Sermorelin dosage
Why a dosing chart is the wrong artifact, what the published protocols used, and how baseline IGF-1 turns a dose into a decision rather than a guess.
Quick answer
Sermorelin dosing is individualized by the prescribing physician, and there is no dosing chart to publish. The dose depends on your baseline IGF-1, your health history, your current medications, your goals, and how you respond once therapy starts. Published human studies used quite different amounts for quite different purposes: 0.5 mg and 1 mg twice daily for 14 days in a 1992 study of older men [1], and 2 mg nightly for six weeks in a 1997 home-injection study [2]. Those are research protocols, not prescriptions, and copying a number out of a paper skips the reason it was chosen. Sermorelin is a compounded, physician-prescribed medication, and the amount and schedule are set and adjusted by your physician rather than selected by you.
Why does the dose vary between people?
Growth hormone physiology varies with age and body composition in ways that have been measured. In a 1991 study of healthy men, each decade of increasing age attenuated the growth hormone production rate by 14% and the half-life of circulating growth hormone by 6%, and relative adiposity was an independent negative determinant of both the frequency and the amplitude of secretory bursts [5]. Two people the same age can therefore start from different places.
The consequence is that the same dose does different things in different people, which is exactly the situation where individualized prescribing beats a chart.
What does the baseline panel have to do with dosing?
IGF-1 is the practical laboratory readout of growth hormone activity, because it is far more stable across the day than growth hormone itself, which is released in pulses. The $179 Sermorelin Baseline Panel is a prerequisite for sermorelin therapy at Kesbury Health, and its first job is to establish a reference point that later results can be compared against.
One technical caution that matters if you bring outside labs: IGF-1 assays are not perfectly interchangeable between laboratories, and a 2011 consensus statement in Clinical Chemistry addressed exactly that standardization problem [4]. Comparing a result from one lab against a reference range from another is a common way to draw a wrong conclusion.
How does a physician adjust the dose?
- Start conservatively. Beginning low and moving deliberately is standard practice with an endocrine medication.
- Measure, then decide. Follow-up IGF-1 gives the adjustment something objective to move against.
- Give it time. The published protocols ran two to six weeks before measuring [1][2]; the sermorelin program here builds in a 90-day re-evaluation.
- Watch tolerance as well as response. Site reactions, joint symptoms, swelling and glucose changes are part of the dosing conversation, not separate from it.
- Be willing to stop. A dose that is not producing anything worth the medication is a reason to reconsider therapy, not to escalate indefinitely.
What Endocrine Society guidance says about individualization
Kesbury Health does not prescribe growth hormone, and sermorelin is a different medication. The relevant point from the 2011 Endocrine Society clinical practice guideline on adult growth hormone deficiency is the principle rather than the protocol: dosing is titrated against clinical response and IGF-1 rather than fixed to body weight, and monitoring is part of the therapy rather than an optional extra [3]. That principle is why a published sermorelin chart would be the wrong artifact even if one existed.
The self-dosing question, answered plainly
Sermorelin obtained without a prescription is not the same product as sermorelin compounded by a licensed U.S. pharmacy against a prescription written for you. Research-use-only peptide sold online is not dispensed under pharmacy standards, is not accompanied by a physician who knows your history, and is not paired with the labs that would tell you whether the dose is doing anything. The dose is the smallest part of what is missing there.
How physician-directed sermorelin works at Kesbury Health
- Complete a short online assessment about your goals, symptoms and health history. It takes about 60 seconds to begin.
- A licensed Kesbury Health physician reviews what you submitted and decides whether therapy is a reasonable fit for you, or whether something else should be looked at first.
- Baseline labs where they apply. The $179 Sermorelin Baseline Panel is a prerequisite for sermorelin therapy, and the results can end the conversation rather than continue it.
- If therapy is appropriate, the medication is compounded by a licensed U.S. pharmacy and shipped to your door, with dosing set to you rather than to a chart.
- Ongoing physician oversight adjusts the protocol over time, with a 90-day re-evaluation built into the sermorelin program.
Care is delivered by telehealth to residents of the ten states where your Kesbury Health physician is licensed: Alabama, District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas. Eligibility is confirmed during the assessment.
Frequently asked questions
What is the standard sermorelin dose?
There is no standard dose to publish, because the dose is set by a physician for an individual patient. The published studies used different amounts for different purposes: 0.5 mg and 1 mg twice daily over 14 days in one 1992 protocol [1], and 2 mg nightly for six weeks in a 1997 protocol [2]. A number lifted from a study is not a prescription.
Why will you not publish a dosing chart?
Because a chart invites self-dosing of a prescription medication, and because the inputs that determine a dose, your baseline IGF-1, your history, your medications and your response over time, are not in the chart. Endocrine Society guidance for growth hormone therapy describes dose individualization against clinical response and IGF-1 rather than a fixed weight-based schedule [3].
How is the dose adjusted over time?
By the prescribing physician, against your response and your follow-up labs, with a 90-day re-evaluation built into the sermorelin program. IGF-1 is the laboratory marker used to keep dosing inside a sensible range, and assay standardization matters when comparing results across labs [4].
How long before a dose change is considered?
Long enough for something to be worth measuring. The published protocols ran two weeks [1] and six weeks [2], and the Kesbury Health sermorelin program builds in a 90-day re-evaluation. Frequent changes chase noise rather than signal.
What if I miss a dose?
Contact your care team rather than doubling up. A missed dose is a normal thing to discuss and the right answer depends on your protocol and your timing.
Get a dose set to you, not to a chart
Take the free 60-second Kesbury Health assessment. The baseline panel gives your physician a reference point, and dosing is set and adjusted against your labs and your response.
Start your free 60-second assessment →
Kesbury Health is a LegitScript-certified (#51875982) telehealth longevity practice licensed in ten states. Sermorelin and NAD+ are compounded medications prescribed by a licensed physician after review. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. This page is educational and is not individualized medical advice. Statements on this page have not been evaluated by the FDA. Individual results vary.
References (primary sources)
Every reference below was checked against its PubMed record on 2026-09-02. Links open the abstract.
- Corpas E, Harman SM, Pineyro MA, Roberson R, Blackman MR. Growth hormone (GH)-releasing hormone-(1-29) twice daily reverses the decreased GH and insulin-like growth factor-I levels in old men. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. 1992;75(2):530-535. doi:10.1210/jcem.75.2.1379256. PMID 1379256.
- Vittone J, Blackman MR, Busby-Whitehead J, Tsiao C, et al. Effects of single nightly injections of growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH 1-29) in healthy elderly men. Metabolism. 1997;46(1):89-96. doi:10.1016/s0026-0495(97)90174-8. PMID 9005976.
- Molitch ME, Clemmons DR, Malozowski S, Merriam GR, Vance ML. Evaluation and treatment of adult growth hormone deficiency: an Endocrine Society clinical practice guideline. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. 2011;96(6):1587-1609. doi:10.1210/jc.2011-0179. PMID 21602453.
- Clemmons DR. Consensus statement on the standardization and evaluation of growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor assays. Clinical Chemistry. 2011;57(4):555-559. doi:10.1373/clinchem.2010.150631. PMID 21285256.
- Iranmanesh A, Lizarralde G, Veldhuis JD. Age and relative adiposity are specific negative determinants of the frequency and amplitude of growth hormone (GH) secretory bursts and the half-life of endogenous GH in healthy men. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. 1991;73(5):1081-1088. doi:10.1210/jcem-73-5-1081. PMID 1939523.
Keep reading