Sister needs weight loss jabs but doesn’t qualify

I really relate to your sister here op. I hover on the upper end of healthy BMI but I am absolutely obsessed with food. I had full blown anorexia in my teens and early twenties. Gained weight without realising when I was in a happy relationship, started losing it then got pregnant and have been trying to get back to skinny ever since (now mid 30s). I think about it all the time. Plan my daily meals and macros but can't resist things in front of me if my plan is disrupted. Can't resist nice things in the house. I recently saw a IG post about loving the chance to eat loads when you're on your own is an ED trait which is exactly what I do. When DH takes dd away overnight I am so excited about what I'll eat, spend ages thinking about what takeaway I want. Slimmer people struggle too and it would change my life if I didn't care so much about food

I was responding to your response, which didn’t qualify your “only if you’ve checked it would be safe”…. Even with your caveat, I still think you are wrong, and your caveat is in itself fairly ridiculous, isn’t it? Because there is no way the OP or her sister can do those assessments themselves, even using Dr google. Unless, of course, one or both of them are a prescribing pharmacist or doctor (or perhaps specialist nurse prescriber), which I would have thought op would have mentioned. Though even then you can’t prescribe for yourself or family, but at least you could do some sort of assessment.

Additionally, patients with disordered eating or eating disorders are very loathe to admit them - it’s part of the eating disorder itself that the individual often doesn’t see what is plain as day to those around them, or even if they understand they are unwell part of the disease is that the thought processes and compulsions drive them on anyway. Patients suffering from these conditions are likely to try to find all sorts of reasons/excuses/ ways to avoid having to admit the real issue- especially in the face of not getting something that will meet that need. I am not saying I can diagnose disordered eating or an eating disorder in op’s sister- of course I can’t- but if I were being asked to prescribe and I was told some of the things OP has said about her sister, I’d be wanting to look at this aspect very closely because it raises alarm bells to me. The potential consequences of giving this type of medication to someone with an eating disorder is potentially disastrous.

When you order the drugs you are asked what medication and medical issues you have, you are automatically rejected if you have anything that clashes with the drug, it’s not hard to change up the answers and see, it’s what I did with my friend to show her how dangerous it was for her to take the injections and why I wasn’t comfortable getting her them.

I did, and you said if you were OP you would give her the meds ‘but only if her and DSis had done all the checks on her health and made sure there wasn’t something that would clash with the drug’. How are they going to do that if DSIS isn’t the one being prescribed for ? They’re not medically qualified and this poster has pointed out exactly why she shouldn’t do it.

Absolutely do not give her this medication, the weight-loss is a side-effect not its main effect. She must get her bloods checked for various indicators to make sure a) its safe for her to take and b) during taking them she is not being put into a dangerous chemical imbalance in her body while taking them.

Disclaimer - I work in drug development and I've been working on clinical trial for an almost identical compound and from seeing the results there where the subjects are monitored during the trials there is no way I would suggest any friend or family take these off-prescription. In fact if I discovered any friend or family doing this I would be reporting it to the BMA because of the potential danger.

Did you actually read my original comments I was responding to a question from?

Come on sister - you knew the answer before you posted. I suspect you were seeking support for the idea, but failed miserably.

Come on sister - you knew the answer before you posted. I suspect you were seeking support for the idea, but failed miserably.

If she’s eligible, she’ll just have to do what the rest of us do and pay for it 🤷‍♀️

So right. I just finished posting about this new term "FOOD NOISE". Great, another psychological ailment has been created for BIG PHARMA & GPs to overdiagnose and medicate the crap out of.

Young people need to wake up to all the hidden additives, sugars, fats and UPF's that are causing the current obesity epidemic. They've been brainwashed to believe medication is the answer.

Also, we don't know what the long term effects are using these drugs for weight loss. Extremely foolish and short-sighted.

My dad has been offered WLI by his GP, and he refused them. However, my DM wants him to have them so SHE can have them. She is a healthy weight but wants a push to lose more.
It is not good or healthy.
The jabs are being rolled out because the UK is basically mostly fat/obese people that are going to cause a strain on themselves and the NHS. Obesity comes with lots of health problems.

All the FOOD NOISE is because of disordered eating. It's a Catch22 - you're forever "denying" yourself the foods you are obsessed with and underfeeding yourself (usually by not eating enough protein & fat), which leaves you unsatisfied and still hungry. Highly restrictive diets only serve to feed the obsession with food and actually ramp up the NOISE like never before.

It's ALL PSYCHOLOGICAL. I don't care if you've suffered it from childhood - FOOD NOISE IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL BI-PRODUCT of your upbringing, schooling & your family's attitude to body image.

Get PSYCHIATRIC HELP people. No drug will silence the noise. What it will do is TURN THE VOLUME UP.

You don’t know that- there may be reasons why, whatever her weight, the sister would not be prescribed this medication. It’s not a case- or should not be the case- that raised BMI is the only thing a prescriber takes into account when deciding whether glp-1 or combined glp/gip agents are safe and advisable to use. I’m not saying OP’s sister would not be safe, but none of us on here, nor OP, nor her sister actually know if she would have a contra-indication to use of this medication. Glibly stating she would get it, so it’s definitely fine to give her medication not prescribed for her is so wrong. It might be, or it might have very serious negative consequences.

There is also a reason why weight loss injections are not prescribed to patients of normal weight solely for the purposes of weight loss/appetite suppression. In this woman;s case, as a Dr who prescribes these medications (not for weight loss only) I would have serious concerns that this patient could actually have disordered eating, or possibly a (controlled, to some degree) eating disorder. We absolutely should not use glp-1 agents and there ilk in these situations- it’s dangerous. And feeds the disorder. Do you honestly think it’s at all certain after a “short break” she will be happy to stop. Or that it will not worsen the issues she already has. I’d be very concerned about that.

@AliceMcK I suppose it’s a case of where to draw the line between addiction and wanting something, but being able to control the craving. One requires medical treatment, the other generally doesn’t (or if it does, less drastic treatment perhaps?)

An alcoholic and a recreational drinker both enjoy/want to drink alcohol, but only the alcoholic is an addict needing medical intervention. The recreational drinker may fancy a glass of wine every evening, but isn’t dependent on it and is able to limit themselves to drinking a moderate amount two nights a week.

It sounds as if the OP and her sister are like this, her sister doesn’t physically need WL jabs. Perhaps she does need to talk to someone about her relationship with food, but she isn’t addicted to it.

Yes I did, the sister wants a break from fighting her cravings and to be able to enjoy herself for a while. As the op said even if she’s the same weight as her sister she will still be able to take the drug, her sister still can’t. i understand their situation and why they would want to try this.

@Mondaytuesdayhappydays

I think YABU. And allowing your cousin to do something potentially dangerous.

I am a Doctor who uses GLP-1 and the combined GLP &GIP agents daily. You should not, under any circumstances, give prescribed medication such as these to someone else. It’s dangerous. They are so helpful in many ways for a number of conditions- not just diabetes and weight loss- but they do come with potentially serious side-effects and for each patient the risk vs benefit ratio is different. You are playing a potentially very serious game- your sister may well be absolutely fine or she might become very unwell. I know nothing of her medical history, but there are contra-indications to these medications where they absolutely should not be given. And situations where they are “use with caution” and requiring careful monitoring. Do either of you know what these are, or have the ability to monitor? I doubt that very much.

There is a reason that they are prescription only medications- safety! Do you not think the manufactures would be overjoyed if they could sell as much as they could to whoever would buy it? The only reason they don’t is because of the risks to their business- and if not prescribed appropriately they know more people would be harmed. And they could be sued.

Seriously, stop and think about it for a second. You pay a private provider, whose sole purpose is to make money from you by selling you a drug (I’m not knocking it- private medicine absolutely has a place, though I do wish some of the private companies who are prescribing weight loss medication would be more thorough than they are). And yet, these providers will not sell your sister the medication! Because she does not meet their safety criteria. I urge you to think again about that- a company which exists to sell weight loss medication to make a profit will not sell it to your sister- what does that tell you? Please, think about this with some logic.

As for you sister, it sounds like she may well have an eating disorder. She may not restrict or over-exercise enough to be underweight, nor does she binge and purge. But what you describe is disordered appetite and eating. In the absence of certain medical conditions, which I’m sure you’d have said existed, the symptoms you describe point towards a real problem. Which she needs help with, though I am more than aware if the limitations within the NHS in this field and she may need to go privately.

I would also strongly suspect that you (and possibly your sister) are rather naive if you think a “short break” from these symptoms will be enough. I don’t think that will work the way to both seem to think, I doubt it will be enough. Say it does work- is your sister really going to want to go back to a situation she describes as intolerable? Nope, she’ll want the medication but she still won’t qualify. Then what is the plan?

@Mondaytuesdayhappydays
Your sister doesn't qualify because she's not obese and therefore doesn't need them. It sounds more like she has an eating disorder.

As for her exaggerating her weight and lying about her height etc. Good luck with that.

If she needs to be 2 stone over to qualify, as you say, then that is the equivalent to 12.7kg worth of £1 coins that she's going to layer up with!

Perfect. The ideal alternative to you fraudulently getting prescription meds for someone else for a disease she doesn't have was definitely getting 'layered up with pound coins' or 'getting it from her botox lady'. So glad there's a healthy and not at all fucked up solution here for your sister and she's not doing anything silly like talking to a MH counsellor.

I don’t get it

We can see that. You have been given ample advice yet keep sea-lioning with 'questions'.

Yep the two people I know who were a healthy weight have now awoken their ED with avengence and have kidney problems now.

No, you’ve misunderstood. They are prescribed to people 30 BMI and over. They just don’t carry out any checks to make sure the patient actually does have a BMI 30 or over.

Look, you’re bitter, we get it.

Those are the current guidelines for prescribing and, contrary to what you seem to think, overweight people have absolutely nothing to do with that and can’t change the situation. Not a single ‘fatty’ has said they don’t want healthy weight people to have access to them, should they be deemed suitable in the future.