This page does not publish a sermorelin dosing chart, and the reason is not caution for its own sake. There is no approved sermorelin product on the market, which means there is no FDA-approved label and therefore no authoritative dose to publish. Any chart you find online is somebody’s protocol, not a regulatory standard, and presenting it as one would be inventing authority that does not exist.
What can be set out honestly is what determines a dose, what a prescriber weighs, what monitoring looks like, and what the historical record actually contains. That is what follows.
Important
This article is general education, not medical advice, and nothing in it recommends or endorses a treatment for you. Compounded medications discussed here are not FDA approved. Only a clinician licensed in your state can decide whether any treatment is appropriate, and that decision follows a review of your history and any testing they consider necessary. Do not start, stop or change any medication based on something you read online. If you are having a medical emergency, call 911.
Why there is no standard dose
When a drug is FDA approved, the label carries dosing that was studied in the trial programme and reviewed by FDA. Prescribers can deviate, but there is a documented starting point.
Sermorelin has no such document in current use. The approved products, GEREF under NDA 019863 and NDA 020443, were discontinued. FDA stated in a Federal Register notice dated 4 March 2013 that they were not withdrawn for reasons of safety or effectiveness, but discontinued is still discontinued. Compounded sermorelin prescribed today is an unapproved drug with no approved label attached to it.
So dosing for compounded sermorelin is a clinical judgment made by the prescriber, informed by the historical literature, the concentration the pharmacy supplies, and the individual patient. It is not a number a website can supply.
What the historical research used
For context rather than guidance: the most frequently cited adult study, Vittone and colleagues in Metabolism in 1997, gave 11 healthy older men a nightly subcutaneous dose of 2 mg for six weeks. That was a 1997 research protocol in a study of eleven people. It is not a recommendation, it was not designed to establish a dose for general use, and it should not be read as one.
Worth noting what that study found, since it bears on dosing expectations: nocturnal growth hormone release increased, while IGF-1, body composition, lipids, glucose metabolism and muscle histology did not change. A protocol that produced a pharmacological effect without downstream changes is not a protocol to copy.
What actually shapes a prescribed dose
A prescriber weighing sermorelin is generally looking at several things at once:
- Why it is being considered at all. Documented growth hormone deficiency and general interest in longevity are very different clinical situations with different reasoning behind them.
- Baseline laboratory values. IGF-1 is the usual starting measurement, since it is the downstream marker growth hormone acts through.
- Age and body composition. Growth hormone secretion declines with age, and baseline physiology differs substantially between individuals.
- What the compounding pharmacy supplies. Compounded preparations vary in concentration between pharmacies. A dose is meaningless without knowing the concentration it is drawn from.
- Other medications and conditions. Diabetes and glucose intolerance matter, because raising IGF-1 affects insulin sensitivity. So does any history of cancer.
- Response over time. Sermorelin is not typically a set-and-forget prescription. Follow-up measurement is how a prescriber knows whether anything is happening.
Timing, and why it comes up
Sermorelin is a growth hormone releasing hormone analogue. It works by prompting the pituitary to release the body’s own growth hormone, and endogenous growth hormone secretion is pulsatile, with the largest pulses occurring during early sleep.
That physiology is why bedtime administration appears throughout the literature, including the 1997 protocol above. It is a reasonable mechanistic rationale. It is also the prescriber’s decision, and it interacts with food timing and sleep schedule in ways that a general article cannot resolve for an individual.
Monitoring
Because there is no approved label, monitoring is where the safety of this actually lives. The measurements commonly discussed are:
| What | Why it is checked |
|---|---|
| IGF-1 | The downstream marker growth hormone acts through, and the usual way of judging whether anything is happening |
| Fasting glucose and HbA1c | GHRH analogues raise IGF-1, and IGF-1 influences insulin sensitivity |
| Symptom and sleep tracking | Much of what people report is subjective, so a written record is more reliable than recall |
| Injection site review | Injection site reactions are among the more commonly reported effects |
How often any of this is checked, and whether it applies at all, is set by the prescriber.
Questions worth asking your prescriber
- What concentration is the pharmacy supplying, and which pharmacy is filling it?
- What baseline measurements do you want before I start?
- What are you expecting to see, and by when, that would tell us this is doing something?
- What would make you stop or change the dose?
- What is the plan if nothing measurable changes?
That last question is a good one to ask about any treatment where the evidence base is limited. A prescriber who has an answer to it is thinking about your case rather than running a protocol.
Frequently asked
What is the standard sermorelin dose?
There is no standard dose, because there is no marketed FDA-approved sermorelin product and therefore no approved label. Dosing for a compounded preparation is set by the prescriber.
Why will you not publish a dosing chart?
Because publishing one would present a number as authoritative when no authority stands behind it. Concentrations also vary between compounding pharmacies, so a chart could be wrong for the specific preparation someone holds.
Is sermorelin taken at night?
Bedtime administration appears widely in the literature because natural growth hormone pulses are largest during early sleep. Timing is still a decision for the prescriber.
How long until something happens?
No controlled trial in healthy adults establishes a timeline, so this page does not give one. It is a question for the prescriber, and a reasonable one to ask before starting.
Considering sermorelin therapy?
PrescribedRX offers sermorelin injections by prescription. Answer a few questions about your health history and a clinician licensed in your state reviews whether treatment is appropriate for you. Compounded sermorelin is not FDA approved, and a clinician may decide it is not right for you.
References
- Vittone J, Blackman MR, Busby-Whitehead J, 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.
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Determination That GEREF (Sermorelin Acetate) Injection and GEREF DIAGNOSTIC (Sermorelin Acetate) Injection Were Not Withdrawn From Sale for Reasons of Safety or Effectiveness. Federal Register, 4 March 2013.
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Drugs@FDA records for GEREF, NDA 019863 and NDA 020443.
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Bulk Drug Substances Nominated for Use in Compounding Under Section 503A of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Updated 14 May 2026.
Related reading
Sermorelin therapy: the complete guide · Is sermorelin FDA approved? · Sermorelin benefits · Sermorelin before and after: what the evidence shows
