1st month complete - do I move up to 5mg? Tell me about your side effects please.

[CaptainWaffle]

Hi all, I've just completed the full month on 2.5mg and have been very lucky to have no side effects other than a slight headache. I've lost weight and felt ok.

I'm really interested in hearing from others whether 5mg caused them any problems, particularly if you had few side effects on 2.5.
TIA

I didn't have much in the way of side effects at 2.5mg, a bit of nausea in that first days after injecting and increased tiredness. I've kept moving up and now on 7.5mg and found the side effects decreased the longer I've been on it, I am still VERY tired but that's about it.

thanks @ThreeTescoBags, that's helpful.

I have no advice, but I'm going to move up to 5mg. I have my bonus dose of 2.5 to do next week and my 5 pen ready in the fridge for me. .

I plan on doing that because the 2.5 is just to get your body used to it then the 5 is an actual amount.. thats how I think it anyway..

We will see, if I suffer from doing that or not. Fingers crossed I'm OK.

Hi @morbidcuriosity, thanks. I’m going to go ahead as well. I’m going to try the bonus dose in a few days and then the 5.
Let’s hope we both sail through!

We will be trying the 5 at around the same time then. I inject on a Tuesday, so my last 2.5 in 4 days I'll let you know how I get on.

I just moved up to the 5mg and had very few side-effects.
I keep medication handy if I do need it.

Strongly recommend staying at the lowest dose that is effective and has the least amount of side-effects for you. Sounds like 2.5 is working great! Enjoy it!

I stayed on 2.5 mg for 6-7 weeks until I felt it didn’t do much for me anymore. I then click counted for another 6 weeks or so and only did 3.75 mg before moving up to 5 mg.
Never experienced any side effects and had steady weight loss throughout. Still on 5 mg with no real plans to move up anytime soon.

Can I ask. . . I'm due my 1st bonus dose next week. . Does the pen break after 4 goes, or as u were doing less each time, can you get more goes out of 1 pen? .

You said you did the clicks for 3.75, does the pen work each time until there is no liquid left?

So in theory you can get lots of 3.75 out of the pen?

The pen does not break after the 4 doses but it locks, so what you need to do to get the 5th bonus dose is either:

• hard twist (you might need pliers to do it) or
• buy insulin syringes and draw out the leftover (it’s super easy and you can calculate precisely how much you’re injecting)

Ah yeah, I'm all ready for that. . I was just asking as u said u did less doses, did u get more than 5 goes.. once you break the pen for the bonus, if there is still more, can you inject again. .

I read about people taking 2.5 from a 5 or 7.5 pen, and just wondering if the hard twist is when it's nearly empty or you can keep going??

I'm sorry if I'm not making sense..

Hi all, when you say ‘hard twist’ how does that work? Do you take it to number 1 in the usual way and keep twisting it forward?
Thanks

If you do the 'hard twist' what needle are you using ? Mine only came with 4 . Thank you !

I stayed on 5 mg pen. I did 5 doses of 4 mg instead of 4 doses of 5mg. I managed to get a couple of extra needles but will need to source some more for next month if I wish to do the same. Not moving up to 7.5 as I’m doing fine on the lower doses.

So the pen locks after 4 doses, so you need to really push it to be able to turn it again to 1 for the final dose. You need to buy yourself more needles. Or you don’t faff with the pen, you buy insilin syringes and draw your doses out - this was you can easily do split doses too as you see how much you’re drawing out

I am 12 weeks in and on 3.75mg (45 clicks of 5mg pen). I plan to always stay on lowest dose I get enough suppression on to average around 2lb/week loss.

The pens works for priming and 4 full doses without having to use hard twist or a need a syringe - I reckon that is around 250ish clicks.

When I did 5 weeks of 3.75mg, I used less clicks each week and hard twist was not needed for the 5th dose it still worked. I've added a link for the hard twist to get the 5th dose. On my first pen I had to use pliers to get it as I didn't have the hand strength.

Always use a new needle for every injection. You'll need to buy more pen needles if your provider only sends 4, and perhaps syringes so you have them available if you want to extract from the pen if hard twist doesn't work.

I had no side effects on 2.5mg and have had on 5mg. Sulphur burbs quite frequently (not pleasant!) and had some bouts of diarrhoea. Week two on it was pretty bad but seems to have settled down now thankfully and hopefully my body has got used to it.

I was the same when doing 3.75 from a 5 pen. I think it’s the amount of medication used not the number of times you use it that ‘locks it’. Think there are 240 clicks in a new 5mg pen. 4 x 60 clicks is a whole pen. I did 5x 48 clicks with no problem. 48 clicks is a 4 mg dose. Works well for me.

This is making a lot more sense to me now, it's the amount of clicks that lock the pen. So I can try 3.75 at 45 clicks and probably won't have to do the hard twist on the 5th.

Many thanks people..

Link to get some insulin syringes and needles

Here

It's safer to use syringes and needles so that you know exactly what you're injecting.

I did 3.75mg/45 clicks and got 5 doses out with no locking. There were still 23 clicks left in the pen after the 5th doses before it actually locked so I reckon with the priming clicks added in there are at least 255, maybe 260 clicks in a pen before it locks.

If anyone is using reduced clicks a hint is to mark the position with a ballpoint in the dose window so if you do need to hard twist on your 5th dose you know how far to turn it if you want to stick to the same number.

It is also handy if you are getting blasé 😳 about turning the knob and forget to count. When I did this I wasn't sure what to do so I clicked it back down to 0 and counted up again from the beginning and it didn't impact the pen working properly for that or subsequent uses.

Hi everyone, I tried the 5th dose and managed to move it past 0. It went a few clicks and stopped - should I be forcing it past that point?
Thanks

@TheShellBeach so if I am on 2.5 is it 0.6 on a 1ml syringe ?