CJC-1295 Dosage Chart.
CJC-1295 is a growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) analog that asks your own pituitary to release GH. Two different molecules are sold under the name, and they are dosed nothing like each other. This chart gives the numbers for both, in syringe units.
With DAC: 1,000 mcg subcutaneously, once or twice a week, which is 50 units on a U-100 syringe from a 2 mg vial mixed with 1 mL. No DAC (Mod GRF 1-29): 100 mcg once or twice daily. Check the label: the two schedules are not interchangeable.
This chart is the condensed version. For the full write-up (mechanism, stacking, sourcing and the rest), read the full CJC-1295 dosing guide.
Dosage Protocols
Units assume a 2 mg vial reconstituted with 1 mL bacteriostatic water = 2,000 mcg/mL, so 1 unit on a U-100 syringe = 20 mcg. Different setup? Use the calculator. These are the doses people actually run, not trial-derived figures.
The commonly used entry point, and one injection a week suits a molecule with a multi-day half-life.
Why this dose+
For a 70 kg adult this is about 14 mcg/kg, below the 30 and 60 mcg/kg per-injection doses Teichman 2006 singled out as best tolerated. At a half-life of 5.8 to 8.1 days the drug is still present when the next injection is due.
The tier most people actually run: 2,000 mcg a week, split into two injections for steadier levels.
Why this dose+
Convention, not a trial schedule. Teichman dosed 30 to 60 mcg/kg per injection, roughly 2 to 4 mg in one shot for a 70 kg adult, while this tier is about 14 mcg/kg. Scale to your own bodyweight rather than copying the milligram number; splitting the week is for comfort, not potency.
Pure convention: no human trial has ever dosed this molecule under this name, and it is short-acting.
Why this dose+
It carries no Drug Affinity Complex to anchor it to albumin, which is why daily dosing exists here; the sub-hour clearance figures repeated online belong to sermorelin and unsubstituted GRF (1-29). Mix a 2 mg vial in 2 mL for this tier, so 100 mcg lands on a readable 10 units.
- CJC-1295 with DAC binds your own albumin: half-life 5.8 to 8.1 days, dosed weekly.
- CJC-1295 no DAC is Mod GRF (1-29), a 29 amino acid peptide with no albumin anchor, dosed daily.
- Anti-doping chemistry catalogues the two as separate substances.
- The DAC half-life does not apply to a no-DAC vial, so check the label first.
- Ionescu and Frohman 2006 gave healthy men either 60 or 90 mcg/kg of CJC-1295.
- The 50 percent larger dose produced no significant difference in GH or IGF-1.
- Trough GH rose about 7.5-fold, with pulse frequency and amplitude unchanged.
- It raises the floor rather than adding peaks, so a bigger dose is not the lever.
Weekly Schedule
Pick the row that matches your vial. The two DAC rows are weekly injections; the no-DAC rows are daily, and the fourth is the optional second daily dose.
The specific days are ours, not anybody's protocol. With the DAC version the day barely matters; at a half-life of 5.8 to 8.1 days the drug is present continuously. Missed an injection? Take it when you remember and carry on rather than doubling up.
CJC-1295 Reconstitution Calculator
Enter your vial size, how much water you added, and the dose you want. A 2 mg vial with 1 mL of bacteriostatic water gives 2,000 mcg/mL, which puts a 1,000 mcg dose at 50 units on a U-100 syringe. The calculator warns you when a draw is too small to measure reliably, which is what happens if you pull 100 mcg from that mix.
Double-click a preset to edit it
Double-click a preset to edit it
Double-click a preset to edit it
Standard insulin syringe
Concentration
2.00 mg/mL
1 unit = 20 mcg
Draw volume
0.500 mL
= 1000 mcg ÷ 2000 mcg/mL
Units to draw (1 mL syringe)
50.0 units
1 mL Syringe
50.0 IUFrom Vial to Injection in 6 Steps
Read the label first. A vial marked "with DAC" is dosed weekly; a vial marked "no DAC", "Mod GRF" or "GRF (1-29)" is dosed daily.
Alcohol swab the peptide vial and the bacteriostatic water vial, and let both air-dry before you pierce them.
Run the bacteriostatic water down the inside wall of the vial: 1 mL into a 2 mg vial for the DAC tiers, 2 mL if you are running the no-DAC tier at 100 mcg. Never squirt it directly onto the powder cake.
Roll the vial gently until it turns completely clear. Shaking damages the peptide, and there is no reason to rush a step that takes thirty seconds.
Use a fresh U-100 insulin syringe and the calculator. At 2,000 mcg/mL, 500 mcg is 25 units, 1,000 mcg is 50 units and the whole 2 mg vial is 100 units.
Subcutaneous into the abdomen or thigh, rotating sites and staying clear of the navel, scar tissue and bruises. Keep the mixed vial at 2 – 8 °C and never freeze it. The usual 28-day limit on a mixed vial comes from the benzyl alcohol in bacteriostatic water, not from a published CJC-1295 stability study. Needles go in a sharps container.
A 2 mg vial is two injections at the standard tier: one week of the twice-weekly protocol, two weeks of the conservative one. Worth planning around before you order.
What to Expect
CJC-1295 moves a number on a blood panel long before it moves anything you can feel. The timeline below separates what the trials actually measured from what people report.
IGF-1 is climbing, but you cannot feel IGF-1. The realistic first-week experience is redness or itching where you injected, which is among the most common reactions listed on the label of tesamorelin, the one GHRH analog that is FDA approved.
Mild puffiness in hands and ankles, aching joints or forearms, and heavier sleep are the usual early reports. The first two are documented GHRH-class effects: peripheral edema, arthralgia and myalgia all appear as common adverse reactions on the tesamorelin label. Deeper sleep is widely reported by users but has never been measured for CJC-1295.
Recovery between sessions, skin, appetite and sleep quality are where people report change. None of it was an endpoint in any of the human trials, which counted hormones in blood and nothing else. IGF-1 moves early in that data, so a repeat draw is the more informative check here.
The longest published trial ran 49 days. Beyond seven weeks there is no human safety or efficacy data for this compound at all. Any cycle length quoted, including the one on this page, is bodybuilding convention rather than a studied duration.
Bloodwork is the objective check. Three small trials in healthy adults show the DAC version reliably raises GH and IGF-1 for up to seven weeks. No trial has measured muscle, fat loss or healing. An IGF-1 level before your first injection and another around week 6 shows whether your vial is doing the one thing this drug is proven to do.
Feeling Something? Check Here
- Mild redness or itching at the injection site.
- Brief warmth or flushing just after injecting.
- Deeper or heavier sleep.
- A modest increase in appetite.
- Puffy hands, ankles or face that does not settle.
- Aching joints, forearms or muscles.
- Numbness or tingling in the fingers.
- Rising fasting glucose.
- A headache that keeps returning.
- Hold the next dose, drop back a tier, and get IGF-1 and fasting glucose checked.
- Wheeze, widespread hives, or facial or throat swelling after injecting.
- Carpal tunnel symptoms severe enough to wake you.
- Vision changes or a severe unrelenting headache.
- Any new or growing lump.
- Active cancer of any kind: GH and IGF-1 are growth signals, and active malignancy is a contraindication on the tesamorelin label.
- Disruption of the hypothalamic-pituitary axis: hypophysectomy, hypopituitarism, a pituitary tumour or pituitary surgery, head irradiation or head trauma.
- Pregnancy or breastfeeding.
- Children or adolescents with open growth plates.
- Any prior hypersensitivity reaction to CJC-1295.
Uncontrolled diabetes, active diabetic retinopathy and a personal history of cancer are reasons to speak to a doctor before starting. This list is borrowed from tesamorelin, the closest approved drug in the class, because CJC-1295 has no label of its own.
FAQ
Is "CJC-1295 no DAC" the same thing as CJC-1295?+
No. The DAC version binds to your own albumin and has a measured half-life of 5.8 to 8.1 days. The no-DAC version is a 29 amino acid peptide, more accurately called Mod GRF (1-29), with no albumin anchor and no published human pharmacokinetics under that name. Anti-doping chemists catalogue the two as separate substances. Every half-life, dose and injection-timing number changes depending on which one is in your vial, so check the label before you consult any dosing chart, including this one.
Do I have to inject on an empty stomach before bed?+
For the DAC version this ritual makes very little sense. With a half-life of 5.8 to 8.1 days the drug is in your blood continuously, and the human data shows it works by raising trough GH roughly 7.5-fold rather than by amplifying any single pulse. Worth noting that tesamorelin, the FDA-approved GHRH analog, carries no time-of-day and no food restriction on its label at all. For the short-acting no-DAC version the empty-stomach argument is more plausible, because food and insulin blunt GH release, but it has never been tested for this peptide.
How much do I actually draw?+
With a 2 mg vial in 1 mL of bacteriostatic water you have 2,000 mcg/mL, so one unit on a U-100 syringe is 20 mcg. That makes 1,000 mcg equal to 50 units, 500 mcg equal to 25 units, and the entire 2 mg vial equal to 100 units. If you are running the no-DAC version at 100 mcg, mix the same vial in 2 mL instead, so 100 mcg lands on a readable 10 units rather than an unmeasurable 5.
What dose did the human trials actually use?+
Across the published work the range runs from 30 to 90 mcg/kg per injection, and 30 and 60 mcg/kg were the doses Teichman 2006 singled out as safe and relatively well tolerated among four ascending doses. For a 70 kg adult that is roughly 2 to 4 mg in a single injection at the well-tolerated end, several times what the community protocols on this page use. Teichman gave those doses in two or three weekly or biweekly injections, so the figure is per injection, not a weekly budget. The tiers above are smaller and are convention rather than trial-derived, which is a reason to scale by bodyweight and to watch your own bloodwork rather than to assume you are replicating a study.
Should I stack it with ipamorelin?+
That combination is the most heavily sold peptide blend and among the least supported. A 2026 review in the American Journal of Sports Medicine found the CJC-1295 plus ipamorelin evidence consists of a mouse study on steroid-induced muscle loss, with no human trials, and concluded that indications, dosing, frequency and duration all remain unknown. The theory that a GHRH analog plus a ghrelin-receptor agonist should be synergistic is reasonable pharmacology. It is not a result.
Will it build muscle or burn fat?+
Nobody has measured it. The human trials counted hormones in the blood of healthy adults. None of them weighed anyone, scanned body composition, or tested strength. What is proven is that CJC-1295 with DAC raises GH and IGF-1 in a dose-dependent way. Whether that hormone change converts into the physique outcomes it is marketed for is an assumption, and it is the assumption the entire market rests on.
Do I need bloodwork?+
It is the only objective feedback available to you. An IGF-1 level before you start and again around week 6 tells you whether the vial is genuine and whether you have pushed too high. The tesamorelin label instructs prescribers to monitor IGF-1 and consider stopping when it stays above 3 standard deviations, which is a sensible ceiling to borrow. Fasting glucose and HbA1c are worth adding, since GH opposes insulin.
How long can I run it?+
Honestly, nobody knows. The longest published trial lasted 49 days. The 8 to 12 week cycles quoted everywhere, including on this page, are bodybuilding convention. The one thing the trials do establish is that the DAC version accumulates: after multiple doses, IGF-1 remained above baseline for up to 28 days, so when you stop, the drug and its effect trail off over weeks rather than days.
Will it show up on a drug test?+
Yes. CJC-1295 is a growth hormone releasing factor, and growth hormone releasing factors sit in section S2 of the WADA Prohibited List: prohibited at all times, in and out of competition. Validated mass-spectrometry methods detect the target peptides at limits of generally 1 ng/mL or better, which is the performance limit WADA requires. If you compete in any tested sport, this is a sanction rather than a grey area.
Sources
Every study figure on this page traces to the list below. Doses that are convention rather than trial data are marked as such in the tier itself.
- ·Teichman SL et al. Prolonged stimulation of growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor I secretion by CJC-1295, a long-acting analog of GH-releasing hormone, in healthy adults. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2006. PMID 16352683: two randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind ascending-dose trials of 28 and 49 days; half-life 5.8 to 8.1 days; doses given in two or three weekly or biweekly injections; safe and relatively well tolerated particularly at 30 or 60 mcg/kg; IGF-I raised 1.5- to 3-fold for 9 to 11 days, and above baseline for up to 28 days after multiple doses.
- ·Ionescu M, Frohman LA. Pulsatile secretion of growth hormone persists during continuous stimulation by CJC-1295, a long-acting GH-releasing hormone analog. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2006. PMID 17018654: healthy men given 60 or 90 mcg/kg, with overnight sampling one week later; no significant difference between the two doses; trough GH raised about 7.5-fold with pulse frequency and amplitude unchanged.
- ·Mayfield CK et al. Injectable Peptide Therapy: A Primer for Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Physicians. Am J Sports Med. 2026. PMID 41476424: the CJC-1295 plus ipamorelin evidence is a mouse study on steroid-induced muscle loss, with no human trials; indications, dosing, frequency and duration remain unknown.
- ·Memdouh S et al. Advances in the detection of growth hormone releasing hormone synthetic analogs. Drug Test Anal. 2021. PMID 34665524: catalogues "CJC-1295" and "CJC-1295 with drug affinity complex" as distinct substances; limits of detection generally 1 ng/mL, the WADA required performance limit, or lower.
- ·Henninge J et al. Identification of CJC-1295, a growth-hormone-releasing peptide, in an unknown pharmaceutical preparation. Drug Test Anal. 2010. PMID 21204297: an unidentified preparation submitted by Norwegian police and customs was analysed and found to contain the 29 amino acid peptide.
- ·EGRIFTA WR (tesamorelin) FDA prescribing information via DailyMed: the reference GHRH analog, and the source of the class contraindications, IGF-1 monitoring guidance and the common adverse reactions quoted on this page. CJC-1295 itself has no FDA-approved label.
- ·WADA Prohibited List, section S2: peptide hormones, growth factors, related substances and mimetics, including growth hormone releasing factors; prohibited at all times, in and out of competition.
The longer treatment of all of this (sourcing, stacking, and how CJC-1295 compares with the other GHRH analogs) lives in the full CJC-1295 dosing guide.
Disclaimer: This content is for informational and research purposes only and is not medical advice. CJC-1295 holds no FDA approval, and the no-DAC version has never been tested in a human trial under that name. The protocols above are convention rather than trial-derived doses, and the class safety information here comes from tesamorelin. Consult a qualified healthcare professional before starting any peptide protocol. PeptideDeck is not responsible for individual use.