Anyone take creatine?

[JohannesSweden77]

Yep. 5g morning and 5g afternoon. I've found that when I increased to 10g vs 5g a day, I have a bit more cognitive clarity at work and just improved speed of thinking (started to notice after a few weeks on the higher dose.) I primarily take it for muscle support (I exercise A LOT) but also because I'm a vegetarian so I don't really get natural creatine that meat-eaters get.
It's one of the safest and best researched supplements out there. And there's a lot of really cool new research about the cognitive benefits, which makes me an even bigger fan of it.

I take 5g a day but I'm interested in trying 10g for the cognitive aspect so I'll begin tomorrow with switching to 10g and as I "feel" nothing on 5g I'll see if I notice any change. I can't comment on any positive reaction to it as I started taking it at the same time as starting my training 5 days a week but I'm impressed in the change I see after about 3 months. Didn't expect that fast change on muscle growth. Seeing veins and family and friends commenting about me getting bigger (in a good way not that far way I used to be big.) taking nothing else... Yet.... 😁

 

[hasanhasator]

This is what I’m calling my morning elixir, all about brain health & longevity.

Collagen 11g
MCT powder 10g
Cocoa Bean Extract 1/4tsp
Lion’s Mane 1g
Creatine 5g

Feel the cognitive benefits every day, without question.

This stack along with clean AF eating has helped me remove ADHD stimulants totally from my life. 🙌✊

Do you buy supplements in bulk?

 

[Rdg1970]

Do keep in mind that taking 15g all the time would just result to an expensive urine. A standard dose is about 5g daily for adults. This is all your muscles need to stay saturated.

Here are new studies that suggest 20g is needed for the real cognitive benefits. I was doing 10g in the am and 10g in the pm. Made me really burpy especially when exercising. I quit taking it because my creatinine levels were high, and my doctor wanted to know if it was because of the creatine or was I suffering from poor kidney function I noticed almost 0 difference being on the creatine and off the creatine except the burping went away, and my creatinine levels dropped.

 

[Bioexplorer]

Was taking creatine daily about 7g a day for 3 months. Before starting I had done testing and everything was normal and after the 3 months I had another test and dr said my kidney function was reduced, but no indicators of kidney damage. He asked me to stop the creatine because he thinks the increase in creatine intake is making my kidneys think they’re not working properly. I’ll know in a couple months when I retest.

It's most likely not a concern. I took creatine for may years but quit over a decade ago when I was diagnosed with early kidney disease based on elevated creatinine and low eGFR. Labs improved when I quit creatine so I stayed away.

I just resumed taking 5mg/day this year after learning that it's normal for creatine supplements to cause an increase in creatinine as measured in blood test and creatinine is often used to calculate estimated GFR creating a false indicator of kidney problems.

So when your blood work comes back showing improved kidney function after stopping creatine, it's just an artifact of the test. You need more expensive testing to truly evaluate kidney function. I'm surprised your doctor isn't aware of this effect since a simple Google or AI search will confirm this info with multiple references. But to be fair, I aware of no data on possible effects of long term supplementation