Maintaining alone following price rises

[WTDress]

I have lost 7 stone thanks to Mounjaro, and am comfortably at my goal weight at a bmi of 20.5 (less than originally planned - I gave myself a “buffer”)

I had got up to 15mg but have come down to 10mg for maintenance which has been doing its job and I planned to continue long term (I’m with Oushk, they have been happy to prescribe for maintenance)

I just can’t justify the price increase for maintenance. Maybe if I was still losing I would find the extra money but I just can’t in order to stay slim.

I have changed my eating habits and am more active, but could probably do more TBH which I think I will need to in order maintain on my own.

I have 2 and a half 10mg pens in the fridge. Do you think I should just take them then go cold turkey, or use the next one to take 5mg, then the last one to do 2.5mg?

Either way I’m very nervous about hunger returning as I am already way hungrier on 10mg than I was on 15mg. Anyone else in the same boat?

Sounds like if you're noticing the impact from reducing already, the best plan might be to reduce down to 5 then gradually 2.5mg. if that works for you, you might be able to maintain that a little longer at a similar price rather than full cold turkey? Well done on getting to your target though.

Agree with PP, use up the pens to go down slower and taper down to a lower dose which will give you the best chance to get used to the increased hunger and maintain than going cold turkey and having the sudden ravenous hunger. Many research studies show those who taper down and reverse diet, so increase calories slowly weekly, do better at maintaining long term.

I'm tapering down, I went up to 15mg for one pen but could barely eat on it due to super strong suppression, i had an extra 15mg pen in fridge, assuming it would be fine and wear off as most of my doses did but it didn't and i spent 5 weeks eating 750-900 cals a day! Used new pen to do 12.5 and 12mg, now just started 10.5mg and will finish off the pen with that. I also have 2 x 10mg pens which i will use to go down further maybe to 9 them 7.5 and so on down to 5mg or 2.5, depending on hunger and weight I'll either taper off or stay on a low dose. I was prediabetic but i feel my blood sugars have been resolved as 12mg was still high for me, even though 12.5mg wore off in 7 weeks when I was moving up. Still struggling to get up to decent calories but managed 1250 yesterday, started exercising regularly this week too which has helped my body shape. I'm bmi 24.0, would like to drop to 23.5 if I can.
Good luck!

There is one other option, if you can afford it.
The old price of a 15mg pen that you were on was around £180, which works out at £45 per shot if you did 4; £36 if you did 5 shots.

At the newly advertised price, a 12.5mg pen is £275. But if you split that into 6 doses of 10mg, by counting clicks and using the golden dose, it will work out at £45 per shot. Which is what you might have been paying before.....
The 6 doses would be spread over 35 days.

I am under the care of a private weight loss Dr, and his prescription for maintenance is to actually spread out the doses, and then to start to Lower them.
He says that this way, over time, for those of us who have suffered from obesity for a longer time, we can re-set our set point. This is the weight at which ones body is happy, and doesn't keep demanding food because it thinks that by losing weight we are in a famine situation.

I am still on 12.5 but injecting every 9 days, and will soon spread that out to 10.
Yes, on days 8&9 I get a bit more hungry and some food noise, but I have a healthy snack or 2, and can hold on, knowing that after I inject I am going to have some easier days.

7 stone is an awesome achievement @WTDress , and even with the assistance of MJ you must have put a huge amount of effort into choosing what you ate and how much you are able to exercise. We can't achieve these things with MJ alone, & I think we all need to remember that, as we titrate down and /or come off it completely. Basically, perhaps we need more faith in ourselves, as well as the support of MJ??

I'm not quite there yet, but I would be tempted to use the 10mg pens to taper down using them for 6 weeks each (so 6th dose on day 35, just slightly outside the in use period). You will get up to 6 x 7.5mg doses out of a 10mg pen.

That will get you through maybe 15 weeks....to see how you cope on lower doses.

Maybe

4-5 weeks on 7.5mg, and if ok
4-5 weeks on 5mg

Keeping up protein, complex carbs and hydration, keeping down sugar/sweeteners and UPF, to try to manage some of the hunger and reassessing at each stage what your next step will be

I would have an honest conversation with Oushk if you can about how you plan to use the pens you have, from what I can tell from their online lives and what others have said in the Circle group they seem to be open to discussing partial doses from pens/click counting on an individual basis, assuming you approach them with a confident plan of what you are intending to do and how (not sure how they feel about syringes/slightly beyond in-use periods so perhaps not mention). Other option is to spread doses further apart which they will also discuss.

Discussing with them will hopefully keep the door open for a further prescription later on for a cheaper/lower Mounjaro dose, or potentially cheaper Wegovy if you find after trying the lower doses you need something to maintain for a bit longer before coming off completely.

Good luck and let us know how you get on, there will be many in the same situation now.

Thank you everyone. Some really great advice.
I hadn’t thought about increasing time between doses, that’s a great idea.