Mounjaro/Wegovy with >5 stone/30kg to lose - thread 11!

[MooBaggage]

New thread for anyone with more than 5 stone/30kg to lose. All very 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.

Nothing is off topic and progress photos always welcome, encouraging us all to keep going!

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

Sorry about your friend @MooBaggage but otherwise sounds like you're making the most of solo-ing it in a positive, MJ-way and looking great as well!

So incredibly impressed at you holidaying along and living your best life while doing so. Don't underestimate how much of a feat that is! Very proud.

I'm sure you look smoking with your new body, enjoy every minute!

@QueenOfHiraeth👀👀👀 your turkey tail! Majestically above & beyond in every way. A Christmas to remember!

🎅🏽🦃🙌🏽🤩

@MooBaggageim quite jealous of your solo AI in the Canaries!!!

You have a wonderful fantastic attitude to life.
👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽

Another neat 1lb loss this week taking me to total loss of 130lb.

Saturday check in - End of week - 72 (5 x 2.5mg, 53 x 3.75mg, 15 x 3.08mg)

SW - 21st 05lbs BMI 44.8
CW - 12st 01lbs BMI 25.3
TW - 11st 12lbs BMI 24.9 (normal BMI!)

Total loss - 9st 4lbs (130lbs), 43.5%

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) - 1,2,1,3,0,2,0,1,2,1,0,2,0,2,1,1,2,0,0,1,1,1,1 (avg 1.0)

Nice to read about all the lovely Christmases everyone has planned and how everyone is mostly relaxed over food for it - unlike me last year 🤣 contemplating every scenario of doing my injection earlier/later/lower dose when in the end it didn't really matter!

Black Friday not far away now. Last year I had some bargains for decent quality multivitamins and collagen and stocked up. I am just on my last bottle of multi vits from last year now so will be on the look out for bargains - last year I had Metagenics Women 50+ very cheap, someone on here mentioned Inessa before which also looked good so will be keeping an eye on them too.

Not sure if I am going to restock the collagen, also on last one - I have taken it for the last year because I had bought it in bulk during the deals but no way to know if it did anything - perhaps I have just been drinking expensive powder, or perhaps it would have been much worse without it! 🤷‍♀️

What are you looking out for in Black Friday deals?

I hadn’t thought about it but your Black Friday idea is a good one, I am running out of various supplements. I will have a look!

Weigh day for me after 14 weeks of maintenance:

SW: 241.2 / 17st 3 / BMI 35.6
CW: 152.3 / 10st 12 / BMI 22.5
GW: remain in 150s, perhaps a little lower

Still pootling along, have eaten out twice this week and still lost a pound. Now down to 5.7mg, speeding up my rate of reduction because I really want to get my bp up a bit if I can and I guess there’s no point going to the GP about it while I’m on MJ. But equally I don’t want to just go cold turkey. Guzzling water and salt without a lot of success at the moment. Maybe I should get some of those lovely stockings 🤔

I have also reduced Omeprazole to 1 every 36 hours from 2 pd. It’s fine so far, hoping I can come off it completely after a few weeks and my B12 can recover. Pah, it’s a house of cards isn’t it, once you start taking meds..

Bloody hell @WeAllHaveWings 130lbs!!! And so nearly there - you are brilliant 😍 😍😍and to have done all that on low doses - just amazing..! Are you going to celebrate when you hit your final target? And are you going to allow a few lbs either way in the longer term? I'm thinking about having a 3lb either way range, to give some flexibility - but have a long way to go before then!

Thanks @MooBaggage. Honestly....not 100% sure what I am doing and much like previous stages it will be trial and error and patience I think (and taking ideas from @gimmemounjaro experiences who is a several weeks ahead of me). I am likely to hit normal BMI around pre-Christmas and Christmas which isn't ideal as that change from routine will make things a bit harder to judge what is going on.

I reduced my dose ever so slightly a few months back to see if it would slow loses down and haven't noticed a significant difference so I guess once I hit target I might drop to 2.5mg and then try that for a bit and see what happens, not sure if I will do this before Christmas or later in January once back in routine.

I am hoping my weight will settle itself as I like the way I eat now, but if weight keeps coming off I think I will be ok with that until I hit <11st 7lbs, then I will need to have a rethink. What I don't want to do is reintroduce a regular snacking or carb focused meals habit to up calories as that, along with UPF was probably the slippery slope to cravings and my downfall before.

It’s scary, the thought of trying to figure out how to juggle the MJ dose and your calories isn’t it - I was so panicky at first and thought every tiny gain was the beginning of becoming fat again - but it soon becomes the new routine. I do weigh every day though, so I always know what’s coming on official weigh day iykwim. If / when I hit that point where MJ stops working and that means the urge to eat like I used to, and the return of my old metabolism, I want to know asap. So far I have reduced from 10mg to 5.7mg without any noticeable effect.

I completely agree with keeping your diet just as clean. I eat a few more carbs now, like seeded sourdough and potatoes a bit more often, and I eat more nuts as snacks when I would probably have powered through to the next meal before. And I don’t seem to have protein shakes any more, so the meals that have replaced them (maybe 2x pw) are probably more calorific. I still stay away from UPF as much as I can, and refined carbs, especially rice which is my nemesis. Had quite a ricey time lately and it’s a guaranteed gain for me.

I’m really enjoying finding out what works for my body and what doesn’t, and so far it does feel like something quite fundamental has changed, like this is where my body wants to be. But I’m very aware that might be the MJ I’m still on!

Did you see an ongoing pattern with your bp monitoring and injection day @gimmemounjaro ? I tried to monitor mine too to see if there was a pattern but keep forgetting to do it 🙈 When I do remember it is sitting mostly around 90/60 now.

Good news the omeprazole slow tapering off is going well🤞it keeps up! I am hoping my B12 is restored now, since May I have gone from B12 injections EOD, to weekly, moved to 3 weeks and now its been 5 weeks since last injection and symptoms are staying away (also take daily oral supplements). I don't doubt they will come back, but trying to judge it by symptoms now - it is usually the shooting pains and foot buzzing I notice first as the fatigue is less easy to pinpoint to just the B12 (could be HRT/work stress etc).

Did anyone else notice the Oushk ask Hira thread in the Weight Loss Chat board (odd they didn't post it in this board, perhaps mainly interested in those new to WLIs). It has started well in true MN fashion? 🙈 Someone should have warned them!

Not really, no @WeAllHaveWings
I got very excited the first week because it crashed spectacularly soon after injecting but there isn’t really a pattern that correlates to MJ levels as far as I can see. It’s sitting at around 83-87 / 55-62 at the moment. I’ve just ordered some support stockings. And - trying not to get too excited but I just had a cup of tea and took it half an hour later and it had gone up to 97/62 from 87/57 this morning. I read that caffeine can help - I have been decaf since caffeine started giving me palpitations years ago, but perhaps it’s time to reintroduce it. The tea was lush too, decaf coffee is fine but decaf tea never quite matches up. So win win!

Think I should get my B12 retested, it was low but just over the normal level, and I’ve been taking an oral supplement and having injections but only every 8 weeks. Maybe I should up that frequency a bit until I (hopefully) ditch the omeprazole entirely.

My NSV this week has been buying a denim jumpsuit that fits perfectly (a FatFace 12L) and I feel great in it, I’m strutting around like a 70s goddess 💪
The pleasure I get from clothes now is such an unexpected bonus.

What type of B12 are you having @gimmemounjaro ? If it is Hydroxocobalamin I can send you some of the ampoules I have left over as I am unlikely to use them all now (would just need to find a box and some packing to put them in).

I have about 60 ampoules left out of the box of 100 so if I am only taking every few weeks now they mostly go to waste - can send you 20-30 of them (freeby of course). You would need to buy your own syringes/needles (they can be done subcutaneous with 6mm or longer) and if taking more often make sure you take enough folate etc to support them. It would keep you topped up while still on omeprazole.

That is hilarious 😂
Not one docile question!

Gosh I don’t know - I go to a private medical place to have them and they just call it B12, I never thought of doing it myself, what a dimwit! I bet an ampoule is a fair bit cheaper than £25!

I would love some if you have any spare, I have some syringes already for extracting the last few drops of MJ 😂

Do you take folate orally? I’ve not been taking any, GP didn’t mention it, I am not doing this very well!

I will DM you re the B12, thank you 🙏

@gimmemounjaro Sticking this in here as dm doesn't allow links easily. I got 100 ampoules from Germany for I think just over £100 plus postage so they are only just over £1 each.

You would probably need bigger syringe volume than MJ. This is what I bought

https://www.pascoe.de/en/products/detail/vitamin-b12-depot-injektopas-1500-ug.html

the patient leaflet is in German, but if you copy/paste into ChatGPT or look at in Chrome you can translate it.

These are my supplies I buy from UKMedi - an ampoule snapper to open it, 2.5ml luer lock syringe, filter needle to draw up (incase of glass shards), a needle to inject (slightly thicker than MJ one as it is a bit thicker liquid). You will also need cotton wool for any drips after, and an alcohol wipe to clean around the glass ampoule before snapping open.

https://ukmedi.co.uk/products/safe-snap-amp-snapper-safe-snap-safesnap-ukmedi-co-uk

https://ukmedi.co.uk/products/2-5ml-terumo-luer-lock-syringe

https://ukmedi.co.uk/products/18g-15-inch-blunt-filter-bd-needles-40mm-sol-m-305211-ukmedi-co-uk

https://ukmedi.co.uk/products/31g-light-blue-6mm-meso-relle-mesotherapy-needle-meso-relle-am316-ukmedi-co-uk

Ideally if you haven't had a particular type of B12 before you should get it first time in a medical setting in case of a very rare reaction (I didn't know this until after), the risk is less than an allergic reaction to a bee sting.

If you look at the Vitamin B12 Wake Up facebook group, under files, there is one called Essential Co-Factors that tells you how much/often they recommend taking folate - they seem to aim high, but you can also check and ask ChatGPT or ask your private provider for advice. I did take 5mg folate (also from Germany) when I was doing EOD, but dropped to just my multivitamin which has 400mcg of 5-MTHF now I am taking less often.

I also have some Superior Source Mircrolingual Folic Acid I never used/no longer need and might be be useful, absorbs better, while you are still on omeprazole.

Depending on your symptoms, EOD might be too much, I may have over done it and reduced from EOD to weekly when I got a bit anxious one night (very unlike me and might have even have been the B12 or folate) so I reduced.

If you read the leaflet/do a bit of research/perhaps speak to the private provider you use and decide you want to give them a go drop me a dm with your address or any questions and I'll post them over. Take your time, no rush, they are not going anywhere.

I have posted on another thread I have my first syringe of Mounjaro but really nervous to start as I am worrying about side effects. You all,seem to be managing am I worrying for nothing?

@Panama2 I, and many people, had minor side effects that are very manageable. Others are less lucky, you won't know until you try!

When you say first "syringe" you mean pen, you have bought from a pen from a registered GPhC pharmacy?

Yes sorry I do mean pen and it was from an online pharmacy Medexpress

@Panama2 thanks, was just checking!

To help reduce side effects, try eating smaller, more frequent meals and avoid very fatty, processed, fried or high-carb/sugar foods, maybe spicy - including the day before you do you first injection. Limit alcohol, at least during the first couple of weeks as your body gets used to the medication then if you feel like it try tentatively. Keep well hydrated, gradually aiming for at least 2L of water throughout the day. Pay attention to how your body responds to different foods.

Some side effects may still happen whatever you do, but your local pharmacy can help manage them. Many people find that side effects ease as their body gets used to the medication.

My side effects were mostly fatigue in the first couple of months, constipation and a couple of random one off days spent need the loo in weeks 4 and 6 - never did work out what happened then! - might not even have been because of Mounjaro.

What did you do about the constipation? I try to stay away from fatty foods since having my gall bladder removed and I drink very very rarely so safe on that one. Good tip about the day before I was thinking of starting Monday as have nothing planned for next week.

It was only the first 2-3 months for me, initially tried keeping hydrated and eating the usual culprits (prune juice 🤮), I tried pysllium husks but they didn’t seem to do much for me (many find them or inulin helpful), I did buy laxatives but never actually used them. Once it was bad but I had work the next day in office and I was worried about using laxatives (I have somehow managed to get to 56 and never had to before!) and the timing, didn’t want them working when I was in the office, so I walked the chemist to get glycerin suppositories which were supposed to be more immediate action, but by the time I’d walked the 2km the walk got things moving so never used them either! I recommend walking!

I ended up taking a daily magnesium complex for leg cramps which helps keeping things regular too. And a squat stool someone mentioned on here, those are a great help!

Thank you @WeAllHaveWings - I have emailed my B12 people to ask what I’ve had before. Looks like hydroxocobalamin is what’s generally advised, so hopefully all good, I will get back to you 🤞

@Panama2 Hello! Welcome - I felt soooooo nervous before I first injected... I'm also a Monday jab person and it works really well for me, as I tend to be able to eat slightly more at the weekends as my suppression drops!

Side effects vary, so I'd just say go for it and no doubt you'll manage them as you go along. It took me a couple of weeks to get used to the fact that my body really did want much smaller portions - I would cook and plate up too much food at first and then feel over full if I tried to eat it all.

Water is a priority - I didn't drink any before starting on MJ but now drink about 3 x litres a day (often with a drop of Tesco sugar free lime cordial!). Also prioritise protein. I'm on holiday at the moment and my dinner was a steak and some prawns and some salad- no carbs! Protein will fill you up for longer.

Good luck and keep posting here - so many people will have good advice if you need any support 😊

@gimmemounjaro I don't know if this is relevant or not but I met an old colleague this week who was telling me they have had new guidance to GPs that B12 injections should only be used now in patients who have proven absorption problems and oral medication should be used for all in the first instance