Anyone found 5mg brutal?

[frecklejuice]

I injected my first 5mg on Saturday morning, Sunday was ok but this morning I woke up with the most horrendous sulphur burps that have carried on all day, I feel nauseous and exhausted and had a nasty bout of diarrhoea. 2.5mg was a breeze, is this normal for 5mg?

Any tips?

Thanks.

Have you gone straight from 2.5mg to 5mg OP? If so, I'd go up very slowly from 2.67mg and upwards.

I've been on MJ for a year (now micro dosing as I've reached goal weight) and I couldn't handle anything past 3.67mg!

I found it rough too. I’ve gone up to just under 7mg. For me, the 5mg was awful with tummy troubles but also food noise.

Take meds to help with the side effects - Get down to your local pharmacy and ask for help, probably Pepto for sulphur burps and Imodium (or cheaper alternative) for diarrhea.

Every one reacts differently to dose increases. You might find next week 5mg is fine, or it could be the same again as the dose builds in your body.

Depending on your attitude to risk you could try to ride it out with meds to help manage the side effects, or try an in-between dose for a few weeks such as 3.75mg to see if it is any better.

When I went to 5 it made me terribly unwell with sulphur burps and diarrhoea both times I tried to go up. I went back down the following week! I am now on 5 but I literally went up a click a week (from a 10mg pen) to get here slowly, which I advise.

Pepto bismol is the only thing that helped with the burps, tastes like shit but better than the burps. Good luck and feel better soon.

I got so sick on 7.5, I was told to space out doses, I injected every 2 weeks and it was still awful, went down to 5 but had to stop in the end as the side effects were making life unbearable. I'm trying wegovy now, early days but I'm hopeful.

@PearlsTeapot can I ask how long you were unwell for before it stopped? I’ve been awful this afternoon with diarrhoea, it just hasn’t stopped. Really need to go to work tomorrow!

I’ve been really rough this afternoon, I feel sick and have terrible diarrhoea so I’m wondering if this isn’t going to be for me which will be such a shame as I’m 8lb down already. I tried Wegovy and it didn’t do anything.

Hi, yes I’ve gone to 5mg from 2.5mg. Stupidly thought I would be ok because I breezed through the weeks with 2.5, if I’m brave enough to carry on I’ll lower the dose. At the moment I never want to take it again!

2 days/1 night! both times.

I haven’t even reached 5mg yet, I’m such a scaredy cat and i had a few rough weeks on 2.5 initially. So I did 12 weeks on 2.5 followed by 9 weeks on 3mg then 3weeks on 3.25 and I just went up to 3.33 10 days ago. The transition to 3mg was also rough but 3.25 and 3.33 have been absolutely fine. I’ve lost 33lbs in 25 weeks which I know is slow by many people’s standards but I’m really pleased with it.

Hi, can someone please explain to me how I do micro dosing, do I need to let the company know and they send out 2 pens? . I'm on 7.5 but have had 3 bouts of diarrhoea once on 5 and twice on 7.5. I feel micro dosing would be better for me. I'm not sure if I want to go to 10 as so scared of getting ill again.

I have used this app, that calculates how many clicks from different strength pens to get precise doses, as I’ve increased gradually. But be aware that providers are unlikely to approve, I presume their licenses depend on them prescribing in the manner dictated by the manufacturer, ie going up in standard strength steps. So people say they are going up in those steps when they reorder but in reality may be using less and accumulating a little backlog stockpile. Especially if they are using the golden dose. It is not necessary to race up the pen strengths every month, providers seem happy to let people stay on the same strength for months if they are reporting when they reorder that they are happy with modest weight loss and any side effects management. In my experience.

https://www.vrgrowth.co.uk/mounjaro-clicks

I couldn’t get up to 5mg (even after months at 2.5, a month at 3.75). I can manage 3.75mg, but 5mg left me feeling rubbish. I still lost well at 3.75 so stuck with that.

Just for balance, I’ve had no problem moving up to 5mg. I went from 9 weeks at 2.5mg, then did a transition week at 3.75mg then up to 5mg and I am loving it. Suppression massively better and feels like it did when I first started if not better 👍

Sorry that you don't feel great OP. It should clear soon. I wouldn't be using imodium at all- just keep your fluids up, use gaviscon or similar and maybe dial back the dose next week. 2.5mg to 5mg is the only time you actually double the dose, so many people recommend you move up slower.

My experience:
4x 2.5mg
Golden dose of 3.8mg. That night I felt spaced out, diarrhoea, violent vomiting and stomach cramps. I thought I had noro virus or had somehow tripled the dose. Next day I felt ok, but some indigestion.
2x 3mg
1x 4mg
1x 5mg this week. Since that golden dose, I've had no nausea/vomiting or diarrhoea. Some indigestion at times, but manageable.

Its strange your symptoms came on 2 days later. Take it easy and hopefully you feel better soon.

Mine came on 2 days later too. Had the jag Sunday night and got the runs on Tuesday! Both times.

My OH went from 2.5mg to 5mg and felt awful. The next week she changed to 3mg and felt fine - and got the suppression she needed. She stayed on 3mg for a number of months before increasing to 3.75, which is where she’s now been for about 6 months. Still losing steadily with no reason to increase.
So I’d recommend you try 3mg and see how you get on.

Maybe drop back to 3mg or 3.5mg next week rather than jumping to double the dose?

There’s no need to move up to 5mg if you’re still getting suppression on the lower doses. I’ve been on MJ for over 10 months and currently taking 3.5mg from a 5mg pen, having titrated up in increments of 0.25mg at a time.

I've been on MJ since Jan 2025 amd got all the way up to 12.5 (now on 7.5) the biggest jump fpr me was 2.5 to 5 it made me feel very ill lots of burps etc but I persisted and it did pass. My advice is to carry on x

I haven’t taken the plunge yet, so don’t have access to an actual pen…. Had a look at the website you linked, and it appears that to get the stated dose from a pen, e.g. 5mg from a 5mg pen, you use 60 clicks. Is that right? And fewer clicks would give you a smaller dose.

What does that mean in practice…. Do you have to count to 60 (that seems like a lot) to take the intended dose?

I spent 5 years on Trulicity, which is a GLP-1 for treating type 2 diabetes. Each pen was a single dose, you just pressed the button and that was it. These WLI pens appear to be different.

@PuzzledObserver if you are doing a full dose, you don’t need to count clicks. You twist the end until a 1 appears in the dose window (which is on O before you start twisting)

@PuzzledObserver yes as @HelenDenver says the pens are designed to dispense one single regular dose without counting, which is always 60 clicks whatever the pen strength. The click counting calculations are only relevant if you want a smaller dose, eg a 6 mg dose from a 7.5 mg pen is 48 clicks from memory. That app helps you work out the cost per dose too, can help work out which strength pen to buy

@HelenDenver thank you…… so do you mean the pen does click, but you just keep going until the number changes?

@threescoops Got it….. so it looks as though this could be a much cheaper way of getting a 5mg dose (for example) because a 15mg pen is less than twice the price of a 5mg pen, but would give you 3 times the number of doses.

@PuzzledObserver yes that’s right, you can hear it clicking as you twist but no need to count.

Once opened, pens have a life of 30 days - if you use 5mg a week from a 15mg pen, that would take 12 weeks so well outside the advertised life.

Oh, good point. If you’re going to stick to the 30 days then you can basically get 5 doses per pen.