Experiences of trying an in-between dose with WLI

[ArtesianWater]

I started on MJ in January this year and so far have lost about 1 stone, with 2 stone still to go. It's been slow progress but I'm ok with that. The overall effect has been a total game changer and I am not bingeing on sugar for the first time in years.

However, while I felt great on 2.5mg the suppression wore off after a couple of months and I increased to 5mg. That made me feel incredibly tired for 2-3 days every week and I think may have impacted my mood as well. It was hard to say for sure that MJ was the cause but I couldn't risk that continuing for more than a couple of months feeling that way and dropped back to 2.5mg last month. I do feel better again, but the suppression has also dropped and I am experiencing food noise even 1-2 days after the dose.

Has anyone else experienced the same and opted for 3.75mg (or another increment between standard doses)? If so, I would love to hear any experiences of whether it worked and how to administer a half-dose in practice. TIA.

I started in March. I did 5 weeks of 2.5 which worked well but by the last dose just felt less effective. My second pen was 5 but I didn't feel ready to go that far so did a week on 3.75. The second week on 3.75 was fine but half way through the week I felt the suppression reduce so did 1.25. This really helped but also made me think I needed 5 so the next week I took 5. I am wondering whether to go back to the split dose because I am finding the suppression a bit too much. The split worked well for me.

I was on 2.5 mg for approx 20 weeks, losing 2 stone, but then the loss slowed down so I decided to up the dose to 3.75mg. I’ve been on that now for 4 weeks and have lost another 5.5lbs in that time which I’m really happy with. No side effects at all, good suppression and no food noise. I’d say give it a go.

3.75mg is 45 clicks of a 5mg pen.

I've split my dose in half. It was on the recommendation of my GP. I've found that it means a much smoother time. there's fewer ups and downs.

I use ozempic so I don't know how to administer MJ.

I took 3.75mg for most of my weightloss and recently went back on 2.5mg for maintenance.

How I felt on it is not really relevant as everyone responds or has different expectations of the medication, for me the suppression also did wear off after a couple of months, but the effects on turning down the volume on food noise/cravings, helping portion control were enough, alongside diet changes and mindful eating to keep me on track longer term (22 months so far).

Practically - 3.75mg is 45 clicks or 0.45ml, you will get 5 doses from a 5mg pen before it locks and a 6th dose (while there is extra liquid) on day 35. Mark the 45th click with a ballpoint pen to save you counting each week.

My whole journey has been small incremental increases in dose due to side effects. It’s worked a treat for me.

I have been on MJ since Feb 25. I have always done in between doses, and did 2.5, 3.75, 5, 6.25, 7.5 and maximum dose of 8.75. sometimes I stayed on a dose for 8-10 weeks and only moved up when I stalled. Reached my goal, and now going back down, doing much the same but backwards. Although I will.rpobpabky only stay on each dose for around 4 weeks

OK this is very helpful, thanks all. I think I will try 3.75 this week using 45 clicks. Otherwise I guess I could do 2 x 2.5 jabs in one week but that seems like it would get me back to the same cumulative dose that was making me so tired.

I did this to step up and never went above 5. Click counting is very simple, you may already have a few spare pen needles but if not, invest £3.50 plus postage for a 100 pack from Chemist4u.

as a previous posted said you can definitely get 5 doses of 3.75mg from a 5mg pen using 45 clicks with needles. With cautious priming (I do always prime but sometimes the bead of solution is there as soon as attach needle or just using a single click and barely pressing then wind round the dose) I can get 2 further doses of 3.75mg from a current old style kwik pen with the big overfill (sadly that’s about to end but you might get a couple more pens like this).

syringes are best bought from UKmedi or similar for sterile medical grade usually around £8 for 10. For the savings and also back up for the chance of a pen mechanism ever failing I would recommend always having some of these too.

with the price of this medication being so prohibitive the one way you really can make cost manageable is subdosing. You can even order a 7.5mg pen next time and take 30 clicks x10 (or x8 when the pens change). You just have to make your own risk assessment about how far over the advised 30 days from opening you are happy to go with. Anecdotally no one seems to ever report adverse issues with this and it’s so common. Better than grey market for those who cannot afford £200+ per month - which I would never contemplate.

This is super helpful thanks @perimenopoppet. My next new pen is actually a 2.5mg, do you know how many clicks that should be?

To get 3.75 from a 2.5 pen you will need to inject twice - so full dose, change needle then another 30 clicks.

or you could split dose, so do 45 clicks day 1 and another 45 clicks on day 4/5….

Split dosing is not an official regime but it does smooth out the max levels in your system and can help with side effects and food noise breaking through on days 5-7.

I’ve been on MJ for over 8months having lost 3 stones and have recently changed to injecting 3.5mg every 6 days so that the level of MJ in my system doesn’t drop too low. I still need to lose another 1.5 stones but doing it this way has kick started my losses again.