Maintenance Dosing

[MayCup]

Hi,

I have a question regarding maintenance and appropriate dosing at a reasonable cost.

Partner and I are both thankfully nearing our goal weights and are both looking at using a maintenance dose until at least after Christmas.

I know that we both have access to the support from the pharmacy but I am asking here to see if anyone is in a similar situation or can do the maths for me as I can't wrap my head around it 😳

Buying from Medexpress - what would be the best pen to buy (just on one account) to share the dose in order to maintain?

Ad mentioned, I'm looking for the most cost effective option.

Thank you ☺️

I have seen someone doing one month on / one month on with cloud pharmacy

@MayCup What dose are each of you looking to maintain on? It depends on what's working for you at the lowest dose.

So if you both want to maintain on 5mg each, then get a 10mg pen and each of you can have 5mg for 4 doses. You will need to use the syringe to get the last 0.6ml (5mg) each from the bonus/5th dose.

Neither of us want to go back to the smallest dose though as surely it won't be enough to share?

I think that 2.5 for us both each week should be enough to sustain suppression?

You can just half any dose. Get 10mg and share 5mg each, get 12mg and share 6mg each. Get 15mg and share 7.5mg each. There's really nothing else to share besides those.

In that case, get 5mg and share 2.5mg each. If it's working for you, then that's what you should do.

Sorry crossposted with this. Thought you wanted to stay on a higher dose.

hank you all, as I said the maths was confusing me.

Neither of us has gone higher than the 5 pens.

Great suppression and losses. Both thrilled.

How do you intend to safely share the pen? Personally think that seems quite unhygienic - you run the risk of infection especially if you use the needles that med express provides.

I bought 100 spare needles from the pharmacy and 100 wipes.

I have no intention of needle sharing.

the issue is every time you penetrate the red seal, you introduce contaminants into the medicine. The more you penetrate the red seal, the worse it can get essentially and you are going to penetrate it twice as often as intended.

Contaminants can flow into the medication. It doesn’t just flow out. For example someone posted a photo of blood inside their mounjaro pen, the blood was drawn inside the pen as they administered their injection. (Link if needed https://www.reddit.com/r/mounjarouk/s/4UQIQbRk9z)

This sort of thing isn’t as much of a concern if it’s one person, but if you’re sharing the same pen between multiple people you increase the risks.

@alcohole thank you, I'll take a look.

I looked into those reddit posts, thanks for linking. It seems they didn't release the button after injecting, then wait 5 seconds. Instead they kept the button pushed down for the 5 seconds AND only released after they withdrew the needle from the skin.

I've added one of the poster's comments.

Thanks for sharing, though this doesn’t change my perspective. While it might seem tempting to share a pen to save on costs, it’s worth remembering that these pens are designed for one person only. Sharing raises serious hygiene and safety concerns that can’t be fully avoided, even with caution. Bloodborne pathogens, bacterial contamination, and microscopic cross-contamination can all lead to infections or complications, some of which could be serious.

It’s better to look at other options if cost is a concern. Frankly you could probably post referral codes and get 2 pens for the price of 1 in a legitimate way. In the long run, being cautious is a much safer way to manage both your health and budget. Protecting your health is worth the extra effort.

I agree. It's just that post with the blood in the vial looked alarming and is something we all would want to take precautions against. After reading fully, it doesn't appear that it would easily occur, if at all, when using the pen as directed. They used it in an unusual way and had an unusual consequence.

It's a reminder to follow the instructions to avoid ruining the contents of your pen before you've had the full 4 (or 5) doses.

This really shows what happens with the typical alarming issues reported by people. When you really look into it, you'll see that those people did the wrong thing actually so it's not the norm to have the issue they did if they followed the right/approved/advised steps.

Your post doesn’t really make sense in the context of this thread, where the OP wants to use the medication in an obviously not right/approved/advised manner which is alarming in itself. I posted the Reddit link as an example to show potential consequences of doing something dangerous like sharing a pen between multiple people. I didn’t say blood in the pen is normal, I used it as an illustration to show why OP’s plan puts their health at risk.

Your post comes across like you’re saying it’s fine to share a pen because it’s not the norm to see blood in the pen. I’m not sure if that’s what you intended, but there’s always the risk of contaminants you can’t see being present in a used pen. It’s why no medical professional would sign off sharing a pen between multiple people.

I was simply talking about people who make alarming reports. Relax, it wasn't aimed at you as you only shared the article and was giving a fair warning to the OP.

In addition to contamination, how does that work in terms of accurate records of meds being taken on each person's notes? Given Mounjaro can have implications for other drugs, HCPs surely need to know?

I don’t like the idea of pen sharing even if you don’t share needles

@MayCup I've been sharing pens with my dp for a while (we are both on 2.5) and have had no issues. Pen is permanently in the fridge and we use lots of wipes before and after each use, and have a big box of needles. We also plan to use it until the new year.

How do you get it onto both of your medical notes?

@rhubay you don't unfortunately. But we have only started doing that once we got to goal weight and we are taking into turns ordering it. I accept it's not ideal but it's the most cost effective way and we are responsible enough to know how to minimise the risks in doing so.