Any ways to make it cheaper?

[ThisGutsyBalonz]

I know there is talks or a magic fifth shot in mj but I was wondering if there was any ways to make it cheaper.

I know the medication has to be used within 30 days, but if you take it four times that's 21 days (yes check your calendar). Can you not spread our the dose to 8/9 days?

What about getting a higher dose but only taking half a dose?

Hoping Im not breaking any rules

There’s no magic shot. What there is is leftover medication after doing the standard 4 doses per pen. You can extract that using syringes and use it as another dose, or a higher dose if there’s enough medication remaining. Using that medication fits within the 30 days, at one dose per week.

Spacing out a dose to 8 or 9 days each time will change the levels of medication in your system and you may find it less effective and a false “economy”.

Pharmacies won’t let you order a higher dose pen unless you can show evidence of being on that dose or the one below previously. Even if you got hold of a higher dose pen, you’d end up outside the 30 day limit. That’s clearly against the manufacturer guidelines and comes with an element of risk that you’d need to understand if you choose to ignore the guidelines.

Pharmacies may also take account of the time between orders and not allow a reorder if it’s been took long since your last order. Or they may ask you to start again at the lowest dose as they’ll consider that you’ve been off the medication for that timespan.

Personally I use the leftover medication for an additional dose, done with syringes and within the 30 days. I also change pharmacies regularly to take advantage of new customer discounts which help to keep the costs down too.

It's a magic fifth shot if it's there for free?

I dislike the twee naming “golden”, “magic”, “bonus”… It’s there for priming the pen each time, and they have to allow plenty spare in case of having issues with blocked/badly fitted needles and needing to retry more than once. So it’s there for a purpose. If you prime once each time with no issue then there will be enough left to repurpose as an additional dose.

Some people are against it and some aren’t, I’ve seen people use the 5mg for 8x2.5s but each to their own. Personally I use the last dose too, if it’s used within the 30 days then 🤷🏽‍♀️

Come on, there is over 1ml left over

Is there? The most I’ve got out has been 0.9ml. I’m not sure what the “come on” is about? I’m talking about my direct experience.

I got the last bit out with a syringe and used it as an extra dose. I don't know if it was the exact amount or not

In the early days I worked out how much I was saving on wine, takeaways, snacks and that made me feel better. Later on, I worked out how much I had spent to lose each pound. It was well worth it, not to mention the health benefits.

I’m spacing to 9 days between shots. I’m losing between 2 and 4lbs a week. Also taking the additional spare liquid as a weeks dose. Have taken 12 doses. Have just moved to 7.5mg. I am keeping to deficit daily though as well as low carb. If you keep carbs low then you don’t have the swinging hunger anyhow though.

That is a dose and a half. 0.6ml is a full dose.

Yes, that’s right. As I said in my first post “You can extract that using syringes and use it as another dose, or a higher dose if there’s enough medication remaining.”

Exactly. Plenty

Yes, there is plenty spare as I said before. So, one of the ways you can save money is to use that for one more dose, whether that’s a 0.6ml dose or a higher dose if you want to move up.

I'm on 15g but struggling to eat much at all, (think the hot weather has contributed to this as well) so I'm considering dropping to 10mg but using up my 15mg pens for this.

It's not free, you're paying for the whole amount. The fact that the manufacturers recommend that you only take 4 doses instead of the potential 5 doesn't make the 5th dose free.

5 doses covers 29 days of a pen being open so it's perfectly fine. Some people have stayed on a lower dose but officially gone up the doses so they can make a pen last longer than 30 days, which is a risk as it goes against manufacturer advice, and also you do need to keep ordering without too long a gap between or you won't be able to order the same dose.

It does make it free because it means you can have five doses, not four. So what's that, a 20% saving?

There are lots of off license ways to "make it cheaper", some obviously very low risk (using remaining liquid within/around 30 days, adjusting dose to that of a similar strength pen), then there are others with an unknown risk.

Some people, IMO, do ridiculous things with the medication. Ridiculous because they don't know the risks and are basing their risk assessments and decision making purely off social media posts of strangers, such as using the same pen for umpteen weeks past the 30 days, sharing pens, dosing regularly more than once a week etc.

Or they get themselves into a pickle to use discounts (which keep coming from providers so not needed!) and creating home stockpiles in the wrong strengths or mess up their spacing of orders with providers.

Going well beyond the boundaries into the area of unknown risks to save money might not have caused visible harm to them (yet), it doesn't mean it is safe for either them or anyone else.

But everyone is an adult and if they want to take uninformed risks with their health that is up to them.

Be careful what you try to save money, your health is more important.

You've only mentioned one way to make it cheaper which has been discussed before.... What are the logs of off licence ways?

I don't want to speak for @WeAllHaveWings but I think it's fairly clear from her post that she isn't going to itemise the ways in which the drug can be misused.

I'm aware that some of us have an officious head-girl reputation on this board but the main reason I've been here for over a year is because of the collective ethical understanding that there's a responsibility for experienced users to encourage newcomers to use the drug responsibly. I don't really care if you think that makes us prigs. There are other corners of the internet which will be happy to help you. Try Reddit.

Ok.....

So explain how a medication goes bad if it's single use needles and not the quick pen. Also usually keep medication in the fridge after opening to prevent bacteria with the quick pen as that's being injected into.

I don't think the medication is that unstable that it has to be kept in the fridge until it's opened.

Ways to make it cheaper...

I suppose stay on the absolute minimum effective dose as the lower doses are cheaper? I'm still on 2.5mg and not losing weight so fast anymore - it's slowed to about a pound a week I think (although I've gone from BMI 30 to 25.4 so I don't mind if it's slowed down as I'm not that far away from a healthy weight now).

It might seem like a false economy as it will take longer to lose the weight but I'll be on this for life realistically so I'm going to have keep purchasing the lowest dose anyway.

Have you checked out the discount codes etc?

I did, but I just want to stick with Oushk now as I am near a normal weight and I think it gets trickier to move around at this point.

You also need to factor in the big decrease in shopping bills. I spend about £25 to £30 a week on food now, which is about half what I used to spend.

Going out for dinner is far cheaper. My share of the bill for a starter as main, with two diet cokes is usually about £25 to £30, much cheaper than my mates who are dishing out £75 to £90 head having had cocktails, three courses and wine. Most people radically cut back alcohol consumption on Mounjaro as they just go off it. No takeaways. No taxis due to drinking.

It’s pretty much a neutral cost to me financially.

Check out "monj" website for the cheapest prices and either switch each month or find a cheap one that price matches and stick with them. I've also heard some places do bundles which makes it cheaper as only one lot of postage.

Also the fifth/bonus/golden dose. Basically the bit left over at the end. Guidelines state to throw it away but lots of us extract it to get a "free" week. This is not advised though so do you own research and make your own decision.

Staying on lower doses would also be cheaper. I'm about to start my 4th pen and I'm still "only" on 5mg whereas if I had moved up each month as advised I would be on 10mg by now which would be more expensive.