SS-31 has been the most effective treatment I have tried for improving energy. It has improved my cognitive function by 50%. I can now do moderate cognitive work for 5-10 hrs/week when before I could do none
GlowingEnergy · 500 mcg titrated to 30 mg · Injection · about 4 months
March 28th of this year I started this cellular mitochondial protocol, and April 10th I regained the feeling in my right foot (mostly). A complete miracle. I can wiggle my toes in bed and feel them now. Ten years later!
GlowingEnergy · 5 mg/day · Injection · 7 weeks
55M, post-surgical nerve damage; MOTS-c and NAD+ added after 2 weeks, on retatrutide
I just finished my last dose of a 8 week run of ss31 at 5mg a day and I still wake up blind as can be.
Nothing5 mg/day · Injection · 8 weeks
38, followed by MOTS-c
Users report
Responders describe clean, steady energy, fewer PEM crashes in long COVID, and scattered striking anecdotes (smell returning, feeling back in a long-numb foot, sharper vision, lower fasting glucose), usually within days to two weeks. About half of first-hand reports are positive. A fifth notice nothing even after 8-week runs or repeated cycles, and another fifth feel worse: afternoon fatigue crashes for the first 1-3 weeks, flu-like days, or, mostly in ME/CFS and dysautonomia, dizziness, palpitations and anxiety even at 0.1-0.2 mg. Many run it as a 'reset' before MOTS-c, and pharmacology-minded commenters point out that the trials only showed benefit in sick mitochondria. The cost of the 2-5 mg/day doses people use is the most common complaint.
Best effects
More daytime energy · better exercise endurance · less fatigue in ME/CFS / long-COVID · joint 'clunks' easing (anecdotal) · vision changes (scattered anecdotes, unverified)
Downsides
Injection-site redness/itch (very common in trials) · a few days of tiredness at the start · expensive at community doses · headache
Watch
Generic: grey-market purity/endotoxin risk is amplified by the large mg doses users inject · Hypersensitivity is possible as with any injected peptide; nothing compound-specific in trials
Evidence
Approved drug — approved in US (accelerated approval Sept 2025, Barth syndrome, 40 mg/day); human RCTs in mitochondrial myopathy and heart failure were mostly negative on efficacy but showed clean safety
Typical use
Community: 1-5 mg/day subQ for 4-8 weeks (some 10 mg/day for 10 days); the approved dose is 40 mg/day. Users report 2–5 mg/day (median 2.9 mg, n=24).
Getting it
Forzinity is a Barth-only specialty drug; most users buy research vials, mostly from China since US vendors were pressured in late 2025.
Stacked with
MOTS-c: The most common pairing: 2-8 weeks of SS-31 as a mitochondrial 'repair' phase, then MOTS-c, or both together at 1-2 mg/day. · NAD+: Run alongside SS-31 and MOTS-c as a three-part 'mito stack', especially by long-COVID users. · Retatrutide or tirzepatide: Many add SS-31 during a GLP-1 cut for gym energy, which makes its own effect hard to separate.
SS-31 has been the most effective treatment I have tried for improving energy. It has improved my cognitive function by 50%. I can now do moderate cognitive work for 5-10 hrs/week when before I could do none
GlowingEnergy · 500 mcg titrated to 30 mg · Injection · about 4 months
March 28th of this year I started this cellular mitochondial protocol, and April 10th I regained the feeling in my right foot (mostly). A complete miracle. I can wiggle my toes in bed and feel them now. Ten years later!
GlowingEnergy · 5 mg/day · Injection · 7 weeks
55M, post-surgical nerve damage; MOTS-c and NAD+ added after 2 weeks, on retatrutide
SS-31 is the most life changing thing I‘ve ever taken and I‘ve tried just about everything... Normally my sleep latency is like 10 seconds. I‘m so tired in the evening I have no mental energy for anything. Now I still have the same energy at 9pm as I do at 5am
They clearly worked synergistically and no I’m not trolling, I’m not a bot, and I’m not kidding - my 4.5 years of long covid (about 75%) and anosmia/parosmia (95%) resolved overnight.
I had a mitochondria test and it showed my mitochondria being dysfunctional. SS-31 then MOTSC has changed my life daily energy etc. I was chronically tired even with t levels over 760 and on GH getting great sleep. SS31 fixed the problem Mots-c revved it up higher.
GlowingEnergy
dysfunctional mitochondria on testing; followed by MOTS-c; on TRT and GH
SS-31 might be my favorite peptide/compound. Reta is obviously the GOAT, but SS-31 makes me have the cleanest, healthiest feeling energy all day that I have ever felt in my life.
My vision is still bad but as someone who had been wearing glasses for over 25 years, i know the pattern for me is my eyesight is always getting worse.
PositiveEnergy · 4 mg/day, 5 days on 2 off · Injection · 1 month
Just finished a 14 week cycle of ss31... - I used to take naps with the toddler every afternoon I have good energy throughout the entire day It was an expensive peptide to run but my overall energy feels incredible now
I think my eyesight has improved. I don’t drive often at night and realized nothing was blurry. I have a mild 1.0 prescription so I typically notice it at night without glasses. I’ve been doing ss-31 for 8 wks 5 days a week
I don’t get tired anymore with SS-31 throughout the day Only when it’s night time do I start getting tired kind of right before bedtime. It’s incredible
Out of every peptide I've tested so far, SS-31 has produced the strongest real-world signal. Better recovery. Less fatigue buildup. A greater ability to handle hard training, travel, and rough sleep. It's by far the peptide I feel the most.
that’s what I’ve noticed too the colors seem more vivid and everything just looks crisper. I definitely wasn’t expecting anything vision related from SS-31, but it’s been noticeable enough that I can’t ignore it.
I like it I have more energy but the biggest thing I notice is my blood sugar control is amazing, morning fasting has always sat 95 to 115, with ss31 its low 80s, stopped the ss31 for 5 days it it went right back up
the first 2 week felt tired and sleepy with like pressure on the face or something like that after that i feel like i have a lot of enery tru the day and at the gym
Ss-31. It helps a lot with fatigue and dyspnea, but it worked 1,5 days in me. Be careful when combining with other meds - I got hypoglycemic with saxenda.
Felt unusually tired today despite a solid 94 sleep score Took me a while to realize it was probably the 10 mg of SS-31 I took this morning I tried 1-5 mg for a month with no noticeable effect
the third day at 2mg I began to feel dizzy, woozy, and a bit lightheaded or floaty within 3-4 hours of injecting. Upon doing 3mg the next day, this feeling returned, again 3 hours after injection, but intensified.
Took a second dose this morning 2.5mg and felt fine until this afternoon and now I feel like I have the full blown flu. Chills, head pounding, mild fever, etc.
I’m in the middle of my 2nd week pinning every other day if ss31 but I feel like I have mono. So tired and hit a wall around 5 pm can’t stay awake achy and severe fatigue
NegativeEnergy · Injection · 2 weeks, every other day
Later in the day and night i had big flare in autonimic symptoms. Tough to take deep breaths, high resting heart rate and palpitations. And brought back insomnia with palps and higher hr jolting awake.
Bad reactionEnergy · 200 mcg once · Injection · 1 dose
SS-31 gave me a site welt the diameter of an orange. Faded after a couple days. But never had a reaction that severe from any other peptide (and I have done a lot)
I did approx 400mg over 4 weeks. Bottom line.... Felt good but no pop. If you're younger it's better. Old blood needs more needle. Eyesight improved while on but after it's back to can't see shit.
PositiveEnergy · about 400 mg total (up to 17 mg/day) · 4 weeks · vendor-adjacent
I use it for two things: laser focus and better Zone 2. Not for muscle building. For me it’s been a major improvement in focus—almost like an ADHD blocker—and cleaner aerobic work. 10mg, 5 on was my max.
PositiveFocus · 10 mg, 5 days on · vendor-adjacent
I recently completed a 30-day N=1 experiment with SS-31 (elamipretide), using 30 mg/day... During my experiment, I noticed: ⚡ Elevated gym performance 🏃 Better endurance and work capacity 💪 Improved perceived recovery 👁️ Subjectively sharper eyesight
PositiveEnergy · 30 mg/day · 30 days · vendor-adjacent
Each bead is one amino acid in the peptide's chain, coloured by its side chain: grey for non-polar, cyan for polar, blue for positively charged and fuchsia for negatively charged. Length and mix tell related peptides apart at a glance, from a two-residue dipeptide like carnosine to a 43-residue protein like thymosin beta-4. The colours describe chemistry only and predict neither effect nor safety.
non-polarpolarpositivenegative
Report grades
Every first-hand Reddit or X report is graded on its own, from glowing through positive, mixed, nothing and negative to bad reaction, and the bar shows how those grades split. Posts that look vendor-adjacent stay on the peptide's page but are left out of the counts.
GlowingPositiveMixedNothingNegativeBad reaction
% positive
The share of a peptide's graded Reddit and X reports that are glowing or positive, vendor-adjacent posts left out. A peptide with few reports is pulled toward the average of all reports, as if it had eight average ones besides its own, so two glowing posts cannot top the list. Kept peptides rank by the same reports' mean grade, shrunk the same way, and excluded ones follow in that order.
Researcher estimate
No first-hand report of this peptide has been graded yet, so the figure is the researchers' own rating out of 10 from what they read about it. It ranks alongside the computed scores until reports arrive.
Safety tier
Each peptide is tiered clean, caution or excluded from its five risk axes under the chosen safety bar. An excluded peptide has a plausible route to serious harm, so it stays listed with the reason but ranks behind every other entry, however good its reviews.
Safety bar
The safety bar sets how much risk it takes to exclude a peptide. Strict: out on any serious mechanism with little human data, or any documented serious harm. Balanced: out on documented serious harm (unless it is obvious, reversible and from a regulated product), or a serious mechanism whose harm would be silent with no human data at all. Evidence only: out only on documented serious harm in humans that is lasting, delayed or from grey-market product.
Seen harm
Documented serious adverse events in humans, from 0 for none despite real exposure to 3 for deaths or several well-documented serious harms. Serious means a hospital or emergency visit or harm lasting weeks, so a headache or a bad night does not count.
Mechanism
A plausible biological route to serious harm at the doses people use, such as growth-factor signalling, hormone-axis suppression, heart or blood-pressure effects or immune activation. It runs from 0 when none is known to 3 when a dangerous pathway has been shown in living animals.
Data gap
How little human safety data exists for the molecule actually sold, from 0 for an approved drug with large trials and years of use to 3 for no human safety data at all. A modified analogue does not inherit its parent's trials.
Silent harm
Whether the feared harm would show quickly or stay hidden, from 0 when it is obvious and goes on stopping to 3 when it is silent and delayed, like tumour promotion or slow organ damage. User reports cannot reveal a harm that takes years to appear, so a high score here limits what good reviews can tell you.
Product
The risk of what people actually buy, from 0 for a regulated pharmacy or supplement product taken by mouth or on the skin to 3 for a grey-market injectable. In one dataset of 6,441 grey-market samples, 42–71% failed basic quality criteria and 15% carried endotoxin.
Evidence
The strongest kind of study behind the peptide's effects, from an approved drug through human controlled trials and small human studies to animal work or nothing of its own. Animal results often fail to carry over to people.
Access
How people get it: as an approved drug, a compounded prescription, an over-the-counter supplement or from the grey market, where nobody checks the vial. The channel decides both the legal position and the risk of a bad batch.
Price per month
Thirty days of the typical dose, from its low end to its high end, priced at the listing a careful buyer would choose: in stock, from a shop scoring 4 of 5 on trust (third-party tested where no score is set), failing that 3, a pure pack before a blend, a European shop first, then the cheapest per mg. The range is the dose's, not the shops'. A per-dose amount counts once a day unless the dose says otherwise. Prices are in euros at ECB rates of 2026-10-29, before shipping; the shop table keeps each listing's price per mg, per gram for bulk supplements. Where no listing can be priced the researchers' own estimate stands in, and says so.
Dose users report
The middle half of the daily doses stated in at least five first-hand reports, vendor posts left out. Where its middle sits more than twice above or below the declared dose, the month is priced at it as well, since what people take is what they pay for.
Testing
Whether the shop publishes lab results: third-party tested means an independent lab checks each batch, own COA means the shop's own certificate of analysis, and no public tests means neither. A certificate shows purity, not safety.
Added peptide
Some packs sold under one peptide's name hold a second one, such as 5 mg GHK-Cu in a nasal kit, stated only in the description. Sprayed in the nose or injected it reaches the blood like an injection, so it carries the risk of that route and is tiered as the injectable form, whatever its tier on the skin. A pack whose page gives no contents list may hold more than its name.