Death linked to Mounjaro

[suki1964]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz6jg6nw2zeo

I am in no way knocking anyone who is using these drugs, seriously if I could use them I would. However Im throwing this up here because these drugs have only been tested and deemed safe on a small study - those who's BMI is above 30.

It looks like she’s died from pancreatitis and sepsis. She was obese. Is it not likely she already had pancreatitis? She only had two doses

I think when it comes to this woman it’s very sad that she has died.

But I question why someone not on MJ felt the need to post this. It’s not to warn people is it. I think everyone knows you could hate an adverse extreme reaction to a medication. Prescription or otherwise. If every death that occurred within weeks of starting a new medication made headline news was printed to warn people no one would take anything. But also we have no idea what the other contributing factors were.

Theres no detail there at all. The BBC have seen a death certificate and only printed one part of it. We have no idea of the woman’s lifestyle, previously medical history and so on. So who is the warning for? Everyone.

Surley the warning isn’t ’one person has died but we don’t have full detail so no one should take it’. Again, no one would take any medication.

I think @TheGoingGetsEasyAfterItGetsTough makes a very important point with this paragraph:

"Her death has nothing to do with the safety or not of Mounjaro (or private pharmacies or online pharmacies or HCP monitoring unless she didn't buy them from a legal and registered one, which hasn't been mentioned) any more than someone who took another prescription meds which didn't agree with them died and suddenly there are safety warnings about that drug. Even if she was prescribed this by a physical GP, she'd likely have reacted the same way to the drug in 2 weeks of starting and she'd likely have the same outcome as the HCP or GP wouldn't have been literally monitoring her reaction at home every day. The issue was her body's reaction to the drug and not the drug being fake or from a private pharmacy."

It's a very sad case, awful for her family and for the medical professionals involved in the case. Posting it to make some kind of point about safety and the testing of these kinds of medication is misguided.

Excellent points @SilenceInside

The most common causes of pancreatitis are alcohol use, gall stones and obesity. MJ doesn’t cause it directly, it’s just that the type of people on MJ are more likely to get pancreatis and that as you lose weight you’re more likely to get gallstones which also raises the risk of pancreatis.

That’s why when you take MJ with a private GP they send you for regular blood tests/scans for pancreatis and thyroid cancer.

It’s so tragic but I think the problem here is that online pharmacies need to see their patients in person and monitor them. For that to occur prices would need to increase.

It is unfortunately an advertised side effect and this lady has been terribly unfortunate with how it developed A real shame for her and her family. Unfortunately someone has to be the whatever % that's written on the box. There's just no way of knowing if it will be you or not, so it's just about your own risk assessment and appetite (no pun intended) for risk.

Yes and it would probably be sensible to have these tests prior to starting the prescription too.

The article says "Her death certificate, seen by the BBC, lists multiple organ failure, septic shock and pancreatitis as the immediate cause of death – but "the use of prescribed tirzepatide" is also recorded as a contributing factor."

Many unanswered questions from the article but from that wording it sounds like sepsis is the main cause. It also says she became unwell only after the second injection.

There is no info - probably because no one knows - on whether a swab was used on the pen end before injection, how well the process was followed re hygiene controls etc. there is always a small risk of pushing bacteria on the surface of the skin into the body with an injection. That's any injection regardless of the drug you are injecting. There is also no information about how quickly symptoms appeared and how quickly she sought medical help. Again possibly because no one knows.

What I take from this (as I am a user of Mounjaro) is that I need to keep following good hygiene when injecting and seek medical help immediately for any side effects which could indicate sepsis.

For the person suggesting the "easy alternative" of dieting without the jags .......do you really think that people would have arrived at the decision to buy a very expensive drug which they struggle to afford if it was as easy as "just dieting'. Really? You are demonstrating a gross level of ignorance.

As to why we are fatter generally, food companies piling hidden sugar into everything to drive a sweet addiction so that food not full of sugar seems unpalatable.
The " nurtrionist" industry and the NHS also got it very wrong and have not really caught up.
They still tout that Food Pyramid thing, with loads of carbs and hardly any fat. In the time that thats been the mantra people have got fatter despite the explosion of gym use.
Touting carbs for decades as healthy fuel, to anybody but athletes is insane. And the suggestion that eating fat deposits fat is a misunderstanding of how the body works. The body is more likely to lay down fat on a carb heavy diet than it ever will with protein and fat. But their are still nutritionists touting low fat high good carb eating. Carb is carb. Your body breaks it down to sugars whether it's good or bad carb.

Pancreatis causes sepsis. You will rarely see a pancreatis death without it. There is no correlation to hygiene - in fact as a nurse I’m sure her hygiene was impeccable.

My first dose is sitting waiting in the fridge and this article was pretty scary.

She was obese enough to be the right candidate for the drug, she was prescribed it properly, took two low doses properly and is now dead.

It is giving me second thoughts to be honest, but I want to believe it's a very low risk and therefore I should go ahead.

The risks have not changed as a result of this article. There is risk to taking any medication. For me, the risk of staying morbidly obese were more than enough to counter the very very small risk of serious side effects from taking Mounjaro.

Exactly. My private GP did all the tests before choosing the weight loss drug. I wanted Semaglutide because of the risks but after checking me out he decided on MJ with monitoring as he felt I didn’t have risk factors yet and should enjoy the improved functionality of the jab.

online pharmacies do none of this.

I mean a generation ago there were no computers in common use.

It's much longer than a generation ago.

@CocoDC NHS GPs wouldn't do those things either, and don't currently as far as I am aware for the small number of people who are getting Semaglutide or Mounjaro prescribed for weight loss.

You should only take it if you have throughly researched and feel comfortable taking it to be honest. It has to be your decision and that decision should be informed.

However, the reason the Op posted this here is for that reason. To scare people. Not to warn people. As there’s nothing in that article that would help anyone make an informed decision.

I am sure you throughly looked into it before you ordered it. Nothing has actually changed. If you didn’t. I suggest you do so you can make an informed decision.

Yes she was obese enough to be prescribed it. There’s nothing to suggest being obese enough mitigates side effects. Or that only people who aren’t obese but obtain it fraudulently can suffer side effects.

However, we don’t know anything else. She could have been a massive drinker, which put her in the risk category of pancreatitis. She could have had gall stones. She could have had other health problems that she didn’t know about or did know about and left off her application. We simply don’t know yet.

That said you have to be comfortable with your decision. And if your decision is not to take it, that’s ok.

But in most cases moving more and eating less does work.

it’s not nice. It’s not fun but to say it doesn’t work is incorrect.

There may be a few cases eg medication where this doesn’t work but in the majority of unmedicated, healthy people… this works.

just because something is hard… it doesn’t mean it doesn’t work

practicing your piano 3 hours a day for 15 years will get you to pass your grade 8. It’s bloody hard work but it works. Or would you prefer to take a tablet that enables you to learn faster and pass it in a year.

it feels like for LOTS of people it is a quick fix that feels easier than the alternative. and let’s not pretend that this isn’t a bunch of size 14 people that want to get down to a 10. In a lot of cases we are not talking about morbidly obese people with diabetes.

It’s so much more complicated than that.

Can you lie online to get this anti inflammatory drug which is then delivered to your house?

HNRTT but if you are looking at mortality, it might be an idea to consider the counter factual, the mortality from untreated obesity.

Regarding testing sample sizes, I'd read currently 6% of Americans are using a GLP-1 medication, probably mostly not Mounjaro which relates to this story as that is more recently released than Semaglutide/Ozempic and others.

It’s so frustrating listening to everyone jump on the bandwagon with this.

it’s going to end badly.

“being fat is more dangerous”… there are more than two options here. It’s not a case of being fat or take injectables.

I get it… it’s hard work, there may be emotional eating, boredom, inability to do cardio, medication, alcohol dependency, poor education on diet/nutrition, lack of money.

but it is possible. You can work around all those issues. Yes it might be slow. Yes it’s dull at times. Yes it’s hard. Yes you need willpower.

ill not be filling my body with something that transits food more slowly through my bowel. It switches off my desire to eat. Not when there is a viable alternative option in most cases.

Out of curiosity, are you currently obese and losing weight?

Again, NSAIDS are involved in 2000 deaths a year and no one's telling people they cannot buy them or have to just use mental willpower to think away the pain. Despite mindfulness and thought being successfully used to reduce pain in many cases.

You don’t get it. I am fat, I exercise everyday (gym twice a day), am careful never to eat more than 1600 cals a day, but due to my autoimmune conditions I never lost wait UNTIL I went on the weight loss jabs.

I don’t get stomach issues, I don’t even feel appetite suppression, I’m eating exactly what I always have but I’m finally losing fat (I get regular body composition scans and know it’s fat).

@zaffa im a size 12-14 but I regularly exercise and I’m on a reduced calorie diet to try to get from overweight to normal.

I’ve been heavier and I’ve been lighter for sure. And for the last few months basically I’ve not wanted to do any of it but now I’m back on it and strive to try to make it part of my life going forward.

im perimenopausal and it’s hard… but not impossible. It’s made harder by the processed muck out there and this narrative that weight loss is so complicated that why bother the regular way.