Yes but I think the do-not-name-sources principle would apply here as well.
Has anyone heard about this potential damage to the eye?:
http://melanotan.org/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1183897770/0
I’ll paste the first post below:
WARNING: Melanotan may cause damage to the eye!
07/08/07 at 12:29:29
My name is Robert, I’m 23 and I had been using melanotan II for over 1 year with great results. However, recently I got vision problems (with gradual onset) and thus went to see an ophthalmologist.
I was diagnostized with a severe form of central serous retinopathy (CSR). Although CSR rarely leads to blindness, usually some vision impairment remains. There is no effective treatment for this condition.
She also found a rather big nevus (mole) on the choroid in my left eye which hasn’t been there before (have had an eye exam in the past). This cannot be removed and have to be monitored for the rest of my life because it may lead to cancer at some point.
She had no idea regarding the cause. Apart from being a bit myopic, my eyes were perfectly healthy before. I didn’t tell her about Melanotan by the way.
Afterwards I did some research and found out that Central serous retinopathy is linked to therapeutic use of adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH):
“ACTH has a melanotrophic part, melanocyte-stimulating hormone (MSH), that may affect RPE cells, which are melanin-pigmented cells of neuroectoderm origin, and alter their ionic pumping properties. This is supported by evidence in the literature for the effect of MSH on animal RPE cells, as well as on other secreting epithelia.”
Melanotan and melanotan II are are both analogs of (alpha) MSH and thus sharing the same effects. Therefore it can be assumed that my condition is connected to the prolonged intake of melanotan II.
I then checked back with my doctor and was advised to stop taking Melanotan immediately.
I also made an appointment with the director of the dermatology department on our university (I’m a medical student myself) to get an expert opinion on Melanotan. He had heard of Melanotan before, but he would strongly discourage anyone from taking it especially for merely cosmetic purposes.
Though it may be beneficial to some people with certain skin diseases, it certainly bears great risks. He also didn’t seem to be surprised about my case at all. Because the choroid (the underlying layer of the eye’s retina) contains melanocytes, it will also be necessarily affected by Melanotan which in turn may effect the function of the retina.
He also warned me about hormone and skin changes, which are probably not fully reversible even after being off of Melanotan for a very long time. There is a study that says MSH (again, Melanotan is just a synthetic copy of MSH) not only stimulates the melanocytes to produce melanin, but also cause proliferation of melanocytes:
“alpha-Melanocyte stimulating hormone (alpha-MSH) and ACTH increase the proliferation and melanogenesis of cultured human melanocytes.”
This is quite contrary to an older study from 1986 which is cited on Clinuvel’s website. Personally, I would not put much trust in studies published by Clinuvel. They are not obligated to release informations about dangers connected to Melanotan at this point. And I doubt they will voluntary discredit their only product.
Being a type I myself nobody can understand you better than I but there certainly are things in life that are more important than having a tanned skin. Don’t put them at risk.
Actually, I curse the day when I first heard of Melanotan.
Zamir E (1997): “Central serous retinopathy associated with adrenocorticotrophic hormone therapy. A case report and a hypothesis”. Hadassah University Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel
I Suzuki et al. (1996): “Binding of melanotropic hormones to the melanocortin receptor MC1R on human melanocytes stimulates proliferation and melanogenesis” Department of Dermatology, University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Too much of almost anything has dangers.
It would have been helpful if the fellow had posted the amounts he took.
That’s a good point. He says over 1 year, so perhaps he meant it was being used fairly continuously.
The dose per injection could be the critical factor.
Many still think of 2 mg as a standard dose. I suppose because it was the amount used in some of the published literature.
In contrast, my maintenance dose is just under a quarter mg (0.24 mg).
Just possibly doses such as 1 or 2 mg at a time could have associated problems that are not seen or are perhaps exceedingly rare at 1/4 mg.
Reading further in the thread, he used injections as large as 1.5 mg, with total consumption of, he estimates, 130 mg.
He describes this as being four “cycles.”
So it sounds as if his method was one of using injections as large as 1.5 mg and doing so on probably a daily basis for periods summing to 30-40 mg at a time, with intervening periods of no use, followed again by extended periods of large injections.
I don’t even know how you would need that much. I could NEVER get tan, at all, straight white irish guy. I took 15 mg of that stuff over about a month and got reallll dark and stayed that way for awhile even though I got no more additional sun (I started middle august and by the time I stopped taking it, it was too cold to lay out haha)
.5 MG seems like the right dosage at a time to load up every other day for 2 weeks or so. I must admit I’ve stayed a little bit darker than I ever was before, IE I don’t look like a sheet of paper anymore. From what I’ve heard/read, including this post, that it takes much less to keep up as when you originally add the peptide.
Just as a further note on dosage, with respect to my mentioning my ongoing dose is 0.24 mg/day:
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I appear to be at the low-responder end. Unlike Higgins, I got little effect worth mentioning till I’d reached 30 mg. While this isn’t uncommon by any means, also many are better responders as Higgins was.
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At the 0.24 mg/day my degree of added tanning is quite high, certainly at a point where I get remarks (at least they are positive) on my tan very frequently. Actually the degree of tanning on the body is a little more than I’d prefer – I think it qualifes as being at the race-change level – but that is what goes along with the facial tan being where I want it.
A person who was both going for a more moderate tan and was a better responder quite reasonably might get that from 1/4 the dose I use: the first reduction of 50% from being a better responder, and the second halving from not going as far with it.
So actually maintenance might for many reasonably be as low as 0.06 mg/day, or say 1/8th mg every other day. Or if someone was a similar responder but wanted to maintain a more moderate but still good tan, perhaps 1/8th mg per day. Just as example possible figures, not recommendations.
I expect but cannot prove it is safer to maintain with an ongoing very low dose than to go for months with nothing and then blast the stuff, as the fellow with the eye problem did.
Thanks Bill.
Do you tan, or does it keep you tanned at this dosage?
Oh, it absolutely requires sun (or I suppose a tanning booth.)
I have no idea, other than attributing to error, why one sees stuff about this supposedly providing a tan without sun. It’s absolutely not true. Aside from personal experience, on the Melanotan forum there are some pictures of fair skinned women showing their tan lines, and they remain fair-skinned or sometimes even about as white as a sheet there. So if sun were not needed, then why are they still white in the non-exposed areas?
However, the amount of sun needed is fairly modest.
Yes. It eventually takes very little direct sunlight to achieve the desired results. And at just more than “modest” dosages and just more than “modest” sunlight, I, myself, achieved a tan that had my mother freaking, and I mean quite literally freaking out on me wondering what the hell unnatural thing it was I was doing to myself.
It doesn’t take much of the peptide (if used consistently), and it doesn’t even take much sunlight (but yes, it does require sunlight). In any case, my advice based upon personal experience is to take very long-term approach and taper down slowly as soon as you are about 75% of where you want to be, because if you push it all the way to 100%, you’ll end up shooting way beyond that, and if you are white, people will start wondering what the hell is happening to you. It happened to me, and I got comments to the degree that it was way, way too many comments for me to be getting.
Agreed.
While there is no way to assure of absolute safety with any approach, as the compound is fairly new and there just isn’t the real world experience base that there is with say anabolic steroids, I do expect that the biggest factor by far contributing to risk is people being in too big a hurry.
Sorry, if you want a great tan and have it promptly but don’t naturally tan well, the answer is you should have planned ahead. Not high doses of Melanotan.
Thanks again.
The reason I asked is that I had read about other people expecting to just use MT II without purposefully tanning and hoping to get the results. I didn’t think they would get the results they were hoping for and they didn’t, I was just wondering if they should have ever expected that in the first place.
[quote]T Ham wrote:
Has anyone heard about this potential damage to the eye?:
http://melanotan.org/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1183897770/0
I’ll paste the first post below:
WARNING: Melanotan may cause damage to the eye!
07/08/07 at 12:29:29
[/quote]
You know this is a pretty lame cite when it’s made just by itself. Don’t get me wrong there’s definitely quite a bit to consider (and this post is one thing which is why it has been left up) but if one actually reads through the rest of thread after this post they find that the majority of responses are in the negative from folks who’ve actually gone and had their vision tested.
This individual “Robbie” came into the forums, made a complaint about an issue he experienced and conjectured his CSR was related to his having used Melanotan II and then he made a few subsequent posts and left.
Nowhere in his posts did he himself admit that CSR occurs fairly frequently spontaneously particularly in males between the ages of 20 to 50 and particularly by those who live stressful lives. Nor did he explain that this condition generally heals itself up leaving the sufferer with the same level of vision as prior to the issue.
These additional facts had to be elucidated by others later on in the thread. All of this transpired nearly 2 years ago and in the time since then there have literally been thousands of people who’ve used melanotan II and there has not been another report of this issue.
As well this issue has never been reported for melanotan-1 usage.
Again don’t get me wrong, using experimental drugs that are either in preclinical studies or undergoing clinical trials can be dangerous on a number of levels but with respect to melanotan II folks should be looking at this type of post in the grand scheme of things and evaluating it accordingly.
Sincerely,
Scott Stevenson
Melanotan.org Admin - afamelanotide
Thanks Scott; good information.
It is a credit to your organization both that you left the post up and that you’ve taken the time to provide us here with this further information.
If I might add another thing about that post: While to many people someone writing something along the lines of, “I told the doctor of my use of (insert a nutritional supplement or unapproved drug) and he said that due to my taking this, he wasn’t surprised that now I have this condition,” this actually means nothing.
Indeed, that is some good information to consider and how this could be similar for other one-off anecdotes. Thanks for it.
I used daily ~.15mg injections of MTII (total of 20mg MTII). I researched failry thoroughly before I gave it a go. I injected for 2-3 weeks before I started going to the tanning salon. I noticed results right away. I was quite pleased.
NOTE: The correct way to use this stuff is to combine with UV exposure after building up 3-10 mg in your system. Don’t use this stuff if you don’t plan to go to the tannign salon or spend the necessary time tanning outdoors. IMO to rely merely on injections rather than a combo of tanning as well is wasteful and carries and excessive degree of being potentially dangerous to use such an amount as would be necessary to cause tanning.
Anyways, I am fair skin type with freckles. The photos on the right show the before and after. A little hard to tell the degree of tanning from the pic, but I was very happy with the result. I might try again in the future. I’m just leery of safety. For me I did develop darkened moles, although I can’t say that any new ones popped up. They’ve gone away after discontinuing use for several months. I feel that I still get tanned more easily even being off for 6 months. IMO, non-prolonged use and at low daily doses like I did is almost assuredly fine. If my dosing leads to cancer, then I was sure to get cancer anyway!
I do not recommend using this if you are able to tan with regular UV exposure, even if it takes time. The safe way takes time in either case. I do recommend it for people that have difficulty tanning, or like me, just tend to develop darker freckles when they go in the sun 
If you’ve always dreamed of a tan, then I would say go for it after doing your homework. My advice IF YOU ARE PLANNING TO USE is to first try a low dose like I used. It takes a while this way, but the results are gradual and appreciable. Also get it from a supplier you trust. My supplier’s website no longer works, so please don’t PM me for a source
If I do it again, I will probably stick with a low dose and do 2 week on 2 weeks off schedule, so a 10mg bottle would last almost 4 months! That works out to a potential 30 mg a year which to me seems pretty moderate.
Anybody still a melanotan ii fan? I still like it a lot. Sadly, my supplier has stopped selling (along with lots of other goodies). But I have a bit left and plan to do a run with summer coming. What have preffered protocols been for people? To get a nice golden but not exceessive tan. Loading and maintenance dose and frequency. I’ve tended to get a bit TOO tan for my liking in the past.
Love it and have used it every summer for the past 3 years.
It put’s the Jersey Shore cast to shame haha.
The nicest golden dark brown tan, and I am white and normally go reddish brown in the sun.
After 2 weeks I started to get atleast 4-5 small molds (which is even with the skin, but dark brown), so I discontiuned the use.
First week: 0.20mg ED
Second week: 0.25mg ED
Third week: Discontinued use.
and for me these doses seems to be extremely low, but I did get a noticeable darker color, with only 1 time on the tanning bed and been indoors working for the last week.
I mixed 2ml of bacteriostatic water with 10mg MT2 (so I don’t have to inject so much fluid).