Yep, I was on liraglutide for years, lost 10kg when I started on it and was able to stop taking insulin, then stayed more or less the same morbidly obese weight, which was a change because once I started having to inject insulin I had been gaining steadily each year.
In September 2023 the local NHS chemists were unable so source liraglutide from any of their suppliers. They told me to phone the diabetes clinic for advice. The diabetes nurse said she wished they'd stop telling people to do that, because she'd had people crying, swearing and threatening her several times a day for the past three weeks when she had to explain that the only available option she could offer was to avoid eating carbs and go back to counting every eaten carb and injecting the corresponding amount of insulin.
I'd been following the Zoe project for 18 months by then and had got used to losing around 3kg/month while eating 2500 calories/day. (Having started with a BMI of 59.5) So it was grim to have to go back onto insulin, I struggled with constant hunger for an entire month and only managed to lose 100g after all that hard work, when all the previous weight loss had been bafflingly effortless.
In January 2024 when the diabetes clinic were still telling me there was no liraglutide or semaglutide for them to prescribe on the NHS, I got tired of living with constant gnawing hunger and signed up with Voy to pay privately for semaglutide/wegovy. The diabetes nurse had told me that I'd be prescribed mounjaro as soon as it became available for them to prescribe, so I switched from Wegovy to Mounjaro at the end of June last year.
At my diabetes appointment in August the consultant started me on 2.5mg of mounjaro, increasing it to 5mg the following month. 5mg is the maximum dose they are allowed to prescribe for diabetes under the NHS prescribing guidelines for diabetes.
So I currently pay Voy to send me a 7.5mg pen and inject from that pen and the 5 mg NHS pen at the same time. The diabetes consultant is fully on board with this and only regrets that NHS prescribing rules limit him to prescribing a maximum of 5mg when higher doses that would be beneficial to his obese patients.
Today for the first time since the mid 1980s my BMI has finally hit 29.9 making me officially no longer obese! People no longer stare at me in the streets, and I don't have to worry about being unable to use safety belts in the back seats of taxis.
To keep the weight loss going I have had to gradually reduce my daily calorie allowance. It was already down 2000 calories at the end of last year (from a starting point of 3000 - 3600 in March 2022 when I started an online food diary), but after gaining 200g over Christmas (first time I'd not lost even a tiny amount since I started eating to pander to my gut microbiome in February 2022) I readjusted it down to 1700 kcal/day and three weeks later I have lost another 4 kilos.
I realise that it's going to get more difficult to shed the remaining 14 kgs that stand between me and the upper limits of the healthy BMI range. I'm resigned to having to go down to the 1600 kcals/day that google considers an ample sufficiency for a 67 year old woman. I do also have the option of increasing to a 10 mg pen from Voy bringing my total weekly dose up to the maximum 15mg/week to get me over that final hurdle, though if I continue to have a good response to 7.5 + 5 mg I won't bother.
Once I do reach that target, which for the first time in over 40 years it seems possible and sustainable, then I can cancel the Voy subscription and remain on the 5 mg diabetic dose from the NHS to keep my diabetes in complete remission.
Your mum might be interested to hear that my HbA1c is down from 94 mmol/mol to 39 mmol/mol. My time in range on the continuous glucose monitor is 98% (better than most non diabetics because I do all my eating within a 6 hour time period). Weight down from 160 kg to 80.5 kg. Average blood pressure (taken 3 x morning and evening for 7 days) down from 155/88 to 110/65 (I had to come off blood pressure tablets because the diastolic pressure was falling below 60 after the first 18 months).
A lot of the health benefits come from allowing the gut to remain empty for several hours overnight, so that the bacteria that start to proliferate once the last of the food has passed through (which takes between 10 and 12 hours after the last meal) can get to work repairing the mucus membrane on the inside of the intestine. They nibble away at it which stimulates the gut lining to become healthier and less prone to leak, then they excrete short chain fatty acids which are very important for a shedload of metabolic functions and have miraculously improved my diurnal rhythm, mood, and levels of chronic inflammation. My asthma has gone, and I no longer need the CPAP machine to breathe for me at night.
It's the high levels of chronic inflammation that triggered my 6 different autoimmune conditions, and caused them to flare repeatedly. Being crippled by a bad bout of rheumatoid arthritis was what got me interested in following the Zoe food science recommendations. Best thing I ever did, only regret the information wasn't available in the early 90's when I was first diagnosed with diabetes.