 abdomen quadrants (demoted to backup)
- = 10-site rotation, each site resting ~17 days
Tissue heal rate finally moves above injection density. The abdomen drops to backup — used only when a thigh site is mid-recovery.
Why the thigh wins for a stack this dense:
- Fewer superficial vessels in the vastus lateralis vs. the abdomen — less bruising on entry
- Lower nerve density — less pinch pain, especially for larger oil volumes
- More subQ tissue for large injectates — HCG 100u, TB-500 80u, Test 40u oil go in cleaner without the abdominal tightness
- Already standard in most TRT clinical protocols — the abdomen is the biohacker default, not the medical one
Same technique: 8mm insulin needle, pinch the skin, 90° entry, slow push. Nothing exotic. Just better real estate.
What changes from here
- NAD+ stays at 100mg × 5/week with the slow push. Logged as locked-in.
- All daily-frequency compounds (BPC-157, TB-500, CJC-1295, Ipamorelin) rotate through the 6 thigh sites first.
- Test, HCG, Retatrutide go thigh-first as well.
- Abdomen quadrants only get used when the thigh rotation is mid-heal — backup, not primary.
Five weeks in: NAD+ rate solved, abdomen retired as primary, 10-site rotation live. Week 6 logs the thigh data.
