HPLC_Greg said:

The dose-response is real but shallow at the top.

I will push back on the "any working dose is fine" framing. The maintenance evidence sits overwhelmingly at the top studied dose, and the extension data shows regain tracking dose reduction rather than tracking stopping. Holding low is reasonable; pretending it is evidentially equivalent is not.

The figures, for anyone assembling their own picture. For anyone assembling their own picture: Tmax is one to three days, terminal half-life about 165 to 170 hours, steady state at four to five weeks, and subcutaneous bioavailability near 89%. Those four numbers explain most of the questions people ask about timing.

Dr.PeteFamMed said:

I will push back on the "any working dose is fine" framing.

Adding the part of the answer the thread has not reached. The shortage clause is the answer to the second question and it is a subtraction rather than an addition. Both exemptions forbid compounding something that is essentially a copy of a commercially available approved product. A product FDA has listed as in shortage is not treated as commercially available, so listing removed the objection that otherwise blocked compounding. It never created a permission; it withdrew a prohibition, which is why it evaporated the moment the supply fact changed.

A narrower follow-up, since the general answer is now clear:

Why a shortage listing created a legal pathway at all, since a shortage is a supply fact rather than a permission?

Closing the loop on my own question.

Update since I posted: I held at 1.7mg for a further twelve weeks and lost another 4kg slowly, which settles it for me. I was escalating because the number was available, not because I had stopped responding.