Ozempic/saxenda etc

[okiedokie1]

So, please help me understand. From what I gather you have to have a bmi over a certain amount to qualify. But once you've qualified, what happens when your bmi goes under the qualifying level? If it's 30 and you get to 26 but goal is say 23 do they keep giving it to you until you get to 23? How is this different from someone who is currently not on the med but has a bmi of 26 wanting to get to 23? Just for the record, I'm not planning on taking it. I just want to understand how it works.

Yes your BMI needs to be over 30 to start. Alternatively over 27 with another health condition. Once you have started all the research and current guidelines talk about taking it for up to 2 years. However, people say it is a long-term medication and if you stop, you are likely to regain the weight.

It is different, because if your BMI has been so high before, this will have affected your natural set point and it is likely that your BMI will go back to where it was before. It is a drug with side-effects and the current risk benefit decision is to only give it to people with a higher risk of health problems due to their BMI.

So is there a BMI they won't treat you below? Let's say you had a goal of a BMI of 18 would they stop you at BMI 22 and say we think this is the right BMI?
It's weirdly arbitrary don't you think? Someone could have been over 30 for a decade, work really hard and get to 28 but want to get to 23 but will be refused as they are now under 30. Yet another person could be 30 and still given it when they get to BMI is 22 because their gold is 21.

I don’t know. That seems an unlikely scenario. I think most people would stop losing and hopefully maintain before their BMI got so low.

I will see if I can find some graphs for the research to show you what I mean.

The red line is people on the 2.4 mg Wegovy and they plateaued at around 10% weight loss. So for example did they started around 15 stone they lost around 1.5 stone and now weigh 13 1/2 stone so their BMI is not close to 21 or 18 but they still need to take it to stop gaining again.

These graphs show what happens when people stop.

The person who worked really hard and got their BMI down to 28 after a decade of being obese is, unfortunately, quite likely to gain weight again. I think it should be available to anyone who can prove their BMI was over 30 for a long period in their past but that would be complicated. They need a cut off somewhere and of course it is arbitrary. What would you suggest the rules are?

So can you get it on the nhs with a bmi over 30?

No

They are planning to fund Wegovy for people with a BMI of over 35 but not yet.