Continuing Mounjaro...part 18

[ObsidianTree]

Please note: Mounjaro will only be be prescribed initially if your BMI is above 30. If you have additional health conditions you can get the medication with a BMI 27. (Prediabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or heart problems)

Mumsnet does not allow promo codes. Please do not post any. If you want one, ask and someone will PM you a code or there are now threads on the promo page that have codes for Mounjaro.

Pointers for newbies:

1 - For taking your first dose you need to twist the pen a lot to get to 1! Make sure the needle is twisted on tightly. Priming will help confirm if the needle is on securely and not faulty.

2 - When injecting, hold down the button until the number goes back to 0. Once at 0, keep holding down the button and count to 5 with the needle still in so no medication is lost!

3 - Your first dose may not have an immediate effect. For some people the effects build slowly. It could take 3 or 4 days to notice anything, it could take a few weeks. Some people don't feel the meds working until they get to 5mg. See titration chart which shows how the medication builds up in your system. Also below you can plot the effect of your doses.
glp1plotter.com/

4 - 2.5mg isn't a therapeutic dose, meaning you aren’t meant to lose on 2.5mg. You need to start on 2.5mg to get your body used to the drug and gradually introduce it into your system and get used to any side effects.

5 - Not everyone loses a lot in the first few weeks. Don't feel discouraged if you don't lose a lot initially. Again, you might need a higher dose to start losing. Also, inches can be lost without anything showing on the scales. Start your journey by taking measurements and check them as you go along.

6 - If you do lose a lot in the first few weeks, please don't assume you will continue losing at this rate. The first few weeks it is usually water weight that is lost, after that a good weight loss is about 2lbs a week. Some weeks you might not lose anything, but this is ok too…again, taking measurements might show inches lost instead.

7 - Some people find that they don't need to go up a pen dose each month if the current pen dosage is working well for them. If you are unsure when to go up, speak to your prescriber.

8 - If you are having bad side effects after titrating up or you are struggling to eat your calories each day, your dose may be too high so should consider lowering your dose. Speak to your prescriber if unsure.

9 - Don't be afraid to feel hungry. It is entirely normal and healthy to feel hungry. Just eat something. Treat it as an opportunity to start good habits around hunger. Eat a nice balanced snack or a meal if it's a meal time. It's ok.

10 - Constipation, coldness, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, headaches, aches, are side effects. There may be other side effects also. Read info here :

www.medicines.org.uk/emc/product/15481/pil#about-medicine

11 - Taking Mounjaro can stop birth control from being effective. If you are on birth control, consider extra protection if you aren't planning on conceiving anytime soon!

12 - Once you take your first dose you can choose to keep your pen in the fridge or somewhere else. It's up to you.

13 - Don't reuse any needles as this could risk infection. If you damage a needle or one isn't working, you can buy a pack of about 100 spares. https://www.chemist-4-u.com/carepoint-pen-needles-31g-4mm-pack-of-100?gclid=Cj0KCQjwiYOxBhC5ARIsAIvdH51rLZBVFQxuvS7mDJooegtK8BMiyT0PwREMRHhH_1atfQIo8TEbsmkaAkA0EALw_wcB

Also there is a 5th dose in each pen. To extract it you can either try a hard twist or use an insulin needle.
https://medbasic.co.uk/bd-micro-fine-30g-1ml-syringes-needles

14 - Protein is important as eating less protein can cause muscle wastage and hair loss.

Some natural sources of protein:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/best-sources-protein

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321522#high-protein-foods

15 - You can use supplements, some that people use are magnesium(for sleep and constipation), protein(to reduce muscle wastage), collagen (skin elasticity), aloe vera(for constipation), psylum husks(fibre for constipation), electrolytes.

16 - Drink lots of water. Water helps with the weight loss. Try and drink at least 2ltrs a day.

17 - Does it makes any difference where you inject? yes it does! Drugs get absorbed at different rates depending on injection site

In order of fastest absorption, it goes:
• Tummy
• Arms
• Thighs
further reading about injection sites and the effects: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/316618

18 - Abdominal side-effects are much easier to control with smaller meals. For example, having 4 small meals in the day vs 2 big meals can have an improvement in nausea and burps.

19 - You can track your calories / protein on apps such as My fitnessPal, Carb Manager or Nutracheck. Nutracheck is quite useful and easy to find foods /build recipes.

20 - Some of the places you can order from are:

MedExpress:
2.5mg and 5mg. £149.99. 7.5mg £169.99, 10mg £189.99. 12.5mg £209.99. 15mg £209.99 Coupon codes no longer working!

The Family Chemist:
2.5mg and 5mg £149. 7.5mg £169, 10mg £169, 12.5mg £194, 15mg £199

Zava medical:
2.5mg £139, 5mg £139, 7.5mg £169, 10mg £189. 12.5mg £204. 15mg £204. Zava offer refer a friend discount of 15% off. Ask for a code on here.

Simple online pharmacy:
£149 2.5mg, £149 5mg, £169 7.5mg £189 10mg

Bolt pharmacy:
2.5mg £149, 5mg £149. 7.5mg £169, 10mg £179, 12.5mg £199, 15mg £199

Asda:
2.5mg and 5mg £179. 7.5mg £189, 10mg £189, 12.5mg £204 15mg £204

There are others not listed.

21- You will still be prescribed Mounjaro when your BMI falls below 30. However, it may be harder to move suppliers once your BMI is below 30 if you wanted to move.

22 - Worried about your supply being cut off when you get to a healthy BMI? Below is some info on some places maintenance plans.

The Family chemist :Would consult you as approached healthy BMI to discuss maintenance under close supervision(if you started with family chemist)
Curate: up to 2 years
Cloud: up to 2 years
Boots: Cut off at BMI 23
Asda: Cut off at a healthy BMI
Pharmacy2u: Will supply for maintenance
Bolt:Individual assessment once BMI 22 and does offer maintenance
Zava:Once healthy BMI will stop prescribing this treatment
Med Express: Now saying they support maintenance upto 2 years.

23 - If you want to switch suppliers, make sure you have pics of your Mounjaro box with your name and dose. This will come in useful when other suppliers ask for evidence.

1st thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/weight_loss_chat/5007744-mourjano-starting-soon?page=1

2nd thread to 9th thread, get link from thread 10

10th thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/weight_loss_chat/5080755-continuing-mounjaro-thread-10?page=1

11th thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/weight_loss_chat/5085436-continuing-mounjaro-thread-11?page=1

12th thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/weight-loss-injections/5090788-continuing-mounjaro-thread-12?page=1

13th thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/weight-loss-injections/5096704-continuing-mounjaropart-13?page=1

14th thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/weight-loss-injections/5102149-continuing-mounjaropart-14?page=1

15th thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/weight-loss-injections/5107426-continuing-mounjaropart-15?page=1

16th thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/weight-loss-injections/5115015-continuing-mounjaropart-16?page=1

17th thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/weight-loss-injections/5122095-continuing-mounjaropart-17?page=1

Thread for newbies just starting out in July:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/weight-loss-injections/5101435-mounjaro-july-2024

Video on how to inject:

I ordered Wednesday 24/7 and it arrived yesterday 30/7.

I’ve just had a pen delivered from Oushk today 😂 but I’m going to order another with the discount and set the delivery date for a month from now if they will let me, I’ll need to take an educated guess that I’ll be ready to move up (about to start my second month on 5mg). I was pleasantly surprised to find the ice packs still frozen even in this heat!

Ugh same.

I was on the 10MG injections before we came on holiday. By the time we'll get back I'll have missed 2 injections. I did intend to bring it but I forgot to pack it in the end as it was a bit hectic. Do I restart at 2.5?

After 2 months on 5, I'm sure you'll be fine on 7.5. I'm actually better on it than I was on 5.

Thank you all for the suggestion of using vinted to re-buy favourite clothes… I’m so happy with my weight loss on mj (just over 3 stone down and titrating down into maintenance land next week) but I was lamenting the loss and cost of replacing my favourite ever toast jeans… just found the exact pair on vinted for an absolute bargain and I’m over the moon! They might have a new best customer over here :)

I would play it safe. I skipped a dose on holiday and came back and took the dose I was on before I left (7.5mg) I was fine on that but the next dose gave me d&v!

If you felt ok on the 10mg, then maybe go with 5mg and work your way back up from there? Maybe a week or 2 on 5mg, then 2 / 3 weeks on 7.5mg etc.

Grrr... Another weight loss injectable bashing article; this time from Devi Sridhar in the Guardian. As a scientist, I would think she would be more balanced and informed. The focus is on Ozempic/Wegovy (it is not clear that she knows about Mounjaro). Among the nuggets in the article:

1. You can get it online or from beauty salons (no mention of it being prescription only or the difference between genuine and fake products)
2. It costs approx £72 per month to buy (I think she has confused price to NHS and retail here)
3. Side effects are horrendous and dangerous and long term effects may be even worse
4. It is available to people who just want to lose a few pounds to be beach ready (no recognition of strict prescribing limitations for genuine product, reviewed by a doctor etc).
5. People should just eat less and exercise more and all will be well (no understanding or acknowledgement of the wealth of evidence on the physiological way our bodies try to prevent weight loss)
6. Stupid fat people will just put the weight back on when they stop anyway because they don't know anything about nutrition or exercise and will just gorge on cake and chips

7 The availability of UPFs is the real problem and if we just stopped eating them we would naturally be slim. No acknowledgement of the difference between obesity prevention, which might be helped by less availability of UPFs and cheaper, more readily available real food, and obesity reduction once the weight is there (nor the multifactorial reasons someone might be obese and the many who do not have an over reliance on UPFs)

1. No recognition of the difference between population level interventions that might reduce the number of people becoming obese and effective individual strategies once a person is obese.

This is all smacking of a sustained media witch hunt to ban the use of pharmacological weight loss interventions now.

Similar situation. I ordered on Monday and impatiently waiting. I’d have gone with another supplier if I’d realised it took this long.

@Fromthesidelines she sounds completely fat phobic. Surely the Guardian should be checking before publishing this nonsense! She hasn't even got her facts correct! I might go find it and complain

Third week on 7.5 and somehow losing more weight than usual, have more suppression in days 1-4 but much hungrier the rest of the week.

Ready to order my next one and wondering whether to move up to 10mg or try another 7.5

I just had a quick read of the guardian article and it wasn't as terrible as I thought. Maybe more to put people getting it off beauticians and trying to use it to drop a few lbs, rather than scare mongering everyone.

@Fromthesidelines what is particularly egregious about that article is that every fact or example she quotes is about the US, not the UK situation. You cannot legally get Wegovy/Ozempic from beauticians FFS, the online retailers here are registered with the GPhC and the prescribing is done by doctors.

Well if that's what she wanted to do she could have said that there is a non-regulated market and warned against that. But she doesn't, she just suggests that getting it through beauty salons for those wanting to get 'beach body ready' is perfectly legitimate and normal. She could have said that getting it through legal routes does require people to have a level of obesity that is almost certain to have a negative effect on health and requires a prescription but instead says it is freely available to people whose weight is unlikely to impact on their health but are mildly overweight. She touts her credentials as a public health expert but this seems lazy in its analysis to me.

I agree though that my irritation perhaps made me see it as worse than it is but it still I think makes lazy assumptions about why people are overweight and over simplistic recommendations for remedy ingredients this.

Precisely!

Yes I agree it's lazy. She could have distinguished the the drugs better and made clear that ozempic /wegovy are prescribed and beauty salon drugs are not ozempic etc. It is pretty poor to be fair. She could have done more research to give actual facts etc.

These articles frankly give the impression that reporters are doing zero research. I actually complained to the BBC earlier about their story as it was so muddled and inaccurate. It’s not acceptable journalism.

I've complained to the Guardian about their article today. It's just not good enough for someone who is a doctor and an expert in public health.

Hi all, I went to Boots earlier today and they had their whey protein on sale, the ones in my local store had an expiry date of July 2025.

Afternoon! Ok started this a couple of months ago and lost nearly a stone but it isn’t really stopping my appetite as much as I thought. I’m on 5mg. Can somebody please explain to me like the idiot I am how to get the bonus dose of Mounjaro out of the pen please? I’ve got loads of needles that came with pen but I don’t know what to attach to it x

Has anyone given blood since being on MJ? I want to but am terrified I'll faint

The family want a Chinese takeaway tonight, and I'm honestly at a loss a to what to order for myself because a, the thought of it is making me feel queasy and b, I know I'll only manage half of I'm lucky.

Any ideas?
I thought maybe a chicken foo yung that I can save half for tomorrow, and a hot and sour soup?

@Offtopic You use the pen as usual for the 5th dose. Twisting it to 1 may be hard so some of us use pliers to twist, then inject as usual.

A few of us have, I did and was a bit worried but I was absolutely fine. Made sure I was really hydrated before and didn't rush to get up.

If the idea is really off putting I would make myself something else, I do this sometimes and just don't make a big deal of it. Or the soup sounds a good idea, maybe stir fried veg and if there's sharing rice have some of that?