Here is my final report on NSI-189.
Brand: International peptide 40mg/mL, 30mL vial (discontinued product). Exhibited NSI-189 qualities such as tongue warmth and numbing. Doses were measured using a 1mL (100 unit) liquid measuring syringe.
Started taking it daily 29 June, 20mg once. On 6 July increased to 30mg per day, on 13 July to 40mg/day, then on 17 July, 40mg twice per day. Ran out on 20 July.
Other supplements taken at the time: Calcium/Mg/Zn, Vit C/E, Fish oil, L-Lysine, ginkgo. B vitamins on a couple days.
Great diet, regular exercise.
Headache experienced on days 2 thru 6, 10, 11. The later ones were attributed to B vitamins.
On exercise performance: No difference noted on strength, motivation, stamina.
On neuropathy/neurogenesis: I am a bilateral upper extremity amputee. I experienced phantom limb almost a decade ago, shortly after I required the amputations. I seldom experienced phantom limb sensations in the past three years. There was no change on NSI-189.
I did notice on day 4 that immediately after dosing, there was mild muscle jitteryness. Also, NSI-189 did not exacerbate my lazy eye issue - It's usually unnoticeable by others but becomes noticeable with things like opiates, high doses of, or specific racetams.
On hearing: Around day 5 I thought I was experiencing reduced hearing. I already have bad hearing, so a reduction in hearing is noticeable. I found myself saying "what?" a lot - could also be a listening issue.
Sleep: No change
Mood: No noticeable benefit or detriment. I did not experience moodiness towards the end or after stopping, nor did I experience anxiety from NSI-189 at any point during the trial.
Memory: No significant or notable improvements. See next section.
Personal context: I moved to a new city 8 days into the trial. I'm in a great head space (even before NSI-189) in terms of handling stress - I moved days after finishing a summer crash course on Biology for engineers, a condensed 6-week course with quite a lot of material. Aced the course. My other summer course ends this Thursday, and I didn't experience any change in my reluctance to do complex math.
Actually, I put 1% effort in after moving and failed the third test of four. Weeks after discontinuing NSI-189 I found the motivation to do the damned work - my point is, NSI-189 did not affect this aspect of my life.
Moving to a new city means lots of meeting new people and remembering names, places, bus schedules, new appointments, things that must be done when moving to a new address etc. I usually keep the appearance of being a hoopy frood through all sorts of situations, so I doubt NSI-189 affected my level of togetherness.
However, I frequent certain meetings of an anonymous fellowship regularly, so seeing the same new people weekly was a metaphorical meter stick by which memory recall could be measured. I'm usually horrible with names, so there were a few moments where I remembered someone's name after a week and was like "yeah!" in excitement cause I actually committed it to memory.
But besides NSI-189, an equally likely cause could be that I was paying attention and actively listening, a direct result of my being out of my element in a new and unfamiliar city, being vulnerable, and thus more "activated".
I will not buy NSI-189 again - If someone sent me some bitter liquid in place of NSI-189, I'd be none the wiser.
In conclusion, my opinion is that NSI-189's effects are placebo, but that people who are in the market for some wild, game changing, exclusive compound will ignore remarks like those in this post because they are not in line with what they'd like to believe.
I am also of the opinion that a lot of the hype around NSI-189 is based on little objective evidence, and that the most commonly cited evidence for NSI-189's efficacy are from a conversation between Neuralstem's CEO and a stock broker. People, use your friggin heads!
