Ok everybody just breathe in deeply - let's relax. At worst all new comers only have to do this for two years until the afamelanotide (CUV 1647) implant comes out. Than by the grace of God your Doctor can play nurse to you, & monitor your health. Fact one: The greator demon is not allergies but depression, despair & self-contempt. These wreck more damage on your quality of life & many that have sought refuge in melanotan II have suffered more in this area.
 
Fact Two: I live in Australia & we down under have some of the highest skin cancer cases in the world that people with fair skin are highly vulnerable to - melanotan II is a breathe of fresh air in this department. Fact Three: melanotan II could also demonstrate long term benifits yet unknown Vs. the few negative still relatively unknown. Fact Four: Science is making great progress & it won't be too long before a greator cure presents itself. Yes, you can sit on the sideline & entertain fear but I champion & applaude all those that have stepped out of the boat.  

Well Put Paul.  I like seeing optimistic people -- as it really changes the way everything feels.  Your thoughts are very uplifting.

Well, as for me, I haven't experienced any sides when using melanotan II. However, my hay fever (May and June) is worse than ever before. This year I'm using melanotan II since the beginning of March ED (until now around 100 mg).
 
Could there be a causal relationship between hay fever and using melanotan II?

I have had 0 problems with melanotan II and I believe it's because I inject on a full stomach.  People have questioned the logic, but I've had fantastic results and no sides.

@colourless: I got myself some new anti-histamines (zyrtec) which pretty much solve the problem. I used to use terfenadine which, in my case, didn't work anymore. It would be interesting to test whether melanotan causes the same increased hay fever symptoms.  
 
 
 

Thanks TongPo
 
Zyrtec are good.
 
If it wasn't for this post i would never have considered that melanotan II had anything to do with my allergic reaction.  There is in fact no logical connection but a possibility.
 
As Englishrose said it is easy to get bogged down in the negativity.  
 
We must avoid blaming every single ailment we have on melanotan II

This idea about the body possibly forming antibodies to Melanotan II could be very serious from a perspective you haven't been discussing.
 
First let me say, I found this thread by Googling "Melanotan Antibodies." I did this because I know that there are scientific studies that show that some forms of manufactured Human Growth Hormone (hGH) stimulate the production of antibodies in the human body. It depends on the quality of the manufacturer. The risk has been found to be very substanial with some Chinese manufacturers 20% for one and 42% for another but only 0 in 446 (over a several week period, not a lifetime) for Genentech's Nutropin. Nutropin was the only one that didn't form antibodies. Most other FDA-approved hGHs formed antibodies 1-2% of the time. It all has to do with how closely the companies get the pepitide to fold like it does in the human body.
 
Why is it a big deal if the body produces antibodies against injected hGH? It is because once the body starts doing this, it often starts producing antibodies against your own hGH! The problem now is that your own hGH is being neutralized! I am worried about the same thing happening with Melanotan (I or II). If the body starts learning to produce antibodies against one of the melanotan peptides, one has to wonder whether it might also produce antibodies against your own natural Melanocytle Stimulating Hormone (MSH). Since your own natural MSH has functions in the body which include controlling your own natural tanning process, neutralization of it by your own antibodies could be very serious.
 
Side effects like flushing are not necessarily indicative of a immune reaction. (My guess is that side effects like flushing have nothing to do with antibodies.) On the other hand, someone could likley be forming the neutralizing antibodies without any visible allergic reaction. Does anybody know if there are any scientific studies which address the Melanotan & antibodies issue?
 
Remember, hGH, MSH and Melanotan are all peptide hormones.

MSHie,
 
Yes, it is a small ring molecule that is substantially different form MSH. One perspective is that it is so different that MOST of the antibodies formed against it won't be cross reactive with your own MSH.  
 
Of course, another perspective is that it is so different that it might invite more antibodies than a nearly identical hormone. Some of these hGHs that are generating antibodies are supposedly identical to the natural hormone yet they cause antibodies to be generated. A truly foreign molecule has even more of a chance at causing antibodies to be generated.  
 
Also, the body doesn't just generate one type of antibody once. It is likely to keep trying to generate different antibody versions. Maybe most of the versions won't affect natural MSH, but some of them very well might. They might very well target the sequence of MSH that makes it most active.  
 
If Melanotan didn't have certain structural similarities to MSH it wouldn't work, it's realisitic to imagine that antibodies could also target these structural similarities.
 
You may have heard talk about a possible new generation of vaccines in which entire viruses aren't injected but only small target areas from the virus. There's a strong analogy between what I'm suggesting here and this new technology. That is the antibodies work if they just target a small similar part of the molecule/virus not the entire thing.
 
I generally assumed that antibodies could only target something foreign and big like a protein or peptide, not something small and natural like the testosterone molecule. But I  recently found this study suggesting scientists could even get antibodies to target testosterone in a rabbit. They did this by hooking some other larger molecule to testosterone to make it look foreign, but apparently some of the antibodies had enough cross reactivity to also target natural testosterone! Melanotan is small compared to MSH but it's huge compared to testosterone.
 
Here's the study's title:
Improvement of specificity of anti-testosterone and anti-5 alpha-dihydrotestosterone rabbit antibodies by immunotolerance techniques.

Gwoiler -- you hear about that from babies (I've read that too), but does that also occur in adults with developed immune systems is the real question.

The specific antibody I was refering to above was the IgE class of anitbodies which are strongly associated with allergic reactions. I do not believe this class is the neutralizing kind of antibody meaning the kind of antibody that attaches to and destroys the invading foreign substance. Its true that the body can produce an immunoglobulin that acts more like a skeleton key (less selective) rather than a uniquely fitting key (exact selection), but I don't believe that is happening here and I don't believe natural aMSH is in danger of being attacked. Here's a definition of IgE that is of interest.
 
Definition
IgE Antibodies are a type of immunoglobulin made by the body which are implicated in allergic reactions.
 
Description
The immune system produces at least five kinds of immunoglobulins (Ig) or antibodies (IgA, IgD, IgE, IgG and IgM), but the principal one that participates in allergic reactions is immunoglobulin E, or IgE. Every individual has different IgE antibodies, and each allergic substance stimulates production of its own specific IgE. An IgE antibody made to respond to ragweed pollen, for example, will react only against ragweed, and not oak tree or bluegrass or any other kind of pollen. When the antibodies encounter the allergen they are programmed against, they immediately signal the basophils or mast cells to unleash histamine or other mediating chemicals into the surrounding tissue. It is these chemicals - mainly histamine - that cause the familiar allergic reactions. Histamine released in the nose, eyes, and sinuses, for example, stimulates sneezing, a runny nose, and itchy eyes. Released in the lungs it causes narrowing and swelling of the lining of the airways and the secretion of thick mucus. Released in the skin, it causes rashes and hives. And in the digestive system, it causes stomach cramps and diarrhea.