Cerebrolysin — 20 day course after a concussion, here's what actually happened
23 posts
Writing this up six weeks after finishing a standard 20-day Cerebrolysin course. 38M, got clocked in jiu jitsu (accidental knee to temple, brief LOC, textbook mild TBI). ImPACT baseline was available because my gym does them.
Protocol I ran (talked to a friend who's a neurologist, he didn't prescribe, he just told me what the literature uses):
- 5 mL IM daily, 5 days on / 2 off, for 20 dosing days total.
- Split injection: 2.5 mL per glute, 25g 1.5" needle. Came as the pre-filled 5mL amps.
- Started on day 6 post-injury after the acute symptoms (nausea, photophobia) had cleared.
What I tracked:
- ImPACT at 2 weeks post-injury (pre-protocol): verbal memory 68, visual memory 61, reaction time 0.69.
- ImPACT at 7 weeks post-injury (end of protocol): verbal 91, visual 88, reaction time 0.54. All within my pre-injury baseline.
- Subjective: the 'fog' lifted somewhere around dose 8-10. Headaches went from daily to zero by dose 15. Sleep quality normalized around the same time.
Caveats I'll front-load because this place will eat me alive otherwise:
- Natural recovery from mild TBI over 6-8 weeks is the norm. I cannot separate 'Cerebrolysin worked' from 'I would have recovered anyway.'
- The ImPACT normalized around the same timeline you'd expect without any intervention.
- What I can say is that the subjective fog-clearing felt faster than either of the two previous concussions I've had (one in college, one in my 20s), both of which took closer to 3 months to feel 'normal.'
Would I do it again for a concussion? Yes, probably. Would I run it 'prophylactically' or for general cognition? No. 20 IM injections is not nothing.
16 Replies
205 posts
Appreciate the front-loaded caveats. This is the right way to write up an n=1. You're not claiming Cerebro fixed your brain, you're claiming the timeline felt different than your prior baselines. That's usable information.
- CJC-1295 no DAC · 100 mcg · pre-bed · sub-Q
- Ipamorelin · 200 mcg · pre-bed · sub-Q
- BPC-157 · 500 mcg · 2x/day · sub-Q
10 posts
Dumb question — were the amps fridge-stored? And did you find a glute site that tolerated 2.5 mL or did it lump up?
23 posts
@back_on_the_mat fridged, pulled out 20 min before injection to take the edge off the cold. 2.5 mL per glute was fine. First 3-4 doses I got a small lump for a day, then my body adjusted. Warm compress after helped.
34 posts
The honest thing you did here is flag that ImPACT normalization timelines overlap with natural recovery. I'll add: the RCTs on Cerebrolysin for TBI are mixed, with positive signals in moderate-severe and fuzzier results in mild. Your experience tracks with 'might have helped, can't be sure.'
41 posts
I ran Cerebro once post-concussion (bike crash) and I'd do it again. Subjectively cleaner recovery than my concussion in high school. That's worth something to me even if the RCT data is mid.
- Semax · 600 mcg · AM intranasal · intranasal
- Selank · 250 mcg · as needed · intranasal
18 posts
Did you stack anything else during the 20 days? Curious if you isolated Cerebro or layered Semax etc.
23 posts
@noots_noop deliberately ran Cerebro alone. Dropped Semax, no creatine loading, no caffeine above my normal baseline. I wanted the signal clean, even knowing n=1 is n=1.
115 posts
For anyone coming to this thread fresh — Cerebrolysin is a porcine brain-derived peptide mixture, not a single molecule. Which means every claim about 'mechanism' is kind of hand-wavy. It's more like a cocktail than a drug.
23 posts
@pde_brainer 5mL. 10mL is in the literature for severe stroke, not typically for mild TBI. My friend's read was that 5mL for 20 days is the 'standard mild' protocol and 10mL would be overkill for what I had.
23 posts
Are the amps you used the 5mL or the 10mL? Some people run 10mL/day in the lit, some 5mL. Curious why you picked 5.
58 posts
The piece you buried is the 'I've had three concussions' line. If the third one felt objectively better than the first two, that's a comparison your brain is uniquely positioned to make. Most concussion writeups are single-event, no internal baseline.
- Epithalon · 10 mg · 10d on / 80d off · sub-Q
- MOTS-c · 5 mg · 2x/wk · sub-Q
- 5-Amino-1MQ · 150 mg · daily · oral
6 posts
Thank you for writing this up. Had a concussion last year, nobody gave me anything like this kind of walk-through. Saving in case it happens again.
46 posts
Flagging this as the reference post for 'I had a mild TBI and am considering Cerebro.' Well-structured n=1 with the right caveats. If we get another one I may pin a collection.
- Sermorelin · 200 mcg · 5x/wk AM · sub-Q
- BPC-157 · 250 mcg · 2x/day · sub-Q
17 posts
Subjective fog clearing around dose 8-10 matches what I've read elsewhere. Seems to be a real inflection point rather than gradual. Wonder if there's a dose-response threshold that only shows up after cumulative exposure.
- GHK-Cu · 2 mg · topical AM · topical
71 posts
The 'would do again for concussion, would not run prophylactically' take is the correct one. 20 IM injections for 'maybe a little sharper' is a terrible ROI for an uninjured brain.