Correctly reconstituting peptides is imperative. Reconstituting peptides incorrectly can damage or even destroy the delicate peptide bonds, rendering a given compound potentially inactive and thus useless. It is also critical to store peptides properly to reduce degradation and damage.

Let’s talk about how and why to reconstitute peptides.

Lyophilized Peptides

Virtually all peptides come in a lyophilized powder form. “Lyophilized” means that a given peptide is in the form of a freeze dried powder. Lyophilization is a process in which water is removed from a compound after it is frozen and placed under a vacuum, allowing the ice to change directly from solid to vapor without passing through a liquid phase.

Different lyophilization techniques can yield a more voluminous (fluffy) or a more compacted (granular) lyophilized peptide.

To get peptides into a usable solution, bacteriostatic water must be added to “reconstitute” the lyophilized powder.

Bacteriostatic Water Vs. Sterile Water

Some people confuse bacteriostatic water with sterile water. For the purposes of this article, we only recommend using bacteriostatic water to reconstitute peptides.

Bacteriostatic water is a form of sterile water with small amounts of alcohol added to prevent bacterial growth. Reconstituting peptides properly helps minimize or eliminate damage to your active compound (the peptide itself).

What you will need to reconstitute peptides

Here are some items that you will need to reconstitute your peptide(s):

  • An alcohol wipe.
  • A syringe.
  • Your lyophilized peptide.
  • Bacteriostatic water.

How to reconstitute peptides

Start by using an alcohol wipe to clean the top of your peptide vial. Next, you’ll want to add enough bacteriostatic water to the peptide vial so that you end up with the proper concentration that you are targeting. Typical peptide vials will hold 2-2.5mL of bacteriostatic water at most. Make sure to also wipe down the bacteriostatic water vial before inserting the needle. You will likely want to use a larger syringe (i.e. a 3mL syringe) to add the bacteriostatic water to the peptide vial.

Let’s say, for an easy example, that you are adding 2mL of bacteriostatic water. After filling the 3mL syringe with the appropriate amount of bacteriostatic water (2mL in this example), carefully insert the needle into the peptide vial. Some peptide vials have a vacuum (pressure) in the vial. This will cause the bacteriostatic water to shoot into the peptide vial rapidly. Be careful to avoid this. Do not let the water inject directly onto the lyophilized powder. This can damage the peptide. Angle the needle toward the side of the peptide vial, and slowly inject it so it drips down and mixes with the lyophilized powder.

NOTE: whether there is a vacuum in the peptide vial or not, is NOT an indicator of product quality whatsoever.

DO NOT SHAKE VIAL to speed up mixing. Gently swirl the vial until the lyophilized power is fully reconstituted, and then store the peptide vial in the refrigerator. You may not need to swirl the peptide vial, as high quality peptides will dissolve on their own in almost all cases.

Peptide Dosage

For the purpose of explaining how exactly we get the correct dosage for each peptide, we’ll say we want to go with a treatment regimen of BPC 157. These vials typically come in 5mg concentrations, and a popular dosage is 250-500mcg per injection. Let’s go with 500mcg for this example.

If you reconstituted BPC 157 with 2mL of bacteriostatic water, then you will need to draw 0.2mL (or the 20 unit mark on an insulin syringe) for a 500mcg dosage. It is just very basic math to figure this out for each different peptide based on how much active peptide is in each vial, and how much bacteriostatic water was used to reconstitute a given peptide.