Idiots guide please

[Hanschristiananderson]

I am thinking about going on monjaro but really very anxious about it all. Side effects, injecting myself, how it all works. I find it terrifying.
I am beginning to accept that I’m not going to lose the weight myself as I just don’t stick to a rigid enough diet .
How does it all work? What dose should I start on? What do I need and how can I expect to feel?

I really hate the idea of it but the implications of being so overweight are outweighing the fear.

How do I know if suppliers are ethical? Where do I get it from ? I really am clueless.

Im no expert but have been on it for a year.

I googled wegovy and Mounjaro and briefly read through the info for both. Mounjaro showed slightly better results.

I went for a name I knew (Lloyds pharmacy) and went to their online doctor service and followed their process. Not a cheap option tbh; there are comparison websites. I just wanted a UK company with a reputation to lose. They require you to consent to them informing your GP.

The dosing was laid out on their website. I started on 2.5 which pretty much everybody does. The effect wasn’t really noticeable for the first month for me.

I then went up to 5 and had an immediate effect. I climbed the doses every month as the effect seemed to fade (and they do tend to encourage you to go up - you don’t have to). Side effects were intermittently quite bad and I contacted the online doctor twice. They were much less bad if I didn’t drink alcohol or eat fatty/processed food, but at the higher doses it was quite difficult. On the online doctors advice I went back down to 10 and have stayed there. I barely get side effects at all, and lose slowly. So far I’ve lost 21kg or 3.5 stone and have gone from a size 22 to a 16/18. I have about 7kg to go to a healthy BMI.

There are lots of online suppliers. I went with a familiar name to start with (one of the supermarket pharmacies) because I felt I knew they would be ok. You do an online application and will have to supply photos and information about your health. You start on the 2.5mg dose and work your way up in increments, depending on how effective it is (I've been taking it since May and am only on 7.5mg, which is the third level of dose). Your supplier usually provides pen, needles and some send wipes as well.

There are tutorials on you tube to guide you through injecting. The first time I did it I literally did it along with the video and was petrified of getting it wrong, but it was fine.

You might get side effects, you might not. I have been pretty lucky - just some nausea. You won't really know until you start, but there are a few things that might help to mitigate against SE, such as avoiding very greasy or highly processed foods at least until you know how your body is reacting to it.

If you don't want to take it, don't. But it might be worth a try.

Thank you that’s helpful. What were the side effects? How did it affect your eating? I understand it suppresses your appetite but I really want to understand exacts what it does.

I don’t binge eat , I don’t eat rubbish. I just need to eat less of what I do eat. It should be easy, but it’s not.

Online pharmacies should be registered with the GPhC and display their registration details on their website. There is a price comparison website called Monj.co.uk which lists a lot of the GPhC registered pharmacies. There are big names that you’ll recognise and plenty of other decent pharmacies too. The medication is the same wherever you get it from so there’s not much point paying more for it than you have to.

Everyone starts at the lowest dose, does 4 weeks on that, and then you decide if you want to or need to move up a dose. You can move up a dose after 4 weeks on the previous dose, again if you feel you need to.

You have to balance the risk of possible side effects, usually mild and manageable, with the risks of remaining obese. Which are real and many.

I started by feeling sick (about 24 hours after injection in my case). In the early months I also had unpleasant burps that tasted bad. I didn’t feel hungry. It wasn’t nice, but there was an immediate release from feeling chained to my impulses. I carried on eating each mealtime but would only eat about half my normal intake because I felt so full for so long afterwards. I was a bit constipated but not too bad - perhaps because the only thing I reliably felt able to eat was citrus fruit. it’s important to monitor nutrients because your intake is less. My diet is generally good, just too much of it, so that wasn’t too concerning, but I kept an eye on the amount of protein I was managing, and particularly on the bad side effect weeks.

About once a month I would have a bout of vomiting - feeling really unwell for a few hours and burping a lot then projectile vomiting with simultaneous diarrhoea. Horrible but it cleared up very fast. At the higher doses it happened about twice a month and on the highest dose I twice had to take a day off work because I felt so terrible and couldn’t eat, which is clearly not sustainable. That’s when I dropped doses.

For me, I have not usually found it a huge struggle to eat, except on the worst days, and I enjoy my food and have to use a small amount of willpower. Fresher, lighter food is much more appealing to me and I eat a lot of soup and salad. I count calories and exercise on MyFitnessPal just the way I always did.

You dont "pick" the dose. It's prescribed.
On mj vs wegovy its a coin toss. With work very well.

You stay on dose levels for a minimum not max period of time and i recommend not progressing up if you are having bad side effects and / or are still having good losses.
Watch your food and alcohol intake. High fat food in particular will be hard and painful to digest.

The suppliers are all regulated online pharmacies and profiteers there's no ethics.
The product is regulated and legit.

One thing I'd be sure of is you have enough cash to continue. Some people struggle to afford it and then continuing it becomes tricky.

Ive been on it 18m and lost approx 30kg. Ive maintened for a while (since about 1 yr mark) so a variety yif personal reasons.
I still have 10kg to lose.

I would say really I eat one full meal a day and something vey small the other two meals - have just had coffee and a pear for breakfast, probably a hard boiled egg with a bit of salad for lunch. That’s how I’m going to need to eat for life I think.

This is a good recent thread that explains a lot of this well. https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/weight-loss-injections/5429708-how-does-food-suppression-work?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

i would also recommend doing a deep dive back through old threads on here then also joining the October starters one for ongoing support with those starting at same time as you. It’s one of the best most supportive uses I’ve ever had for mumsnet and I’ve been here about 15 years.

@Hanschristiananderson , have you considered joining facebook groups for GLP-1 users? (I suggest joining U.K. groups) You will get the whole gamut of people’s experiences there. A word of warning after having been on this meditation for approaching a year, those with astonishingly fast weight loss do seem to love to post about it and because it’s been so easy for them appear to think (not all of them obviously) that those who aren’t having such an easy time are not doing it properly. If you happen to be one of the very, very many for whom the weight does not fall off super fast, don’t listen to the negative Nellie’s.
I started with MedExpress but moved on from them because I discovered they don’t support long term maintenance which I expect to need. I have subsequently purchased from both Cloud and Swift doctor pharmacies who do support long term maintenance. There are some suppliers who offer more in the way of counselling along the way but I have done an enormous amount of reading around the subject and haven’t felt the need for this.
I have experienced no significant side effects, I think we all feel very nervous before we start but we can’t know how we will react unless we try…
I’ve lost just over 5 stone in a bit under 11 months and am now reducing my doses, I got all the way up to 15mg. My weight loss averaged 1.5Lb per week, much more than that isn’t very healthy.
I get my husband to jab me but I’ve never heard anyone complain that they found jabbing themselves difficult and it’s definitely not painful. I have sometimes been a bit itchy in the area in which I’ve had the injection for a few days after though, I bought some cream which helped a bit.
It is absolutely critical that you clean up your diet while taking the medication because fat loss is only the beginning, the real journey is the lifelong effort to maintain.
If your diet has ultra processed food in it, little by little try to replace it with whole, home cooked meals.
Focus on protein and fibre, both will fill you up, protein is super important to help you maintain muscle mass and fibre will feed your gut bacteria.
I didn’t count calories at all but I did have a rough idea how many I’d had each day.
Remember it’s fat you are trying to lose not weight, sometimes the scales are very unkind but that could just be water weight, you may still have lost fat, keep the faith.
Weight train from the outset, losing muscle is inevitable when dieting but we need to try and mitigate the damage. Body weight exercises are perfect to start with.
Read about insulin resistance, I’m pretty sure I had it and remember these medications were initially designed for those with type 2 diabetes to control their blood sugar. If you have significant insulin resistance which wouldn’t be surprising it may take you to get to higher doses before you experience significant fat loss.
I think the glucose goddess has some sound advice, check her out but also consider time restricted eating, I don’t ever eat breakfast in order to extend my overnight fast.
I do not have a single regret, I am 62 years old, post menopausal, hypothyroid and only 5’2”, I was having the Devi’s own job to lose weight despite an extremely healthy diet to start with. I started at 191Lbs and now weigh 119Lbs. I really can’t put in to words how amazing that feels. It is expensive and I’ve had to buy an entirely new wardrobe 😃 but it was worth every penny to me.
Every journey starts with a single step, good luck!

Thank you so much. You sound very like me. Age and weight , height, as well as the sort of diet you eat. I am also hypothyroid and am pre diabetic. I definitely have insulin resistance. It feels very unfair that I’m four stone overweight as I don’t eat junk or processed foods ,
but portion control is the problem. I have also reduced my thyroxine dose as over medicated and it’s made me put on more weight. Quite honestly I feel terrible and can’t go on like this.
When you get to goal weight will you stay on it?

5ft 2, 60 and post menopausal here as well. I started Nov 24 and have lost 5 and half stone. I am also conscious of bone health and the recommendations that old people should have a slighter BMI so I think I want to stick at 25 - 26 BMI but I am aiming for 9 stone 10lbs. I have 9lbs to go. My time on MJ has helped me with portion control and help me vastly reduce UFPs.

When I reach 9stone 10lbs, hopefully sometime December / January, I will slowly reduce my dose as far as I can. I worry about regaining so if I have to stay on a low dose for a long time I will.

@Hanschristiananderson ,
My diet was extremely healthy but I snacked on fruit constantly which didn’t allow my glucose to ever go back down. I ate much bigger portions too.
I reached my goal a couple of weeks age and I hope to find a maintenance dose, I’ve gone from 15mg to 12.5mg, I hope I can get lower. I’m extremely reluctant to stop altogether because if I do and the weight starts creeping up I will no longer be eligible for the medication and I can’t face going back up to a BMI of over 30 before I can resume taking it. I keep in my mind that the exclusivity license E/L have to make this medication will expire in the foreseeable future and when that happens I’m hopeful that prices will dramatically fall. 🙏🏻
Wishing you the very best. X

If you don't want negative results, such as hair & muscle loss, I would suggest you eat more calories - at least the same amount as your BMR

https://www.calculator.net/bmr-calculator.html

My advice for what it's worth.

Many have commented that they started with a well-known supplier - as did I.

If I was starting again I would forget that, just go for the cheapest each time you order, loyalty counts for nothing in this game.

Otherwise, best move I ever made.

It's not the starting you should be worried about, if you fit the criteria they'll prescribe, and even if you don't they will, just lie, I did, it's a piece of piss losing the weight on mounjaro, however once you have lost it can you :
A, contemplate maintaining whilst being obsessed with food again if you come off or
B afford to stay on it

Do you not think you could keep to smaller portions and eat as you have been without MJ?

Could someone post a link to the comparison site for MJ please?

https://monj.co.uk is one of the comparison sites.

Another issue, has anyone experienced a change in their face I.e loss of elasticity and sagging? I am worried about this and what causes it.

If people have experienced this it will be down to age, genetics and the amount of sun damage/smoking damage people have.

If you are obese then carrying the additional weight will be causing you additional ongoing health risks. Losing weight will improve your health and probably your fitness, and reduce/remove those additional risks. Face sagging is not a likely side effect.

I know I look miles better without the several extra chins and moon face that I had before I lost the weight.

I definitely have a saggier neck than before I lost 3 stone. Just one of those things.

I agree with so much that other posters have offered.

I have been taking it since April.
I am 5ft 7 and started at 15st 7lb size 20's were getting tight.

I was so incredibly lucky that a friend started the injections a couple of months before and I was able to use her knowledge to support me.

I was astounded that the needle is very fine and I could barely feel it going in.
I make sure I take it out of the fridge for a couple of hours before injecting - anecdotally it is uncomfortable if it is fridge cold.

On her guidance I stayed on the 2.5 dose for longer and am very pleased I did. I have mostly lost 1-2 lb a week. I am still on 5mg and it is still working well.

For me the most interesting aspect is how much I still enjoy the flavour of food. I have about a quarter of the portion I would previously have had but I just don't want any more.

I have still felt hunger, it is just satisfied more readily.
I have had 2 episodes of horrid side effects (body decided to eject from both ends, what I had put in). This was totally self induced, I ate a whole tub of Pringles out of habit not hunger..... mistake! The second time I ate a packet of 4 Tesco fresh chocolate chip cookies.... another mistake!! but lesson learned... Moderation is required.

After the first stone I felt able to join a local gym and now go 3 times a week.

I am now 12st 7 and have 1.5 st left to go. I would love to be a dress size 12.

So other things I have learned..... Oestrogen is stored in fat cells and if you are taking HRT you might need to adjust your progesterone dose to compensate. I have a very proactive GP who has done a lot of reading about potential issues with womb cancer due to oestrogen release into your system. (during weight loss phase not maintenance)

Also, adding fibre and drinking enough water can help with constipation.

The GP also told me that current research suggests that when you come off the food noise goes from a whisper to a shout but only for a couple of months so if you can get through that you will be unlikely to gain much rebound weight.

If you can I would also talk to your GP first and get some blood levels taken before you start. Mine has been really supportive.

Good luck!

You sound like you have a usually well educated Gp. You’re lucky. So if oestrogen is dumped from fat cells and that’s a cancer risk, is there any way to mitigate that?

OP post-menopause your fat cells are the body’s main source of oestrogen (i.e. they actively produce oestrogen), so being overweight and having more fat cells increases hormone-related cancer risk and losing weight decreases it. Equally someone may need to increase the oestrogen part of their HRT when losing weight as their body is now producing less oestrogen. The ‘oestrogen connection’ on this Cancer Research page explains it really well: https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/11/25/how-exactly-does-obesity-cause-cancer/