Has anyone else struggled after reducing a weight loss injection dose?

[LittleDoveMama]

Has anyone else had a similar experience with WLIs? Because at this point I feel like the whole world has lost weight on them except me 😂
I’m 5'6" (167cm) and was 62kg when I got pregnant. I went up to 87kg by the time I gave birth and was down to 78kg a week afterwards. I breastfed for the first four months and somehow during that time my weight climbed all the way up to 93kg.
My endocrinologist started me on 2.5mg. I stayed on that dose for about six weeks and initially it was amazing. I barely thought about food, had almost no appetite and lost around 10kg.
Then my doctor increased my dose to 5mg and… it absolutely floored me. I had a sudden drop in blood pressure and severe vomiting, ended up in A&E and spent two days in hospital.
My doctor did an ultrasound and other checks afterwards and concluded that it was a side effect of the medication. He was happy for me to continue but dropped me back down to 2.5mg.
But now 2.5mg doesn't seem to have anything like the effect it did at the beginning! The appetite suppression is nowhere near as strong.
Has anyone else had to drop back down after reacting badly to a higher dose? Did the lower dose eventually start working properly again?
Because seriously, how has the entire world managed to get skinny on these injections and I’m apparently the exception? 😂

I am very sensitive to the injections. 2.5 worked amazing, when it started to wear off after 2 months I moved for 5ml but I knew I’d be ill because of how sensitive I was to the lower dose, so I reduced my clicks to 4ml. I was still quite ill so reduced further to 3.5ml and was great. I only increase by 0.5ml - 1ml every month now. I’m finally on the 5ml but do feel nauseous.

I think, for me at least, it’s about getting used to the higher dose very slowly.

You are not the only one. 2.5 worked great until it didn't , 5 same, when I increased to 7.5 I had horrible side effects so went back on 5 for a while losing nothing, went up again to 7.5 and now am losing but with a lot of effort, basically only the initial 2.5 worked the magic...

There’s absolutely no need to go from 2.5mg straight to 5mg and lots of people struggle with doubling the dose.

Try click counting and go up to 3mg or 3.5mg next time and see how it feels. I only go up by 0.5mg each time I increase and I’m still only on 4mg after a year on MJ and 4.5 stones lost.

Click counting;
6 clicks = 0.5mg
12 clicks = 1 mg
30 clicks = 2.5mg (1/2 dose)
36 clicks = 3mg
42 clicks = 3.5mg
48 clicks = 4mg
54 clicks = 4.5 mg
60 clicks = 5mg

Also, you MUST eat clean if you feel sick on the jabs.

Stick to lean protein, vegetables and fruit. I avoid anything fatty or high carb as stuff like that really doesn’t agree with me on the drugs. Think of them as a tool to help you develop good healthy long term eating habits. You really can do this!!

It's completely normal for the effectiveness of the lower dose to reduce as your body gets used to it. In other words, I doubt you're having this problem because of going up to the higher dose and then coming back down, I think you'd be finding the same if you'd stayed on 2.5 throughout. You say that you are still getting some suppression, so maybe you need to accept that your loss will slow down but still aim to lose weight, just at a slower rate?

That actually makes so much sense! For some reason, my doctor only explained it in terms of 2.5, 5, 7.5 mg, and so on. I’m definitely going to try what you suggested. Hopefully it works!

That makes a lot of sense too. I think I was assuming that going up and then back down somehow made the 2.5 mg less effective, but maybe my body would have adjusted to it anyway. I’m still getting some appetite suppression, so you’re probably right — I may just need to accept that the weight loss will be slower and be patient with it. Thank you!

Thank you! I think you’re absolutely right. I’ve definitely noticed that fatty or heavy foods make the nausea much worse, so I really need to be more careful about what I eat. I also really like the idea of seeing the medication as a tool to build healthier habits rather than relying on it completely. I’ll give this a proper try! ❤️

This is exactly how I feel! The initial 2.5 felt like magic, and I kept expecting to get that same effect again with the higher doses, but instead I just got horrible side effects. It’s actually reassuring to know I’m not the only one experiencing this. Hopefully I can still make progress, even if it takes more effort now! 😅

Can I ask what you do about keeping the pen if you use click counting?

It’s early days for me, only jabbed once, enough appetite suppression to make sticking to my food plan easy, and no side effects as yet. I realise that could change after jabs 2 and 3 as there will be more in my body than after the first jab.

I don’t intend to go up in doses automatically every 4 weeks, only if the suppression isn’t adequate. But I have worked out that if I used a 5mg pen to give myself 4mg doses, I will get 5 doses out of the pen, which will make it cheaper per dose than using a 2.5mg pen. And the 5th dose would be given 28 days after the first, so within the 30 day limit.

But if you use even smaller doses than that, does that mean you end up wasting part of the pen, as you are supposed to discard it after 30 days - or do you keep it longer?

I stayed on 2.5 for about a year and I now click count on a 5 and do 42 clicks. I've lost just over 6 stone and am heading to maintenance very soon.

My pen is therefore open for over the 30 days and it's been fine. It's for you to judge your own risk factors and keep it clean and in a fridge. Lots do it.

It's not the dose that makes you lose weight, it's the calories you consume and if it's in line with TDEE - 500 then you're in a decent defecit to lose 1lb a week.

Good luck!

Thanks - since I posted I’ve seen another thread which talks about keeping pens longer and the need for scrupulous hygiene, so have a clearer understanding now.

I am perhaps not the typical MJ starter since I have already done a LOT of work on changing my dietary patterns, but also mindset and emotional regulation, over the past 2.5 years. I have been maintaining 5 stone weight loss for a year or so, with some variations, but nothing like the major swings I had for 50 years. And I wasn’t at my peak weight when I started - compared to my biggest, I’m down 8.5 stone.

I am committed to a low carb, real food, intermittent fasting lifestyle. I don’t eat sugar or processed snack foods. In fact, I don’t eat snacks - only meals. My life has been completely turned round by the weight I’ve lost, and for the first time ever, I am keeping it off. But I was/am maintaining around the 30 BMI mark, so obviously there is more I could do. And would be healthier for doing.

So I’m looking to MJ for a bit of extra help to stick to the leanest version of my food plan to enable me to get into the healthy weight range - not to do all the work. My aim is to use the lowest dose which achieves this for me. And having achieved it, to try tapering off….. it if I can’t taper off altogether, to continue with the absolute minimum dose needed.

That’s unless I can persuade my practice nurse at my next diabetes review that they ought to prescribe it for me. But I don’t meet the NHS criteria, so I doubt that they will.

@PuzzledObserver I’m hoping to swap to the Foundayo pill after titrating back down to 2.5mg when at maintenance.

It’s made by Lilly so similar to Mounjaro, but should be cheaper to buy as it’s obviously much cheaper for them to produce it. 🤞

I had wondered about switching to pills….. although I gather that the WeGovy pills are not really cheaper than the jab, so not sure what the point is. Especially as they apparently come with a higher incidence of gastric side effects.

But who knows…… I’m taking my mind jab later today, so it’s still very early days for me.

I think the issue was jumping up from 2.5 to 5 in one go (effectively doubling the dose). I’d creep it up each week to find a sweet spot, eg using a 5mg pen, creep up from 30 clicks to 35/40/45/50/55 and then 60.