AIBU to seek a consensus on who is a socially acceptable recipitent of Mounjaro?

Same, and the berating of anyone who doesn't cheer the life long supply of it.

It's not acceptable because we just replace one addiction/ dependency with another. How can this be right or healthy?

There are drugs already that do this but sufferers have to want to take them. What would be preferable is a shed load more money put into other treatments, early intervention and MH provision across the board. Apparently we don’t have the money for any of that but we do for weight loss jobs on top of NHS money already being hoovered up by the same set of people. It’s pretty appalling really and as a parent hard not to be enraged.

Anorexia funding is being cut even though it’s the biggest cause of MH death. This is what I think is so unfair.All MH provision for children and adults is dire, there are massive waiting lists even though people are dying. Yet those with obesity hoover up so much NHS money with all the expensive conditions it causes and now they’re getting huge amounts of NHS money for expensive weight loss injections on top.

It simply isn’t fair.

There will be cost benefit analysis done at some point. Costs for the NHS will have already gone down. Sadly they will rise again when people come off it due to affordability. At that stage I suspect that the NHS will reconsider loosening the rules. That said I think that people tend to have more success when paying out of their own pocket. When it's free there's less motivation to stick at the diet.

Fed up of hearing move more and eat less.

Why do they hand out methadone on prescription? Why do district nurses tell me oh this yellow line bandage used after compression costs the nhs well over £30 each time as if it cancels out the private prescriptions I pay for. I’m looking at the rest of my life with a limb in wraps etc but I don’t regret trying to help myself.

Years ago they use to put people destined for bariatric surgery in hospital for 2 week stays to see how they eat. (Sunderland weight loss ward as one such old tv piece) could you imagine that today!! Personally think the injections are harder than surgery.

Back to playing pig in the middle! A surgeon who says I’m still very much diabetic v’s a GP surgery who took me off the oral medication supplied by prescription and told me I was in remission.
Here’s to the blood test next week 🙈 certain parts of these injections were never truly thought out, and that’s the real blame.

Yep- they all do. It’s the default treatment.

Absolutely this!

The default treatment is food is your medicine and you are forced to eat 3 big meals,2 desserts and 3 snacks every day. I have a dd who is recovering anorexic and its sheer agony but you have to do it to heal your brain. They offer very little else and the consequences of not following it is forced tube feeding.

and we dont think that Anorexics should just eat more and move less?!

As a recovered anorexic, yes a lot of people really do think that "Just eat more!" will solve the problem.

It sounds more efficient than "cheating". The initial outlay vs the potential cost savings in the the long term is an issue with everything the Government pays upfront for, it has to be said.

Oh come on. You are writing about a subject you clearly feel sensitive about, and others may do to, and you write this:

YABU - no there are not all acceptable the gluttunous, lazy, weak willed cheats.

I would be in the non-socially acceptable group, and I don’t advertise that I’ve used medication to lose weight, but in guessing people speculate and assume.

I should have been able to make better choices and stick to it, I’m educated and indeed work for the NHS. However, I simply lost and gained the same stone in weight for a couple of years.

I am physically disabled, more so now that I’ve lost weight than previously in fact. And short as heck. Which both make it harder.

but I just did not have the willpower and motivation to stick to the calorie deficit needed for long enough to lose the weight needed. I don’t know why, my job is incredible stressful and draining and working with people in shared offices also with poor habits definitely didn’t help.

i don’t believe the nhs should have funded me currently, they did offer me the tiered approach but I didn’t find it helpful. If and when prices come down significantly I do think it should be prescribed to people with the same guidance as private providers and with the ability to stay on for maintenance. It should go alongside support groups, gym prescriptions, nutrition support and careful monitoring.

I’ve lost 5st7 and have gone from 14st to 8st7. A BMI of 33ish to 22ish.

Well maybe you should have opened with an honest post, then? Rather than that goady stuff.

I would think your point about the NHS treating anorexia nervosa is a contentious one. BMI is often used as part of the diagnostic criteria, typically needing to hit 17.5 or lower before the diagnosis is given. This means the eating disorder can have grown into quite an embedded, monstrous beast compared to the tickle at the back of the brain that it was when it started. Anorexia nervosa is the most lethal mental illness there is and it's not entirely due to the nature of the illness itself - the NHS will not step in until certain metrics have been met. There is nothing proactive about the NHS, but their approach to mental illnesses, including anorexia, is sickening.

I would say that we see this approach mirrored with their approach to obesity. Instead of reviewing patients with an obese BMI and providing treatment, they need the patient to develop 4 additional conditions before they can provide treatment. In the US, insurance companies don't seem to do this (although I'm unsure on the details as I'm in the UK), but rather seem to make a pretty valid business decision (as cold as that is) - if patient x continues to gain weight, they'll develop type 2 diabetes and potentially other conditions and they will become more expensive, so Mounjaro or similar are covered by the insurance policy before that point.

Honestly as a slightly wizened adult, I think the US approach is valid and makes a lot of sense. For me, I can't go to my GP to get Mounjaro despite having a BMI of 34 because I'm otherwise in pretty good nick, as far as I can tell from the outside, with no medical degree. But internally, my skeleton, muscle groups, tendons and ligaments, and vital organs, will all be working ten to the dozen trying to keep me feeling like I'm in pretty good nick. My heart is probably knackered, because up until recently my BMI was 40, and my GP still wouldn't have prescribed it.

It's anorexia nervosa in a fun house mirror (as if it isn't in the first place!). The closer we are to death, the more the NHS is likely to treat us. Once the damage has been done, perhaps when some irreversible and life-altering damage has been done, then they'll help us, if we live long enough. I'm still on several waiting lists from about 20 years ago. The system is fucked.

No one wins.

“we dont think that Anorexics should just eat more and move less?!”

This is exactly what happens, people suffering with anorexia or bulimia can usually only access help when they are severely underweight and suffering other physical symptoms.

The way not to be judged is to use it to help change your habits and kick start a new relationship with food

Or pay for it yourself

expecting my taxes to pay for you to stay on it forever isn’t something I am happy about and will cause a nose wrinkle

Surely the best way not to be judged for using Mounjaro is not to tell anyone that you’re using Mounjaro.

I don’t understand this desire people have to unburden themselves.

You seem very bitter OP. My DH is on Mounjaro, he couldn't give a shit what society thinks of him. Why do you?

If they funded WLI there would be considerably less strain on the NHS and more could be funded.

Anyone who is overweight or obese. Or has diabetes or other illnesses that WLI can help manage.
Ideally they should've tried losing weight with willpower alone and been unsuccessful.

But not people of healthy or underweight BMI just for quick fix vanity reasons. Obviously.