Extremely hacked off by GP. Won’t prescribe Mounjaro

[Hakunatomato]

I have been self funding Mounjaro for the past year, and have a debt on credit card because of it. As a result, my HBa1c has gone from 19 to 5.5. I have lost almost 5 stones, now down to 16 .stones so effectively I have put my diabetes into remission as a result. I can no longer afford it because of the price rises and have asked my GP to start prescribing it. Their response is that because my blood sugar is now nearly normal they won’t do it, despite me having a bmi of 46. When I finish the course I have I now have to watch my good work go in to reverse and watch my health decline. All for the sake of the £30 a week is would cost my GP at wholesale NHS cost. If I put the weight back on again and wait while my blood sugar levels rise and I will have to apply again. I am so pissed off.. The relatively small cost as opposed to what the bills will be when my Diabetes returns doesn’t make sense.

I understand your frustration but surely you must know that staying on weight loss medication for the rest of your life is not feasible and that at some point you will have to take some responsibility yourself?

Your work will not be undone if you make a conscious effort not to revert back to old habits. Letting yourself pile all the weight back on to prove a point to your GP will only affect you. The GP will sleep soundly at night and live their life as normal whilst you self inflict health issues back on yourself in the hope of having an “I told you so!” moment at your own expense.

I'm sorry many of the comments are so mean and ignorant and think weight loss is just a matter of willpower. Unfortunately your GP can only prescribe it according to the NHS guidelines. It's so frustrating when so much NHS and public health funding has been used to support people to stop smoking, but with weight loss there remains a persuasive sense that overweight people have brought this upon themselves and are not worthy of help.

Why do you assume your diabetes will return? Surely you don't expect to be on Mounjaro indefinitely. It has obviously been very effective for you but can you not now go it alone? I get your point about the £30 a week but it's not just up to your GP and perhaps she or he thinks that now you've had more than a head start you can control your eating and do more exercise. The idea of continuing such a drug for a very long time is quite frightening. If you've been able to afford the expense you can afford a good healthy diet - or else continue to self fund.

@Focusispower ·NHS guidelines is BMI over 40, so that's not the GP being difficult.

There are no fat people in war times and famine

Yes but in famines some people will fair better than others.

Apparently very young children and Infants will die first....then the elderly, then lean men... adult women cope best in famine conditions.

The GP isn’t condoning you becoming unhealthy again. You’ve done extremely well to lose the weight and improve your health conditions and I’m sure if you ask you will be directed to other services which can support you to carry that on. But you sound as though you are almost planning to put the weight back on when in reality you know what you have to dodo to carryon the good work so you have to find the willpower to do it without Mounjaro because the GP’s hands are tied as you don’t satisfy the conditions for prescription on the NHS.

Or - maybe OP is now hearing what a broad group of people think, rather than only those within a particular echo chamber.

I’m not necessarily saying everyone in AIBU is right and everyone on the WLI threads is wrong. But I do think the responses on this thread seem a fair representation of public opinion. And yes that will include quite a few people who have managed to maintain a healthy weight through willpower, healthy diet, exercise etc and so have very little patience with OPs situation.

oh please

It's telling WHAT they select to buy and eat. If you are really willing, it's not THAT hard.

There are people surviving life-changing injuries who fight beyond belief to move again, to walk, talk and suffer so much in the process.

Yes, it's will power to decide not to buy a box of Krispy Kreme and a family size pack of 24 crisps sachets because you feel like having as a snack. If it was the impulse and need to eat something, you would at least see the choice of food.

It is just as simple as that.

And I think your latest comment is the work of a toddler with low blood sugar. I’m not condescending, I’m defending people. I don’t have a chip on my shoulder about obesity … I’ve never been over my bmi in my life and I consider myself very very lucky on that front, you’ve entered tantrum mode now,

@rocketrabbit I dont give a rats arse whether this is a good message or not. what it is, is a fact. I am an old lady. I have had this ALL my life. I have been on every diet going, exercise you name it since the 70s. and all the time, battled and battled the food noise which stopped me getting to a point where I could really exercise and be the person I wanted to be. Now MJ is actually working. I am on the lowest of low doses and I feel hopeful for the future, optomistic its just transformative. it is absolutely NOT about self control. its more than that. would you say this to an alcoholic, a smoker? Peoples brain chemistry has been altered to make food noise something really only happening in the west. eventually but probably not in my lifetime, someone will work out what this is. and what MJ does is alter it back. yes, I still have to use willpower to stop overeating but its not difficult. yes, I eat healthy meals. I dont snack, hide food to eat it, buy and eat food without even realising I am eating it. and thats the difference. I am really sorry you cant see this from my point of view.

Are you for real?
“When I finish the course I have I now have to watch my good work go in to reverse and watch my health decline.”
I need to put out that you haven’t done the “good work”. The drug has. Now it’s time for the “good work”, meaning you eat healthily and exercise. Stop looking for an easy solution. You will need to change your habits long term anyway as you can’t be on the drug forever. Find out the underlaying reasons for your over-eating and do something about it.

Diabetes will only shorten your life and or cause complications if you let it. My DD is type 1 and does everything she can to avoid complications and so far, over 10 years in all is well. My DM (mid 80's) has lived with type 2 for around 20 years and is strict with her diet and exercising and keeps it very well controlled. Several other family members control type 2 in the same manner. I know everyone is different but if you won't do anything to help yourself in the coming months/years then you will only have yourself to blame - very harsh but this is what I believe.
I am doing SW because I ate far too much of the wrong food and gained a lot of weight. I am not blaming menopause or my other medical conditions, I am blaming myself which was the hardest thing to do, but now that I've taken accountability for my own actions, I am very slowly losing weight.

I meet the criteria for MJ but can't have it cos my kidneys are shot - not solely because of BS control but due to a malformation. So, here I sit with a BMI of just under 40,arthritis and all associated pain especially in feet, knackered knees (one TKR that didn't work) and only able to walk at the speed (DH said) of a mortally wounded snail. Isn't life wonderful.

Yes, it's will power to decide not to buy a box of Krispy Kreme and a family size pack of 24 crisps sachets because you feel like having as a snack. If it was the impulse and need to eat something, you would at least see the choice of food.

@NeatKoala As much as people will want to argue with you on that, I agree that there is something in that. I am maintaining my weight not and so I just don't buy the shit food.

If I don't buy it, I can't eat it. That feels pretty simple to me. I keep healthy snacks in the house.

Yes, sometimes I'm like MAN I wish I just had a big bag of crisps to munch on but I get over it, because they are not there.

Willpower or not, nobody is putting the food into your mouth and if it's physically not available to you, you can't eat it. Remove the temptation.

If the food noise has disappeared, why is every day a battle?

Ah yes, that makes sense.

there's too much common sense in that post, no one could put it better

Holy moly, all you fat shamers, find me a fat person who doesn't know that less calories and more exercise won't help them lose weight. Find me one fat person in denial of this simple and obvious physical equation?

Also explain to me how it is that doctors have been advising patients for more than 40 years to eat less and move more and yet the obesity epidemic only keeps increasing, particularly amongst the most economically deprived. Explain to me why the diet industry makes billions every year and people still get more obese. Explain to me why diets do work and then people get fat again.

All those saying "don't be greedy, don't scoff, don't eat chocolate, don't be lazy, don't be defeatist, find your self control, you're choosing to be fat blah, blah, blah - eat less and move more" please explain to me why that good advice isn't working on a national and global level and the situation is getting worse not better.

We have become obese as nations for many, many, many reasons and there is now medication that helps cure obesity. Surely it is understandable that a fat person would really want that medication! If you think that "don't be greedy, don't scoff, don't eat chocolate, don't be lazy, don't be defeatist, find your self control, you're choosing to be fat blah, blah, blah - eat less and move more" will be successful, after decades of failure, then I suspect you are not best placed to be dispensing advice on the subject.

There is a whole other debate to be had about what the NHS should and shouldn't fund, but how is it so hard for so many to understand why a rational human being wouldn't want a cure for a condition they have so far failed to cure themselves.

Your level of ignorance is even more outstanding.

But you clearly haven't stuck to a diet or exercised for long enough.

I can't afford to stay on it for maintenance so ive no choice to permanently change my eating and lifestyle.

Isn’t that what we are meant to do anyway?
No-one should have a choice about it.*
The drug definitely has a role but should not be a substitute for a change in eating and lifestyle.
I apologise if I have misunderstood this post. IRL I have met people that think that MJ is a substitute to trying to eat healthily.

• (I am sure there exceptions that I can’t think of right now).

Buy do you think if you haven’t experienced it you should be able to say it doesn’t exist.

Why?
Why can't the OP go to slimming world? Join a gym?