To think I should be allowed weight loss injections?

[Chalk111111]

Firstly, I think it’s a great thing that people are able to use this medication to gain control over their weight, and I think the bar set for getting them on the NHS is ridiculously high and it should be given to anyone who is obese. All those years people spent banging on about how much obesity was pressuring the NHS and then when we’re given a medication to tackle it they don’t make it available!

So I’m not confused about why I can’t get it on the NHS - I shouldn’t be able to - but why can’t I pay for it?

My BMI is 24 and I’d like to shift a stone and a half/two stone. I’ve fluctuated between this weight and a stone lighter for about ten years. I used to be able to shift half a stone at least but this time I’m really struggling.

I keep getting adverts about weight loss injections so I thought I’d have a look. Filled in the questionnaire and it says my BMI isn’t high enough for a prescription? But surely if my starting BMI was, say 35, I’d be allowed to stay on them until my BMI was 21/22, which is what I’d like? So why can’t I pay for them to lose a couple of stone?

Great post.

For some people!

There are equally many many people who are concerned about how they look over and above their health conditions. This isn’t a linear problem and my assertion that BMI isn’t the best way to determine your eligibility for WLI stands!

I think you are very ignorant if you don’t believe that there are many people who are taking WLI because it seems easier than any other forms of managing your weight. People have been popping pills etc for many many years for convenience over healthier options simply because well… it’s convenient.

I am not denying anyone the help they need but I am questioning whether it is fair to judge the OPs motivation when it’s very likely that those with BMIs that give them eligiblility have the same motivation, ie to look better.

Yep, I have lost 5 stone, recently went to a physio for some pain in my hips and described it as ‘uncomfortable’, he did some checks and said ‘this must be agony, how long have you been putting up with it and how are you describing it as just uncomfortable’. My response was that when you’ve been obese for 30 years you get used to being in pain with every move, if it’s not your knees hurting, it’s your back or your hips or your feet…and Drs just shrug you off and tell you to lose weight, like that’s an easy thing to do. For the first time in decades I am mostly pain free except for this tightness in my hips, it feels like a miracle.

Loving your posts @NormaMajors1992coat

Well somehow I can manage to do it, and I'm not obese. Lots of people lose weight, and if OP (or you) don't find it easy that is not a good reason to want WLI.

What is ridiculous is wanting to take injections to lose 5 kgs.

I’m not sure why you can’t understand that the patient’s motivation is neither here nor there when it comes to prescribing GLP1s. They are for treating obesity. If you have obesity you can take them for treating it, whether you care about how you look or not. If you don’t have obesity you can’t get them.

ADHD drugs often cause loss of appetite and weight loss. Patients taking them have to be weighed regularly. If the OP went to the doctor and said, I don’t have ADHD but I’d like to lose a stone, give me the drugs or it’s not fair, she’d be laughed at. If you don’t have the condition that a medication is licensed to treat, you can’t have them!

Well aren’t you the lucky one then?

Have you suffered through years of IVF that have left you struggling every day to manage your weight? If I didn’t watch my calories and exercise like I do then I’d be obese and able to access WLIs. Would that make it more palatable to you? Or would you then tell me the thing we are not allowed to tell obese people… eat less and move more.

Might there, in time, be measures other than BMI to determine the patient group? Yes. There already are, in that the BMI threshold is 30 usually but can be 27 in certain circumstances (posting on the move so can’t look them up but believe this is when there are other disease indications)

Additionally, the molecules that are used in WLI were - I believe - initially designed for diabetes treatment and in those cases are still prescribed for that condition without the BMI stipulation

If other measures are used in future to determine a suitability, it will probably be a measure which usually correlates somewhat with BMI eg body fat percentage. But this will be subject to further clinical studies, not just whim.

I really do believe that as much as skinny people don’t want the fat people getting skinnier. The fat people don’t want the skinny people to get skinnier either!

You can believe what you like - your belief doesn’t count at clinical evidence.

Is that how you feel then, as someone struggling with their weight?

It’s not “fat people” who are preventing you and the OP from accessing drugs which you don’t need.

What utter bollocks you are spouting.

Yes but it would be mostly be fat people who are opposed to or horrified at the prospect of me being able to obtain them to lose 5kgs…

Then why should I not have access to the same drug as a fat person if it would help me lose 5kgs? The same 5kgs I have struggled to lose as a result of IVF treatment despite all the exercise and calorie counting I have done.

Are you actually overweight though or do you just want to lose more weight?

If you actually need to lose weight and are having difficulty with the usual methods, see your GP.

An obese person's motivation for seeking WLI is neither here nor there, but it says a lot about your attitude to weight that you assume it's all about aesthetics and never about health, even though quite a few posters have explained the everyday health challenges of obesity to you.

The answer has been spelled out many, many times on this thread, so, for the last time:

Because
Drugs
Are
Regulated
And
Licensed

I really do understand the health challenges caused by obesity but if one obese person is doing it for the aesthetics then why shouldn’t I?

What is my 5kgs to you? I am at not risk of an ED. In fact my let 5kgs is down to hormonal issues arising from IVF treatment and I really believe that WLI would help me.

Nope, I'm near the high end of a normal BMI range (like the OP) and I believe medication intended for obese people should be available only to obese people.

You sound like you have some disordered thinking around weight, and you're talking absolute nonsense on here.

Would it? Where do you get that from? I imagine there would be quite a lot of thin HCPs who would be opposed to it. And anyone with any sense really, thin or fat, would oppose people accessing drugs when they don’t have the disease they are designed and licensed to treat, and in whom they haven’t been tested.

What I responded to was this statement

‘I really do believe that as much as skinny people don’t want the fat people getting skinnier. The fat people don’t want the skinny people to get skinnier either!’

Which is bollocks and has no relevance to what the drug companies are doing.

How many more times? Because the drugs are for treating obesity and you don’t have obesity.

This 100% .

Why anyone wants to inject themselves with powerful drugs, when they aren’t obese is a bloody mystery to anyone.

Honestly, fat people don’t care how much you or other people weigh. They have got enough going on.

Do you think that you and some other people at BMI 24-26, so people who feel or are just a bit overweight, are scared they will soon be the fat ones? Are you imagining all the obese people overtaking you and reaching BMI20 or whatever, while you’re still trying to shift a stone or two? Don’t worry if so - many obese people have a goal that’s higher than your BMI. They’re just trying to reach a weight where they can live a normal life without dealing with the many symptoms of obesity on a daily basis.

As a PP said, if you are having trouble with weight loss, go to the GP and I’m sure they will be able to advise you.

So you might have 5kgs as a result of IVF treatment, but an obese person might need to lose 50kgs in order to receive IVF in the first place. That's the difference we're talking about - a BMI over 30, 35 and 40 come with specific and serious health issues and the drug exists to treat that. Partly because there are medical treatments you can't have over a certain BMI, IVF being one of them. It's not to make people look nicer - that's an incidental benefit.

The reason is because a morbidly obese person has a disease called obesity, which needs lifelong treatment and care. The disease does not go away when the person has a lower bmi, it’s just better managed.
if a person had high blood pressure and took medication for it and it made their blood pressure ‘normal’ they would still have a diagnosis of high blood pressure and need to be on meds for life to control it.
Op you don’t have the disease of obesity and should be very glad you don’t.
I do and have to declare it on insurance for instance even though I now with help from WLI have a healthy bmi.