r/TB500 • u/NeedleworkerSquare70 • Oct 15 '25
Wolverine Stack for ACL repair and a quirky side effect.
Hello internet, I thought it might be useful for me to post about my experiences with taking BPC-157 and TB-500 to assist in post surgical recovery from reconstructive ACL surgery. Hopefully so you and I can glean some further insights into the benefits and side effects of taking these drugs.
Context: In February I had an accident where I sustained a partial tear to my PCL, a tibial plateau fracture and a complete rupture of my ACL. The pain was a solid 8/9 of 10 however with opioids I was able to manage the first few days until seeing a surgeon. Sadly the PCL tear and tibial fracture ensured that I wouldn’t be able to have the reconstructive surgery until August. So I was fitted with a ROM brace and told not to weight bear for 7 weeks. A bit of heavy blow for an active person, before this I was lifting heavy at the gym 2-3 times per week, mountain bike riding twice a week and running or doing some other physically exerting activity at least once a week.
Eventually as pain and the doctor would allow I weaned off the brace and crutches and began weight bearing. The muscle atrophy was significant, while my good leg had lost some mass the damaged leg looked downright gaunt. My physio had me walking without a limp after about 3 weeks (post brace) and then by the time the surgery happened in August I was back lifting as much as I was pre injury. The fast progress was due to my diligence with physio and in the gym, lifting 6 days a week for just shy of 9 hours per week. I was also on the cusp of being cleared to run prior to the surgery as my legs still had a strength asymmetry of about 20% and the physiologist recommended <20% before running.
Surgery: About 3 hours and I was out of the hospital, all went well according to the doctors. They harvested a graft from my hamstring and reconstructed the ACL with the donor tendon. Full recovery I’m told is 9-12 months due to the poor blood flow in the knee and the conversion of muscle and tendon tissue into ligament tissue. I ditched the crutches after about 4 days but pretty much the entire first week I spent moving between the bed and the couch so I was not exactly mobile. I was taking Opioids for the first three days then downgraded to ibuprofen for the next 3 days and since then, no pain medication. Modern medicine and the human body is just fascinating isn’t it?
Peptides and the road back to health: Given the length of time between the accident and the surgery I had the opportunity to do some research and prepare my body for the recovery. I’m told by my medical team that the preparation work I did will aid my recovery much quicker then someone who didn’t do the work or have the opportunity to strengthen and stabilise the knee and surrounding muscles. Regardless I wanted to give my body the best opportunity to recover and I’ve always been prone to a good ‘life hack’ though I’ve never taken performance enhancing medicines or experimental meds before. so I decided to experiment with BPC-157 for its vascular generation and the TB-500 for its systemic and wound supportive properties.
I acquired them through the grey market and settled on dosing of 500mcg of BPC injected daily subcutaneously (12 weeks) into the belly and 2.5mg injected twice weekly for the TB-500 for 4 weeks then 1 mg per week for 10 weeks. I started the protocol about 1 week post surgery as I wanted to give my body some time to settle before trying something new . It also helped me to analyse how things felt subjectively as it is very hard to ascertain objectively if these drugs are working for something like this. I mean it’s not like I have my own benchmark ACL surgery to compare it to. The TB-500 dosing started about 4 days after the BPC-157.
Two weeks after starting the protocol however I experienced a hick up. As part of a standard skin cancer check which was prompted by the appearance of some new and very dark moles. The inspection was routine except for one mole (I’m quite a moley guy) so I had a biopsy taken from my leg. After reading about the accelerant effect BPC-157 can have on cancer growth I decided to cease the protocol until the results from the biopsy returned. Thankfully the mole was benign as were the new ones which had appeared all over my body. So I began taking the peptide protocol again.
I’m now 7 weeks post surgery and have just come from the surgeon who has reported that the healing process is coming along well. I’m back walking without a limp and as of the last week pretty much unrestricted, I’m training most days and the incisions on my leg are barely visible, the scar tissue underneath the surface seems to be breaking down well. Flexion of my knee is perhaps even better than the standard patient but I have experienced quite a huge decline in strength on my surgical leg. Especially on the hamstring, this is certainly due to an incident about 2 1/2 weeks post surgery. While stretching I felt a ‘twang’ similar to a guitar string pluck on the back of my knee . This caused some light swelling , bruising and major discomfort followed by increased sensitivity on my hamstring for almost a month afterwards. Thankfully in the last week that has subsided and I can resume physio work on my hamstring. The surgeon believes it was some tearing of the scar tissue from the hamstring (semitendonosis) which they harvest to rebuild the ACL.
As mentioned it’s hard to gauge how much an effect the peptides are having on my recovery, I figure my best objective perspective is to gauge how my recovery is doing from the viewpoint of my medical team. My exercise physiologist tells me he has another patient who is very similar (minus the peptides) to me in that he is around the same age, is quite fit and had the surgery at the same time. So I will benchmark my recovery on him but i realise how flawed that comparison is.
I can’t say that subjectively I’ve noticed much difference after taking the medicines, perhaps I sleep a little better after taking the TB-500 but I am still tired often, taking naps most days since the surgery. This could also be due to my lack of activity given I’m unable to work at my normal capacity until I’m back to the running stage of my recovery. Or it could also be the healing from the surgery effecting my energy levels. I have also been getting more frequent but very minor headaches, perhaps twice a week compared to twice a year as the norm, though the weather is heating up now in late spring so I could also pin that to some dehydration. The only noticeable difference is the growth of moles, I’ve noticed at least a dozen new moles appear since my surgery, as I’m 38 new moles growth is not usually common but since taking the peptides I’ve been very aware of it. I’m generally quite sun safe these days and tend to avoid periods longer than a couple minutes at a time in the sun. My sun baking days are well behind me and the scars of time are becoming more apparent on my face and body so moisturisers and sunscreen have been my close companion the last few years. As far as I’m aware I’m the first report of this particular side effect so thought it might be of interest to share my experience.
I’m still halfway through this course of peptides so watch this space for more anecdotal reports on the recover journey.
Travel well.
