How long on 5mg?

[supercatlady]

Started with She Med 17th Feb. I had about 6stone to lose. I’ve lost 17kg, but loss has slowed significantly over the last 3-4 weeks. I weighed same today as I did14th April. I’ve just been prescribed my 3rd 5mg pen. I wondered if it’s normal to stay on 5 for awhile?

I've been on 5mg all the time apart from the first month, and I started at the beginning of January.

I don't use Shemed but I was with Ashcroft and could choose when to move up based on side effects and weight loss rate as long as I'd been on previous dose for 4 weeks. I just had to adjust my order when I reordered. I was on 5 for about 4 months. I'm now with oushk on 7.5 but they seem to allow you to do the same.

Not with them, but have you asked why? 17kg is a big loss for less than 3 months they may be concerned you are losing too fast.

Also, are you in the trial? If so this might be part of their protocol (to keep people on lower dossages to.monitor the impact).

I’ve stayed <5mg for 45 weeks/10 months. How much have you lost on average over the last 6 weeks? Around -1.5lbs/week is a realistic loss to expect. Are you keeping to your calorie deficit? Sometimes loss does slow after significant loss while your body adjusts.

I only did one 5mg pen before moving up to 7.5. Im now on my third 7.5 pen and planning to stay here for a while, it feels like the right dose for me.

I stayed on 5mg for 20 weeks last year but it was because I chose to as it was working. I wouldn’t stay with a prescriber who wasn’t listening to my needs!

You say the loss has slowed but from what to what? You have lost a fair bit already. Are you still having increased fullness etc?

Sorry, a typo in original post. Have lost 10kg since starting.
Last few weeks have been hovering around between 99kg and 99.8kg.
I haven’t asked to increase, so maybe I will next time. There isn’t really a question about dose but it does have a section for comments.
Im not calorie counting, but definitely eating less. However, I think the food noise is returning.

10kg in 10 weeks is a fantastic weight loss average. It is quite normal for it to not be linear, for it to stay the same for a few weeks and then drop of even bounce around a bit. When I started I found it so helpful to see other people's graphs over time that zoomed out just looks like a lot of weight loss going down but zoomed in you could see quite a bit of where it would look like it had stalled a couple of weeks then a woosh or even the odd week it looked like a gain then a drop.

As for prescribing - shemed usually do 1 x 2.5 then move up if no side effe ts or the user hasn't asked to stay on2.5

They then usually keep on 5 for 3 months. This is because the trial data showed pretty much identical results on the first 4months regardless of dose so little point going up. They also look at rate of weight loss so an average of 1kg.a week is a fantastic loss and the top end of 0.5-1kg rate recommended by the NHS. They do move people straight up if no weight loss.

When you request your next pen if you do want to go up ( lowest effective dose is the best policy but if you find the weight loss is still stalling/there hasn't been a woosh for example) then you need to say so in the final comments box.

Something like "I'd like to go up to 7.5 due to increased food noise" is fine or say weight loss has stalled if it still has.

I thought weight loss had stalled for 3 weeks on my 3rd pen and asked to go up to 7.5 just to find for my last 2 doses I had a huge woosh (I think period /hormone related) and more suppression than ever!! (while still on 5). So in my case I hadn't actually needed to but you can only go on what you can go on.

Good luck. Its a real journey isn't it.