Injections when not seriously overweight/obese

[Stripedrugwoodenfloor]

I’m a bit overweight…BMI around 26.5. Late 40s. I do have high blood pressure (genetic - both parents had heart attacks) and my mother also had type 2 diabetes.

I was an overweight child but became quite slim in my teens/twenties - and bar pregnancies, maintained that. Over the past few years the pound have crept on and I’m sick of it.

I don’t actually over-eat but it’s more my body seems stuck here now. I also probably drink a bit too much and know that doesn’t help…my willpower with wine is bad. 😖

I keep reading about slim women who are taking injections to lose even more weight - of course this is done privately. But I wonder if I might qualify on the nhs given my high bp and family history, even though I’m not that overweight? Anyone been in a similar position?

Feel for you.

GP surgery managed to sign me up to a digital programme with a slightly higher bmi and as a diabetic thanks to their old records and I’m one month of confirming if I have put the diabetes into remission and not taken any oral diabetic medication such as Metformin in 5 months.

I was only wondering what happens if you are bigger and do not want bariatric surgery will they be forcing a certain type of person/people as against what people on this forum believes not every trust is giving out access to the injections but preparing to open up theatres to do surgery. Let’s hope they make plans for aftercare of these surgeries far better then how they currently treat aftercare for emergencies hey!)

Sadly I have yet to meet fellow type 2 diabetics who decided to take this medication for weight loss as opposed to treating their diabetes but found their side effect was ‘greatly improving their diabetes’ but when I made a thread earlier this year in Feb on the diabetic sub forum I’m sure someone commented they were successful with a low bmi.

I'm glad it was helpful. Though the idea of what I am to suggest is probably inconceivable to most, anyone that could stop drinking altogether would be happier and healthier in the long run. There is probably not one person on the planet that would say "if only I had been drinking," but scores that say, "if only I had NOT been drinking."

Alcohol is essentially a poison and affects women so much worse than men drink-for-drink. As a woman, going through peri-/menopause, your body will stop metabolising it the way you did when you were younger, and it negatively affects every organ of your body, though most people only focus on the liver. It significantly affects (even in quantities the average person thinks are acceptable) the vascular system, kidneys, pancreas, liver, brain, skin . . . everything . .. and increases your risks for cancer and dementia significantly.

And of course, it severely impacts your mental health. It is a depressant, after all, and so with repeat and prolonged use and because alcohol affects the same part of the brain that is affected with conditions like depression, anxiety, etc, it will only make depression worse.

It, quite honestly, is one of the biggest con jobs performed on mankind. Anyone saying "well Biblical figures drank wine," keep in mind that alcohol was initially the drink everyone drank because it killed bacteria so was much safer to drink than water, but the alcohol content was very low back then, not like it is today. You see the same parallels now with marijuana. The THC levels of today's marijuana are 10 times that of 25 years ago. And, with weed, what is affected long-term is anxiety, which is made worse. Of course, every pot-smoker will say the opposite because it offers temporary relief, but when they are not smoking anxiety is worsened and then that creates the vicious cycle of needing to smoke more. The exception I would made is for edibles used for pain management of the chronically ill.

The real question people should ask themselves is why do they need to numb themselves to get through the day . . . night . . . or their life, especially when the payoff is a shortened lifespan, a higher risk for dementia and cancer and a million bad decisions?

I think there are lots of reasons people want to numb themselves to their lives. It’s a pretty privileged position to think otherwise.

My alcohol consumption went up in lockdown as I was hanging on by a thread, working full time and home educating 2 DC (one SEND). One child had meltdowns that included physically attacking me. A glass of wine helped then.

Then again it went up in the 18 months my autistic dc was out of school and I was fighting the LA, applying for tribunal, trying to get an EHCP, supporting dc at home with burn out and also working full time.

The injections have helped me with alcohol, as has the fact my life is just better now. But socially I still enjoy a glass of wine.

The real question people should ask themselves is why do they need to numb themselves to get through the day . . . night . . . or their life, especially when the payoff is a shortened lifespan, a higher risk for dementia and cancer and a million bad decisions?

I know exactly why I need to numb myself to get through life sometimes. It’s the reality of raising a severely disabled child.

It is not privilege that causes me to pose the question. It is the opposite. The reason I pose this question, and sorry that you took offense to it, but when the root cause for relying on "numbing agents" is never addressed and one chooses to self-medicate in this way, it rarely helps. It may help temporarily, but in the long-run, it always goes bad for a large number of people.

You may be in the rare group who can have a glass of wine a few nights a week and it never escalates, but typically when it becomes a nightly habit for most, with enough years, it will escalate.

What I would suggest is for people undergoing stress like you have described yourself to find a substitute for that which does not carry the significant risk that alcohol carries. Keep in mind, that you have alcohol companies that spend billions of dollars in advertising, and pseudo-scientific studies to keep the masses drinking when the truth of the matter is that every human body would be better without it.

Ditto @WhereOnEarthIsMyPlanet .

And you have my sympathies and admiration.

You're misunderstanding private prescription. Nobody can get a private prescription at your weight. They can get an illegal prescription!

My BMI was 28.6 when I started. So I was fat, but not >30 BMI fat. I just knocked 2 inches off my height to qualify.

You might qualify if your BMI is 27 with high blood pressure. Look at SheMed.

My BMI is 27 and due to pcos / hypothyroidism / perimenopause just haven’t shifted it so trying WLI. I also have high cholesterol (and PCOS).

I’m lifting weights and eating loads of protein so not worried about losing muscle mass.

Yes you’ll qualify if bmi 27 with high cholesterol. Just make yourself a little shorter

Are people seriously suggesting that the OP fudges the numbers to get WLI? Absolute madness. Have a chat with your GP to see what they say. You will probably be prescribed Orlistat which does work and will cost a fraction of the cost of WLI

Erm… because life is hard and a nice bottle of Rose is a delicious?

Why “madness”? Fatter than you should be is fairly obvious to people, even if the BMI says otherwise.
The vast majority of people don’t have an eating disorder. However the risks of high blood pressure, sleep apnea or fat around the organs are well documented. Why not give it to all?

Yes, Life is hard, but self-medicating in this way carries more long-term risk and will eventually sabotage any relief you get temporarily because for "most" people as it begins to have the detrimental affects on the brain, people must consume more frequently and larger quantities. Then, you have made a "hard" life even harder by introducing organ and systemic disease caused by substance use disorder. Most people incorrectly believe that addiction looks like the extreme version of that only . . . when people lose their jobs, their relationships, their homes, their health, etc. But substance abuse disorder has many faces. It is that mum or dad that gets tipsy every night and picks a verbal argument. It is the bloke that can't remember what he did the night before and now has hangovers that last for days.