Have thrown the towel in. HORRENDOUS illness - Mounjaro

[Autumnalchick]

I've been on it since May, very few side effects other than occasional nausea and constipation.
However last week I took my injection as usual then BAM sickness, diarrhoea and feeling more ill than I can remember. The sickness was so bad I ended up in hospital on a drip, this lasted for a whole week! Today I finally feel back to normal. Blood tests, stool samples etc all indicated no infection and didn't find anything unusual. Doctors concluded it was a bad reaction to the Mounjaro. So in the bin it goes!
Has this happened to anyone else? I can't understand why I was fine on Mounjaro for 4 months then suddenly had this awful reaction. It's not exaggeration to say I was feeling so ill I would have finished myself off had it not been for my kids.
This has scared me and despite losing 3 stone it was not worth it.

Hi I'm very new to this (haven't started yet), would you mind telling me how it's possible to increase in very small increments? I'm looking at Asda and all the increments are 2.5. Thank you.

It’s about counting clicks. You can find a click chart for the pen you have if you google. It is not recommended by the pharmacists or the manufacturer so is unofficial but some people find stepping up the dose more gradually or even sticking with a middling dose helpful.

Hope you're better now. Can I ask if yours turn out to be linked to Mounjaro or unrelated?

@JamesGetIn, here's the chart shared elsewhere on MN. As a pp said, be aware that it's not the official instructions.

I feel incredibly ill off it, defo not taking anymore. I feel sick, diarrhoea, burps it’s awful. I just want to feel normal again.

Did you buy it from a reputable pharmacy?

Yes, medexpress.

I had the same. Right at the beginning, and still haven't lost any weight since. I was so ill I couldn't keep anything down, iv drip and kept in hospital overnight. Apparently it's not that uncommon. God I was so ill. So others do understand.

5mg made me feel constantly unwell, like someone with the flu (except no high temp even though I felt like someone who did. Every other symptom was there). I couldn't taste any food - everything I ate tasted bland and awful, had embarrassingly minging breath no matter what i did to mitigate it, insomnia, constant nausea, horrible stomach cramps, occasional racing heart, felt generally miserable in my body especially at night. No d & v or burps luckily though. I'd taken it for 2 weeks by then (most symptoms started week 2 of 5mg) and the next week, I went down to 3.5mg and that has been my sweet spot ever since.

2.5mg isn't enough because I still have food noise and low suppression but 3.5mg happens to give me good suppression, no food noise and very low and manageable few side effects not constantly (occasional mild nausea or tummy cramp that goes with OTC meds and doesn't return till the next jab). I can taste my food again when I eat and don't think of food after I eat until the next time I'm hungry. Bad breath disappeared immediately. I haven't tried 3.75 yet but if 3.5mg stops working, I will.

For those who're having issues at a dose, before you give up, consider lowering the dose first and see how it works. Some of us really can't handle being on some of the official doses and we'd have missed out on the benefits if we didn't have the lovely MJ community online to teach us counting clicks for lower middle doses.

Just to add that I'm supposed to be on 7.5mg (maybe buying my 10mg pen) by now if following the schedule but I'm still on 3.5mg because it's still working for me.

I don’t think I can bring myself to use it again. I just feel horrendous. As PP food tastes awful, I’m managing to drink water because I know need too but I could quite easily not do that either.

Did you carry on with it? Sorry, I can’t tell from your post?

You definitely should have thrown that out. Would be like leaving chicken or cooked rice out of the fridge for a few days then eating it.

@Autumnalchick
I ended up being admitted to hospital as I had 8 days of horrendous diarrhoea.
my potassium levels were too low so I had 3 potassium drips,1 magnesium drip and a rehydration drip.
Ive never felt so unwell so I sympathise with you

@springtimemagic

The post you are replying to is from 8 months ago!

In November it would be highly unlikely the pen would have gone over 30 degrees unless it was sat on a radiator and would have been useable for 30 days from delivery. Absolutely nothing like chicken or rice!

So you spent £180 on it and then didn't follow the storage instructions. Why would you do that?

It's very likely that this had something to do with why it made you ill.

Would you eat meat or dairy that had been out of the fridge at room temperature for a few days?

It tells you to store it in the fridge for a reason.

It’s exactly like raw meats - that’s why we have fridges in clinics. Medication goes off. I’m not saying that’s why you suffered but it could be. Medication goes off. You wouldn’t be happy if you turned up at your own GP practice for a jab and they said oh we’ve only got these jabs for you but they’ve been sitting out for a few days and they need to be refrigerated. I’m sure it’s fine though! Lift up your sleeve..!

Could it have been something else other than Mounjaro?
I’ve been on it a year or so now and get occasional vomiting and diarrhoea, more often diarrhoea, especially if I’ve eaten too much or too fatty. But last summer I had awful sickness and diarrhoea off and on for three weeks which was put down to viral gastroenteritis.
DD is not on mounjaro and was admitted to hospital overnight on Friday with sickness and diarrhoea and put on a drip, and I was violently sick on Monday evening and Tuesday morning so I think I just caught it from her. I’d injected on the Sunday and am now on 12.5mg but to be so violently sick would be unusual for me on mounjaro unless something else was going on.

Oops, just saw this was an old thread.

I vomited all week long on my first dose of 2.5. Lost ten pounds in weight but that may have been from all the puking. On my second week now and only took 1/3 of a dose (20 clicks) and am going to build it up from there. I already feel sick again- but also hungry.

The official Mounjaro storage instructions say the pen can be stored outside the fridge for 30 days before it must be discarded. So sitting out for a couple of days the medication was still fine for up to 30 days from when it was no longer chilled, as long as it didn't go over 30 degrees.