Mounjaro/Wegovy with >5 stone/30kg to lose - thread 10!

[MooBaggage]

New thread for anyone with more than 5 stone/30kg to lose. All welcome, whichever part of the journey you are on.

We have newbies and those who have got to their targets and lots of us in between at various stages, all supporting each other along the way.

Kiwis and milled flaxseed are still the order of the day, along with water, posh scales, weight loss charts (thank you Infosec!), Vinted and even more water...

We're coping with the Mounjaro palavers and hoping that somehow, we will all still be able to carry on with this amazing journey which is working so well for most of us.

No discount codes please - there is a separate thread for that.

Saturday weigh in and stayed the same. Was not expecting a loss this week as have been off work and out eating more and cake 😋

End of week - 61 (5 x 2.5mg, 53 x 3.75mg, 3 x 3.08mg)
SW - 21st 5lbs BMI 44.8
CW - 12st 13lbs BMI 27.1

Losses (24H2) - 10,2,2,4,1,3,3,3,1,3,2,2,3,3,2,3,3,2,1,4,0,2,3,3,1,4,0 (avg 2.3)
Losses (25H1) - 0,3,2,1,3,1,1,0,2,3,3,-1,3,2,2,1,2,2,1,1,0,3,0 (avg 1.6)
Losses (25H2) - 1,2,1,3,0,2,0,1,2,1,0 (avg 1.1)
(excluding first week outlier)

Total loss - 8st 06lbs (118lbs), 39.5%
Next Target 🎯- 11st 12lbs BMI 24.9 healthy!

Upped some of my strength exercises from a 3kg to 4kg dumbbell this week (and others I found harder from 2kg to 3kg or 1kg to 2kg) - omg can really feel the difference now in my non dominant arm - can barely do more that 6 reps at a time with 4kg, but will persevere!

Also managed to easily get in >15k steps three times this week with day trips out. Although I think my Apple watch is more generous than the ancient fitbit I was using before it is still a massive increase from normal working days!

@CanIGoHomeNowPlease well done on the new job and hope it continues to do well.

Welcome to all new to the thread and glad to see all our usual suspects are still here strong as ever 9000 posts later! 💗

They look fab! I love Joe Browns.

Hello! I have been reading this inspiring and insightful thread series since before I started in March. I didn't have a target to start with, but having lost 20kg, I'd love to join you (Longley Farm, Kiwis, Gaviscon).

I was fine until I started taking contraceptives, then weight just piled on. I used to get hangry, and I am sure from my reading that I was insulin resistant. I'm now well through menopause, and I want to be able to enjoy the rest of my life without aches and pains all the time. Mounjaro has been a godsend: I use it in conjunction with Nutracheck, and it's really working well. I'm retired now, so I can make time to swim or go to the gym five days a week.

Hello @ReluctantCustomer 😊

How much have you got to lose, roughly? I'll be here for at least another year - am 8 months in and hoping to be at a 'healthy' BMI by August 2026..!

This thread really is lovely - has kept me going since January and I'm very grateful there are others ahead of me - continues to give me hope, as my mind still sometimes tells me it's all a blip/isn't happening etc. 🙄

I'm hoping to lose another 18kg.

Asda online confirmed my order for 2x 7.5 by email and said it would be available after 3pm yesterday.

But now I’m here to collect it from the actual pharmacy they can’t fulfil it as they’ve been sent no stock for over a week - all they have are some 2.5 and that’ll need me to have a new prescription.

The pharmacist thinks the supplier is deliberately holding back to sell at the higher price next month

I have messaged Asda online for advice as I can’t order a smaller dose unless I get a refund as they’ve taken the money! Or do I simply wait and keep my prescription with the store pharmacy and phone every day to see if they have had any stock?

I am with ASDA, I have four doses left in a 12.5 pen and there hasn’t been any stock to order since this started. I do have a 7.5 in the fridge that I ordered in error so I suppose I can use that if things don’t change.

I think Eli Lilly if they are holding back supplies are behaving completely unethically and it was wrong of pharmacies to take orders from new customers or supply multiple pens if they couldn’t guarantee supplies for their existing customers.

Just started week 27 (I think! I’m starting to lose track!)
currently on my 3rd 10mg pen, with another one waiting in the fridge. I am feeling less suppression but am still managing to lose between 1 & 2 pounds a week. I’ll see how long I can manage on 10, but I may have go to up to 12.5. Not looking forward to paying for that!
Highest weight 16st 6 lbs (Oct ‘23)
Starting weight on MJ : 15st 3 lbs (Feb 25)
current weight: 12st 7 lbs
Goal weight 9st to 9st 7 so about half way!

I was talking to a pharmacist friend the other day who said many pharmacists are appalled at the wild west that this market has become and that he got the impression that many in the pharmacy world (possibly including Lilly) were seriously cross with some pharmacies taking the piss. The regulators were aware of some pharmacies selling outside the UK (which is outside the terms agreed with Lilly), some issuing the medication too frequently e.g. by allowing orders every 2 weeks instead of every 3-4 (yes, that one is our friends MedExpress again🙄) or by not informing GPs so patients could order from multiple pharmacies with no chance of being picked up then stockpile or share with others who do not qualify, etc. In other words, generally profiteering and not behaving professionally. Lilly brought in a quota system to keep some control over supply and they have stuck to those quotas over the last week or two even though the pharmacies have all sold out and some even oversold.
There was also a post from a pharmaceutical wholesaler last week saying that one unnamed pharmacy had tried to order an additional 1000 pens just 20 minutes before the announcement last week which sounds very suspicious.

Awful though it is for all of us, who are mostly blameless, I think we have to accept that prescription medications should be treated with more respect than they have been and, Trump aside, things were bound to change

...and OMG I must be psychic!
Just had a message from GPhC Pharmacy Regulation containing the following:

"We have recently had concerns raised with us by the public, medicines manufacturers, and other regulators regarding medicines supplied on private prescriptions overseas by UK pharmacies. Concerns have included medicines being supplied to countries in which they are not legally allowed, and medicines arriving in a condition which means they are not safe to use.
Pharmacies and their teams need to undertake the relevant checks concerning the applicable laws of the country they are sending medicines to.
The packaging, transport method and in-transit timeliness and delivery provider also need to be suitable (in line with the manufacturer’s storage instructions) to ensure that the medicine arrives in good condition and is still safe and fit for purpose.
The DHSC list of medicines that you cannot export from the UK or hoard should also be checked and the potential impact on medicines availability carefully considered before sending medicines outside the UK."

It then goes on to say:

"We recently issued a joint enforcement notice with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to tackle adverts for prescription-only medicines by pharmacies that don’t comply with legislation and standards.
The ASA recently issued rulings against pharmacies, who promoted prescription-only medicines (POMs) for weight management.
These rulings make clear that all injectable forms of weight-management medication are POMs and can’t be advertised, even where ads don’t explicitly name a medicine. The rulings clarify that claims including “Weight Loss Injections” and “GLP-1”, and images including unbranded medical injection pens or vials of liquid, aren’t allowed.

We expect all pharmacies to make sure any adverts or promotion comply. "

Psychic Hiraeth available for words of wisdom at very reasonable rates!

I got an absolutely massive bruise from my jab last week. Does anyone know what might have caused it?

I don't think I did anything different when injecting.

It was in the biggest roll on my stomach, could that be it? Sorry TMI, but the roll under my belly button is bigger than the roll above my belly button. I jabbed while sitting up (if that matters) under belly button. I've been tending to jab in outer thighs, so don't know why I did belly last week. Huge bruise from it though.

@Trinck You probably just caught a little blood vessel. It happens with subcutaneous injections sometimes. I've had that too.
If it happened every single time it might be worth following up though

It's never happened before. Doesn't hurt or anything, just looks unsightly. It's a much bigger bruise than I would have imagined from a tiny needle.

Hopefully doesn't happen again.

Sorry about your bruise @Trinck . I get them sometimes but I don’t know why.
@QueenOfHiraeth I have wondered how the advertising can be ethical. I thought there were strict guidelines .
@alltablenochairs I have definitely become easily put off food. We had poached salmon for tea, beautifully cooked. I was hungry and enjoying it when I saw the skin and thought this was a living creature. I felt so sick. I’ve never been vegetarian or particularly squeamish but I couldn’t eat another mouthful, not even the new potatoes and salad. I also find rich and fatty food very difficult now. And I lived for toast but now can’t manage more than a slice. I still love fruit and veg though, and I have a passion for small helpings of nice ice cream, which I’ve never previously rated particularly. I still like cake but only if it’s home made and very very good, so that’s quite easy to avoid. I used to have a massive appetite and capacity, but now I don’t understand how people can eat so much. It’s weird how much I’ve changed. Just hope it’s permanent.

@Trinck I have a bigger bruise for the first time in 12wks too, it was also on a bigger area. Tbh, I had just stormed out of the room after bickering with my other half so think I maybe went a bit to hard on the jab 😂 rage injecting is not the one haha!

Thanks for the new thread. I’m still around, still in a 3 month long stall…
Just about to start my week off before my surgery, so last jab was last Sunday and my op is on Friday. I’m going to have another week after my op, and then go back on 2.5mg and build up again. Hope you are all doing ok.

The regulators have been slow to catch up with the WLI market. If UK pharmacies have been selling outside the UK then I have no sympathy for them. It’s not surprising then that Eli Lilly has enforced strict quotas in this case.

MedExpress sales techniques with all the code spamming has been horrendous. Lots of us now have a few pens as a stockpile so some pharmacies will suffer in the short term unless they can convince us to switch to Wegovy.

I’d be really worried if I was a pharmacy. Lots of sales in August, but how many in September? I’d bet the majority of people currently on MJ have at least ordered their next pen early, and a big proportion will have ordered at least one extra. A chunk of the people left over will switch to wegovy. And with new customers, how many people will start MJ over Wegovy with the price so high? I can’t see anything other than prescription numbers plummeting.

@Pumpkinforever Pharmacy regulators (and to a point the medical ones) are always one step behind because, up until recently, misdemeanours were small because, old-fashioned though it may sound, professionalism and social standing were still important within the professions. Either that or we were all just very dull!
When I first qualified it was a world with lots of small, privately owned pharmacies and surgeries with just one or two doctors, not many big chemists or practices. There used to be a page or two at the back of the Pharmaceutical Journal each week showing any striking-offs, suspensions or reprimands which were usually for misuse of drugs, relatively minor theft or sloppy work performance which contravened law.
The world has changed, companies and crimes are much bigger and money is far more of a driving force. The regulators were set up to deal with individuals committing small offences so are relatively toothless.
God I feel old 😭

Nah, you've got experience & wisdom queen (& psychic skills apparently 🤣)

I have been watching the advertisements with my jaw on the floor, if the adverts had come from big pharma the response would have been so different.

Hello new people 👋 this lot are lovely

@Trinck I've had some interesting bruises from MJ. I usually write it up as 'one of those things'. However there's a v.rare side effect of MJ in that it can alter kidney function. This can cause unexplained bruising. Would it be worth speaking to the pharmacy you get your MJ from or even your GP?

@Zebracat my tastes have totally changed as well. I've completely lost my appetite for anything sweet. I've never really eaten meat or shellfish though, even as a young child. Similarly while I eat eggs mixed in foods (e.g. a cake) there's absolutely no way I would eat eggs whole. I'm also hoping my food tastes have changed permanently. Until the tango'ed prick hoiked prices up I was expecting to stay on MJ long-term so hopefully this would be behind the appetite changes.

I think I’m really going to struggle these next 2 weeks. I’m already really hungry today. How can I stay on track??

Sometimes I have a very hungry day then the next day, I am OK again. I find cleaning my teeth helps or chewing gum and going for high volume, low calorie foods. I do like some of the recipies by the Broccoli mum (don't know if I can leave a link but she is easy to google) who is a high volume eater but has lost a lot of weight. A lot of her recipes are behind a paywall but if you look on social media, she has recipes there that you can access without paying.

All you can do is try to stick to a routine of regular high protein meals and snacks (remember junk or sugary food is an addictive snowball), drink lots of water and try to keep busy I guess. I find that almost timetabling what I am eating and when helps as I have no decisions to make
Good luck with it all

Hello all, am annoyed to have only lost 1.6kg over the whole month. Need to be grateful I’m still losing though, and am seeing shape change.

I think I’m most annoyed because it’s coinciding with not knowing if I’ll be able to afford to carry on with MJ once I finish my next few pens. I’ve got another six months to go at the very least - but only if I get back to more consistent losses. Am hoping getting back into a term-time routine is going to restart things - I’ll have more time to meal plan and exercise.