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

Yes, everyone should get the treatment they need. I'm glad you see my point.

It might not be, but for many it is. One day there will be more knowledge around it and far more effective treatment in prevention and control.

A lot of ignorant assumptions about obesity, from the medical community and beyond.

You are wrong. Obesity is NOT classed as an eating disorder, because unlike anorexia, it isn’t considered to be a mental disorder. Multiple factors contribute obesity, and while mental health may play a role in some cases, this doesn’t make it a psychiatric condition.

Yeah, of course you would...

@PyongyangKipperbanghow would I feel? I would be glad for him that he was getting the help he needed and I would understand that I’m not privy to all of his health information.
I would also be spending my energies proactively advocating for the help my LO needed rather than stewing in misguided jealousy.

Personally I think those who are firmly ‘against’ WLI are a bit jealous they can’t (for whatever reason) have it. They can’t afford, aren’t eligible, or simply won’t allow themselves to explore it and therefore they’re against it. I mean it’s hardly going to work long term for anyone let’s face it but having concerns about it is quite different to being against it.

In many cases yes, but starving yourself is a far more dangerous presentation of an eating disorder.

When morbidly obese though any psychological issues are ignored because it’s far easier to assume they’re just lazy. I don’t personally know anyone who doesn’t have an underlying cause of their obesity, whether it’s an eating disorder, a physiological condition, a drug reaction. It’s very difficult to tell though because the dismissal is the same, until you reach breaking point, either mentally or physically, and then it carries on some more.

I agree, it shouldnt be. But it is!

The fact is that the current focus on obesity is at a direct detriment to other patients. It is well know that MH is vastly underfunded and its very easy to understand why people are so angry that the results of poor choices are being given vast amounts of money over people with a life ending mental illness.

If you couldnt get any help at all because your child started suffering with psychosis and then your neighbour shared how he was getting his WLI on the NHS, to lose his beer gut when you know he eats from the chippy every day before going to the pub, how the hell would you feel?

"Should" and "Ought to" are all very well, but the reality is that lives are being lost that could be saved because the funds are being directed elsewhere.

Why would any drugs have to be removed? WLI will SAVE the NHS money in the long run.

@PyongyangKipperbangthe lack of services for people with mental health issues is not the responsibility of those with obesity. It’s the responsibility of the NHS and the government. Nobody is saying people struggling with anorexia don’t need or deserve appropriate treatment - of course they do! But that is completely independent of any other group of patients. It shouldn’t be and isn’t an either or.

I've just come across this thread, so I apologise if this question has already been asked. But, what drugs would you remove to allow WLIs to be prescribed outside of the current criteria?

There are 2% of adults in the UK who are underweight, of those I am afraid I can't find a percentage for "morbidly underweight". There are vanishingly few beds for those with anorexia than need it, so the "thousands" its costs for those few patients in the UK is far outweighed (pun intended) by the multiple millions that are currently being spent on those with obesity.

I couldnt get any help at all with my ED other than help from BEAT. Literally nothing. My own GP said "Women in their 40's dont get anorexia". Teenagers are receiving no help. How much are we costing them? Naff all.

Honestly who really cares? And why do you care what anyone else thinks? Your body, your medical history, your choice - end of. If your doctor has deemed you a good fit for this or any other medication then WTF has it got to do with anyone else? And as for it being available on the NHS - don’t people realise the money that will be SAVED from giving people weight loss injections that will prevent them having costly and risky procedures in the future? The number two cause of cancer is obesity! These drugs help prevent the problem - much more cost effective than treating it after the fact.

You think obese patients have a severe psychiatric illness like anorexics???

So maybe they should make prescribing GLP1s easier to ease the problem.

It’s been clear from studies going back 80 years that diets don’t work.

If it saves the NHS a significant amount of money in the long run then who are you to judge whether a person’s “relationship with food” has changed?

6-12 week courses after a lengthy wait, just like services for children.

My child was seen by CAMHS crisis team within an hour (they were shit and made the problem far worse). As an adult she was told that they couldn’t stop her killing herself if that’s what she wanted then was told she could see someone from the team in 6-8 months.

Waiting times for obese adults are as long as for anyone else, there isn’t a special pass unless you’re in an acute emergency, but I’m not sure it would be ethical to turn a person away having a heart attack because they’re fat…

Do you think anorexics should just eat more and get bored with the thousands it costs for them to be put into residential care and/or have ongoing therapy when needed? Or is it just fat people you dislike?

Getting a drug on the NHS means other people paying for your lifestyle drug. If you want it and don’t fit the guidelines but it or eat less. It’s boring now

My child was anorexic as a teenager.
Mental health support in this country is diabolical, we all know that. Underfunded and, especially within CAMHS, a dreadful misuse of resources. It struck me that the lack of joined up thinking about eating disorders and links to autism are a huge part of the problem because the psychotherapy approach taken (which I believe has all but been taken away now) didn’t tend to work, mainly because it’s an approach that doesn’t work for autistics (same as offering CBT when it’s know to be largely ineffective for autistic people). The mental health system is outdated and stubborn, it does a disservice to so many relying on it, and I think it makes it easy to cut funds because the treatments they offer are so ineffective.

It’s not fair to think that some people, with a similar psychological background (albeit with different results) should be blamed for lack of services in another area.

I, like you, was fobbed off and ignored for decades my the medical professionals. It took getting full blown diabetes type 2 with shockingly shit test results before I finally received any support.

Diagnosed with Insulin resistant PCOS at 27 via US of ovaries and blood tests - only support was a range of smug, unhelpful medical professionals telling me I need to lose weight.

Diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes at 30, received insulin for the duration of my pregnancy but it was immediately stopped when I gave birth and I was told I didn’t need any more testing or follow up I just needed to lose weight.

Repeat visits to Drs for help with periods, joint pain, exhaustion and more over the years and they just told me I needed to go away and try harder to lose weight.

Tried every diet going, and did successfully lose weight a few times but it required cutting all carbs and starving myself, hungry to the point of crying every day, I felt like death.

Finally last year I gave up on the Drs actually helping me and bought myself a Continuous Glucose Monitor from Amazon when it started sending ‘seek medical attention’ alerts I called 111 who sent me to A&E. Testing showed my sugar levels to be 3 times the highest end of normal, further tests showed nerve damage and circulation damage in my feet and damage to my retina evidencing that I had had uncontrolled diabetes for years. During the 5 years before being diagnosed I’d been to the Drs at least a dozen times and each time they could have run a blood test but just told me to eat less and move more.

Im now prescribed Mounjaro because a combo of Insulin, Metformin and extremely low carb diet wasn’t bringing my sugar levels under control. Within 6 weeks on MJ I was able to drop the insulin and a few weeks after that I was able to start reducing the Metformin. I’ve also lost 5 stone and am a healthy BMI, I was obese in primary school so this is very new and strange for me.

We have no idea how many obese people actually have a metabolic or other physiological reason that contributes to their weight, because our health service routinely fobs of fat people and refuses to even consider that there might be something that they could do to help beyond telling them to eat less food.

Every single person who approaches the GP asking for help with their weight should have a blood test looking for common reasons why - hormone imbalances, thyroid and HbA1C. If they have a physiological problem it should be treated just like we would expect for any other medical condition where treatments are available. That doesn’t necessary mean Mounjaro, I could probably have been significantly helped back in my 20’s with Metformin, but by the time anyone was willing to treat me I was too badly damaged.

It can prevent a whole host of conditions that will cost the NHS and other services so much more that you should be begging the nhs to supply it

No. The NHS has no money because it has been chronically underfunded for decades. And because the culture at the NHS Is that of a reactive organisation not a proactive one.
We have a massively too heavy aging population and a greater life expectancy than ever before. IF the NHS was funded correctly then none of it would be an issue.
But people don’t want to pay for it.

Yes, not giving working age obese people drugs for their high blood pressure and cholesterol should do wonders for the tax take. And place us in an ideal position to improve treatment options for conditions unrelated to obesity. Not like the NHS is full of obese and overweight staff and reliant on them to function or anything.

And why aren't there?! Because there isnt the money thanks to it being spent disproportionately.