I’m excited to be joining Dr. Lorne Brown on the Conscious Fertility Podcast to dive into a fascinating topic—Rapamycin. While it’s started to be used as an anti-aging drug, I’ve been exploring its potential for reproductive health, especially in improving fertility and delaying menopause.
In this episode, I share my personal experience taking Rapamycin, including how it’s affected my skin, menstrual cycles, and overall health. We’ll also get into the science behind it and how it may be beneficial for women going through menopause or undergoing fertility treatments like IVF.
While I’m passionate about this topic, I want to emphasize that this is not medical advice—always consult your doctor before considering any new treatments. I also share how my alcohol-free lifestyle supports my approach to healthy aging and fertility.
Key points covered include:
- How Rapamycin may help delay menopause, reverse its effects, and support fertility treatments.
- Some of the potential side effects, like cystic acne and mouth sores.
- Why I started using and prescribing Rapamycin for longevity and helping women improve fertility later in life.
- My personal experience with Rapamycin, including smoother skin, regular cycles, and no gray hair at 48.
- The importance of consulting your doctor before trying Rapamycin, as this podcast is informational and not meant as medical advice.
Full Transcript:
Dr. Lorne Brown: I have Dr. Aimee, The Egg Whisperer, on again. Welcome back to The Conscious Fertility Podcast.
Dr. Aimee: Lorne, I am so happy to be here. I think you’re the absolute best and I learn so much from you. I’m looking forward to our conversation.
Dr. Lorne Brown: Thank you. The feeling is mutual. The last time we were on, we talked about optimizing egg quality and we went deep into the TUSHY Method, the BALLs Method, PRP method. I want to review that, but just so our listeners know, my emphasis today is I want to talk about this drug called Rapamycin. I don’t know if you know this, but in our interview before, we had a good five-minute spiel on Rapamycin, but I edited it out of that version because I was like people are going to want to run and get this drug, and we need more time to discuss it.
That’s what I want to do today is discuss another modality or tool or opportunity that may help women. That’s my intention for wanting to get you back on to do a deeper dive. I find that you’re special and unique as a reproductive endocrinologist who has invested in knowing about acupuncture, low level laser therapy, mind-body work, just anything that’s available out there. You’ve done that, and that’s unique for an REI, so thank you for doing that.
Dr. Aimee: Of course.
Dr. Lorne Brown: So, Rapamycin. I want to know what it is, why you’re excited about it, why you’re taking it.
Dr. Aimee: Real quick, you have to potentially do a side-by-side, and I’m not kidding, of how I looked on our last podcast recording compared to now. Joking aside. It sounds like rat poison, Rapamycin. It’s the worst name ever, but when I say I feel like I have no wrinkles, my skin is smooth, I don’t have a single gray hair at 48 years old, my cycles are regular, I think that has to do with Rapamycin. I’ve been taking it now for probably 17 months. It was May 2023 when I started. I track all of my cycles with my Oura Ring, and I track my hormone levels as well with blood tests, FSH, estradiol, and AMH. I don’t want to share my hormone levels because I don’t want it to feel like I’m bragging at all, but I will say they’re better than my sister’s, and she’s 14 months younger than I am.
There are side effects with it.
Cystic acne. I actually have a cyst, I’m going to show it to everybody, it’s right here. They come and they go, and it’s annoying. When it comes, I use it as an opportunity to be grateful for the gift of this medication to help me live longer. When I get a big cyst like that, I just say, “I am so grateful that this medication exists and potentially will delay my menopause.” I can maybe even at 48 have a pregnancy. I might be ovulating tonight. Don’t tell my husband. That is one thing. For patients who are very conscious about how they appear, it might be really annoying to deal with cystic acne. I would say about one out of ten patients develops it. When I first started, it was terrible, and then it slowly went away, but I still get acne cysts here and there.
The second side effect is stomatitis. Those are sores in your mouth. It’s not like herpes, it’s not on the outside of your mouth, but sores on the inside. In the beginning, you might start to feel some tingling in your tongue, and then you might get sores all around. I’ve only had one patient, but the sores were so bad that she decided to stop taking it. I would say probably around one in thirty patients will experience the sores that I experience as well.
I would say probably of all the patients I’ve prescribed it to, there are two patients who got both, lucky them, cystic acne and stomatitis, and I was one of them. I don’t get the sores anymore. I think that’s important for people to know. I’ve had two patients develop a body rash. One patient that got the body rash actually wanted to continue to take it, she did not want to stop it, so what we did is we dropped her dose.
It’s 2.5 milligrams once a week. If your insurance covers it, it’s very cheap. It’s like $10 because it’s generic. If insurance does not cover it, it’s on average around $90 a month. I prescribe it through Alto Pharmacy, Amazon Mail Pharmacy, or you can even get it at Costco and retail pharmacies. The thing with retail pharmacies, though, is they don’t stock it in the store. They have to bring it in, so it takes time for them to order it to get it for you, and it can be a little bit more expensive.
I can keep going if you want.
Dr. Lorne Brown: I have some questions.
Dr. Aimee: Go for it.
Dr. Lorne Brown: What motivated you to take it? What did you learn about this? You’re not looking to grow your family, so what motivated you to take it? What motivated you from what you learned about the current research on it to want to recommend it to your fertility patients?
Dr. Aimee: For me, it’s longevity. I love what I do, and I don’t want to die. I want to do this until the day I die. I feel like I’ve been given this opportunity in life, this gift, I try to make everyone that I meet feel special and worth it, and they deserve to be a parent if that’s what they want. I feel like the older I’m getting, the less I’m seeing that in other doctors, and it pains me physically. Literally, it’s me, I want to live longer. That’s number one.
Number two, the way to do that is also just avoiding menopause. I’m 48 years old, regular cycles, normal enough FSH levels, normal enough AMH levels. That’s insane.
Number three, I wanted the experience, for me to experience the side effects, so that I can then tell patients about my experience and how it makes them feel. Once I got to that point, then I felt comfortable prescribing it to patients who are menopausal. I’ve seen patients who are completely menopausal start ovulating again. Then, now I’m prescribing it to patients who are not menopausal but going through treatment and haven’t had good results yet. I’ve also been giving it to patients who are trying naturally and also who are going through IVF.
Now there’s enough research out there that I feel comfortable prescribing it to people going through IVF. Before, a year ago, I was prescribing it to menopausal women to see if it could reverse their menopause and they could start ovulating again, but I was telling all of them not to try to get pregnant because I didn’t know enough at the time. I don’t want anyone to listen to anything that I’m saying right now and for one second think that this is medical advice because it is not. It is so important for you to talk to your own physician about whether this drug is appropriate for you or not before taking it.
That’s my Rapamycin journey. Also, I want to marry a younger man, so I do not give it to my husband, and he’s older. I start to look younger and he dies first, we have a good insurance policy out on each other. I’m kidding. My husband and I both started taking it at the same time, we both take TruNiagen as well, that’s nicotinamide riboside. We both joke it’s kind of sick and gross how much we adore each other that it’s nauseating, but literally I don’t want to die. I want to die with him. I can’t imagine living without him. So, we’re trying to do as much as we can as human beings to just be here for our family, our children, our community.
The other thing that I do is I’m alcohol-free. I’m completely alcohol-free and I think it’s liberating. It’s a superpower. I didn’t realize how much of a superpower it was until I actually did it. I highly recommend it. I have patients that are like, “We know you love tequila, you’re constantly talking about tequila,” so that’s kind of what I’m known for is my love for tequila and the nicest tequilas. Something just snapped and I was like, “That’s not good for me.” I’m doing all this other stuff, why would I keep drinking?
I think it was hard because I’m such a social person, I’m extroverted, I love my friends, and drinking is part of those relationships. But now I’ve learned how to still be a part of those relationships and be alcohol-free. That’s also something that I hope people will learn from and be able to say, “I can do that, too,” and not be ashamed to say it out loud. It’s really funny what happens when you don’t drink. People think that there’s 1) something wrong with you, 2) that you have an alcohol issue, and then they think that you’re not going to have as much fun as they’re having. I’m here to tell you that you can have just as much fun being alcohol-free with your friends who are drinking, and you get to make fun of them and videotape them and the stupid shit they say and remind them about it later.
Dr. Lorne Brown: I’m an infrequent drinker myself. A question about your Rapamycin. You took it because you didn’t want your husband to have an upgrade because he was looking younger and healthier, so you wanted to compete and stay in the relationship.
Dr. Aimee: Definitely. Always. I wake up in the morning whispering to him, “You’re so lucky to be married to me,” every day first thing.
Dr. Lorne Brown: Can you talk about what happened in the study?
Dr. Aimee: For sure. I get Google Alerts about everything. I got this Google Alert about this drug that might reverse menopause. I was like, “I need that drug right now.” They’re like, “it’s only in animals.” I don’t care. People are taking it already in the anti-aging world, I’ll just take it, no big deal.
Then I started doing a search on Reddit. You can find anything on Reddit. This was over a year ago. There were already people describing their experiences with taking it, on Reddit, for delaying menopause. Then I felt more comfortable taking it myself because when you think about aging, I like to think about it as healthy aging, what I can do to promote healthy aging because aging is a normal part of life and so is menopause. Typically, when you think of aging, you think of people that are old, like in their 80s. You don’t think of someone as old who wants to support healthy aging, you don’t think of that person being in their 40s. This age, I think, is the best age to do it.
Whether you should take it three months a year, or all year long, no one really knows. It hasn’t really been around that long for us to know how long it will delay menopause for. I don’t know. I’m 48. The average age of menopause is 51. Who knows? Maybe I’ll still go into menopause at 50 or 51. We won’t really know until we get there. I already know that my sister, we’re very similar, is already perimenopausal and is experiencing hot flashes and all the things, and I haven’t had a single hot flash or missed period.
Dr. Lorne Brown: In that study, they had shared that it delayed how many follicles they were releasing, so that was helping with ovarian reserve.
Dr. Aimee: And the menopausal mice started having pups.
Dr. Lorne Brown: That was the other thing, they had pups later in life.
Dr. Aimee: My average patient is 42, my practice is aging, as society is waiting longer to have babies. I predict our kids aren’t going to have kids until they’re 50, so they’re going to want to use their own DNA and not donor eggs. I don’t know if we’re ever going to be able to do a skin biopsy and convert that into an egg and sperm. Maybe by the time they’re 50 that’s going to be how people have babies. Until then, I feel like this drug might be something that could really help my patients who are in their 40s who still want a chance with their own DNA.
Dr. Lorne Brown: Reminding everybody, this is not medical advice. This is information. You can talk to your physician about whether it’s the right drug for you.
Dr. Aimee: This is completely anecdotal. Your doctor might say, “Dr. Aimee is crazy,” and that’s fine. I accept that as a compliment. I’m crazy about helping people as much as I can. I’m obsessed with finding new tools and solutions for people that they didn’t think of. If I’m the first doctor, and I am the first doctor in the United States to prescribe Rapamycin for their patients, I know other doctors are going to start doing it, too. It’s going to be this trend and more people are going to have the experience, they’re going to publish more papers on it, and hopefully it’s something that’s going to be accessible to other people very soon.
Dr. Lorne Brown: You mentioned learning about how long to stay on it. Are you on it continuously, or do you take breaks from it?
Dr. Aimee: I’m on it continuously. I haven’t taken any breaks. I also feel like it helped me, that’s why I brought up doing a side-by-side from the last episode of how I looked then and how I look now. I feel like body size wise, shape, weight, I started losing weight. I’ve had other patients also say that they’ve lost weight on it and really made few changes with their lifestyle. I think alcohol-free for me was also part of that, but that’s been more recent compared to when I started Rapamycin. Also, I lift weights now to build muscle because one of the side effects is losing muscle mass. I do weights and squats and all that kind of stuff.
Dr. Lorne Brown: It sounds like Ozempic.
Dr. Aimee: Right. It’s all part of your anti-aging, healthy aging.
Dr. Lorne Brown: So, the main side effects that you have noticed in your patients are the mouth sores and some acne. But I don’t see the acne and you don’t have the mouth sores.
Dr. Aimee: I have a high-def camera on and I have ten layers of makeup. I’m actually not joking. For me, the acne is pretty serious, and I’m pretty sensitive to acne meds like doxycycline, which is something that you can easily take to treat cystic acne. I just ride it out and put makeup on. It is something that can be distressing for somebody who is not used to having zits.
Dr. Lorne Brown: It won’t work its way through? As long as they’re on it, they could have those symptoms?
Dr. Aimee: It will get better over time. The stomatitis when I first started having it, it was so painful to have those sores in my mouth. Slowly, they went away. Now I’ll rarely feel a tingling in my mouth, like when I first take my dose for the week.
The cystic acne is not like it was before with full breakouts. I used to have cysts on my face that were so painful they would throb at night. I warn people about that, because I don’t want you to take it and not realize that could happen, and then you get really pissed off that I prescribed something that would cause that for you. I prepare people well in advance and I tell them this is what you could expect.
It’s not rare, it’s actually quite a common side effect. Are you okay with that? If they’re okay with it, then they take it. If they’re not okay with it, some people take it and they’re like, “If it happens, I’m going to stop it.” Other people have it and they just ride it out.
Dr. Lorne Brown: I have an idea for you. Since you like to be your own study power-of-one, in Chinese medicine the signs and symptoms that you’re expressing, the mouth sores and the acne, is what we would call a stomach or heart fire blood stasis, and we’d treat it herbally. A lot of times, people come to us on medications that they need, so our treatments are working on the constitution and how they’re presenting with the drugs, their side effects, it tells us about their constitution. We treat that way and often they’re still on the drugs but the side effects go away or minimize.
I know you have a few local acupuncturists you work with. Treating side effects herbally would be a key thing. If you’re into experimenting, they could treat these mouth sores and acne herbally. I’m curious how that would work with you on the meds, if you’re open to it.
Dr. Aimee: I was at a conference and this acupuncturist was like, “Oh my god, your skin.” I’m like, “You’re so sweet.” She was telling me because I was like I’m starting doxycycline next week and she was like, “I’m horrified. You need to come see me.” You’re not the first one to say that. She swore up and down that she could fix me without taking an antibiotic.
Dr. Lorne Brown: That always makes me nervous when somebody swears that they can do that, but in theory it is possible. Just like not everybody gets a side effect from the medicine. Part of the acupuncture herbal when we’re treating people through IVF, they notice that they have less symptoms on the medications, they feel different. So, there’s that idea.
There’s not a human study, but just anecdotally people have been doing it in the anti-aging world, so that’s where you’re hearing it? Or are there some human studies as well?
Dr. Aimee: There are human studies. It’s FDA approved for something totally different.
Dr. Lorne Brown: What is it approved for?
Dr. Aimee: Prevention of fungal infections in kidney and transplant patients, so far removed from anti-aging. But people have been taking it for a long time in the anti-aging world, it’s not new in that world. It’s just fairly new in the IVF world, with studies now coming out. They’ve taken a group of patients, they didn’t take the medication, they failed IVF, then they put them on the medication and then they did so much better.
Again, you have to be careful about what you read. Nowadays, you can get anything published. I’m always very careful when it comes to looking at a study and then saying studies show that blah, blah, blah. The reality is that there is some evidence that maybe it will help. Now that I’ve been giving it to my IVF patients, I have seen some extremely impressive results. Not in everybody, but I’ve had some cases where I’m like, “wow, this drug has made a big difference in how they’ve responded to medications, and the number of eggs that they grew.”
I would say the jury is still out in terms of how beneficial it could be for IVF patients. I keep a list of the number of patients I have on it, and the list is now probably close to around 80 or so.
Dr. Lorne Brown: When somebody listening to this goes and asks their physician about this drug, because you’re not giving them medical advice here, how long would patients be on it before they do an IVF? I’m thinking about the follicular genesis average of 100 days.
Dr. Aimee: I think on average two months is what I’m telling patients. That’s when I’m seeing a difference.
I actually have my medical license in every state in the country, so a patient can actually get it through me. I do have a Rapamycin program. I not only have a medical license in every state, I also have medical liability insurance, so I can actually prescribe everywhere. It was a long term project, and I finally got it done. Not just so I can prescribe Rapamycin, but just so I could feel like people can get advice from me in a compliant way and I could feel like I could tell them what to do without feeling like someone was going to say, “Aimee, you can’t do that, you’re going to get in trouble.”
It’s really funny. Now when a pharmacist calls me from Hawaii and they say, “You can’t order this medication because you don’t have a license in Hawaii,” I’m like, “Actually, this is my Hawaii license number.”
Dr. Lorne Brown: You pay a lot of dues.
Dr. Aimee: I won’t tell you how much. Literally, it’s insane. I have to renew my license in every state, every one to two years. It’s over $1,000 per state. Clearly, I’m not doing this for the money. Clearly, I’m doing this because I want to help as many people as possible. It’s not going to pay off at all.
Dr. Lorne Brown: You have a Rapamycin method or program as well. People can contact you through your website, is that the best way to reach you?
Dr. Aimee: Absolutely.
Dr. Lorne Brown: How else can they find you?
Dr. Aimee: On Instagram, The Egg Whisperer Show on YouTube, my IVF classes, Egg Whisperer School, I do one or two classes per month. This is a way for patients who cannot see me because of proximity or cost personally as a patient but they want to learn from me, share their story, ask me questions in a live Q&A fashion, this is a super easy way of engaging with me.
Dr. Lorne Brown: Do you have anything else that you want to share, anything else that you’re like, “I want the listeners to hear this.”
Dr. Aimee: I’m going to actually quote you. Small action leads to massive results. Kiss your ovaries, kiss your uterus, set your goal, feel it, believe it, and be present. Think of things as not happening to you but for you. I’m leaving your listeners with things that I’ve learned from you today because you are such a gift.
Dr. Lorne Brown: Thank you very much. The quote that Aimee is talking about, if you want to know what that’s about, you have to go to The Egg Whisperer Show and listen to the episode she interviewed me on where we go into much more detail on that.
We like to learn from each other. You’re a learner. What’s the quote? Live like you’re going to die tomorrow, learn like you’re going to live forever. You’re doing it and you’re playful. When I set the intention when I do conscious work, it says that this work will be simple, powerful, effective, and playful. It’s playful, and I like that about you. This can be a very challenging journey for people with a lot of stress and trauma. I know that you know all about the space, but you’re also able to be playful about it as well, which we need. It’s important for the soul to be playful.
Dr. Aimee: You and I both know we’re here for a very short period of time in this world. We get to choose how we want to live this life. It’s not for other people, it’s for ourselves. It’s a lot more fun if you live it in a playful way.
Dr. Lorne Brown: Thank you for being you. Thank you for being the kind of REI that you are and showing up today to share on The Conscious Fertility Podcast. One more time reminding our listeners to check out Aimee’s Egg Whisperer Show, her website, and her Instagram. Lots of information there for you. Dr. Aimee, thank you so much.
Social:
Intro-based:
Ever heard of a medication called rapamycin? I know, I know – it sounds like a made-up magic potion out of a movie. But it’s actually a drug that is being researched for its potential to delay menopause and extend, and even boost, your fertility.
I got to talk with Dr. Lorne Brown about rapamycin and how I think it can help fertility patients on his show, The Conscious Fertility Podcast. He has graciously allowed us to replay this conversation here on The Egg Whisperer Show so you can hear it too.
In my practice, I don’t like to prescribe anything if I don’t personally understand the research, the side effects and the benefits. I’ve been taking rapamycin myself, and I’ve had some promising results that excite me about what it could do for fertility medicine.
In this episode, Dr. Brown and I talk about:
- Why I’m taking rapamycin.
- It’s benefits, (and some pesky side effects.)
- What I’ve seen rapamycin do for the patients I’ve prescribed it to.
- Why I’m nuts enough to be licensed and insured to practice medicine in all 50 states.
- What rapamycin could open up for the future of fertility.
If you’re like me, and you want to find out about anything and everything that could prolong or improve your fertility, you’ll want to give this episode a listen.
Tune in at the link in my profile, or on my website at DrAimee.org
Insight-based:
I think fertility patients deserve doctors who are always on the lookout for new ways to help them reach their goals. Sometimes I see doctors who seem so disconnected from their patients’ experiences, and it makes me upset.
I know how much your dreams for the future of your family mean to you – that’s why they mean the world to me too.
That’s also why I’ve always got my eyes peeled for new research on treatments and medications that can help fertility patients get where they want to go with more ease. So when I started seeing studies on a drug called rapamycin that could potentially delay menopause and boost fertility, you better believe I paid attention!
In fact, I started taking it myself to test its effects before prescribing it to any of my patients. Recently, I got to talk with Dr. Lorne Brown all about what I’ve learned about the benefits, side effects and medical significance of rapamycin on his show, The Conscious Fertility Podcast. As I told him:
“The reality is that there is some evidence that maybe it will help. Now that I’ve been giving it to my IVF patients, I have seen some extremely impressive results. Not in everybody, but I’ve had some cases where I’m like, ‘wow, this drug has made a big difference in how they’ve responded to medications, and the number of eggs that they grew.’”
If you want to learn more about what I’ve found out about rapamycin, how it can help fertility patients, and how to ask your own doctor about it, tune in to my wonderful conversation with Dr. Brown. I talk in detail about all of this, and you can listen at the link in my profile, or on my website at DrAimee.org
