Will I have to take more and more ozempic/wegovy for ever and ever?!

[DustSalad]

Hey,

I've lost over 2 stone since spring using ozempic. I'm now into "overweight" BMI rather than "obese". I'm 40 and been struggling my whole life. I think I've just always had a bigger appetite than others. I feel hunger, even when cutting out sugar/most carbs.

I used to find 0.5 did the trick but the effects lessened over time...I'm now up to 1mg but finding the hunger creeping back.

Will I need to keep upping my dose FOREVER to avoid the hunger returning?

I've sort of come to terms with probably having to be on some sort of medication forever to stay a healthy weight.

But it only goes up to 2.4mg - what then?

Eat less, move more.

Far cheaper and healthier.

Where are you injecting? If stomach, switch to your arm, those side effects will come rushing back. I used to think it was rubbish but it really worked for me when I started to plateau.

But yes, ultimately you need to keep increasing. It's why the dosages go up higher for weight loss than for diabetes.

Honestly, try it in your arm!

1mg is the dose that starts to be effective long term and 2.4 mg is the highest potential dose. Once you've been on it long enough to develop a tolerance to 2.4mg you should have lost enough weight and also changed your habits enough to be able to come off it.

@LNY1986 Exactly, that's what I've been doing. Ozempic reduces my hunger and enables me to therefore eat less. Now that I have lost weight, I've been much more active. There is, after all, only so long that one can deny one's strongest human desire - to eat!

@WeKnowFrogsGoShaLaLaLaLa thanks, I'll try that! I'd welcome the side effect of nausea returning!

@Bobtheamazinggingerdog my habits are actually ok. I don't binge eat or eat out of boredom or cravings or anything. I only ever eat out of hunger. As I say, I think I just have a bigger appetite than some folk and maybe a lower tolerance to hunger. I understand there are lot of people who will be on it forever.

In summary, I literally need the Ozempic to take away the hunger! Possibly for the rest of my life! I just hope I'm not going to mainlining 20mg/day in 5 years and having to turn to crime to pay for it!

I've been on Ozempic since the beginning of May. I've lost 4 stones now. I'm still obese. I take a 1.25 dose. I've got enough to last me until the second week of December. I can't get hold of the 1.0 pens now. I'll keep trying. I think it's even harder to get Wegovy. I'm desperate to keep losing and not put it back on. My GP said I could stay on it for 2 years providing no bad side effects and I continued to lose weight each month. I was expecting to use for 2 years then keep taking a small maintenance dose of 0.5.

@WeKnowFrogsGoShaLaLaLaLa Can O ask where/how you take it in your arm?

I’ve been injecting in my stomach for 5 months now. I was a super responder at first but that’s over. I haven’t been able to titrate up because of the shortages so still on 0.5. I am getting hungry/sugar cravings again. Today I reckon I had over 2500 calories most of which was haribo/marshmallows/ice cream. This would have been impossible at the beginning.

@WeightWhat - in the bingo wing!

I was also a super responder, and I've lost over 50lbs since March. When the shortages happened, I had been on 1mg for just two weeks and I had to drop back down to 0.5.

I saw a lot on social media about moving your injection site and just couldn't believe it could actually make a difference. Tried it with my next injection and bam, I could feel the effects again. My weight loss still slowed down but I never regained anything.

Am back on 1mg now, in the arm and have lost half a stone in the last few weeks. You have nothing to lose in trying it!

Have you worked on levelling your blood sugars? This was the game changer for me. No ultra processed food, and high protein. Took away my terrible cravings.

@smilesup I think you might be right about blood sugars. I noticed a real improvement in my cravings when I moved from milky tea to herbal. Ozempic had got it under control (I was craving baked chicken instead of biscuits!) but that seems to have passed.

I'm confident my blood sugars are pretty steady. I don't have cravings or intense hunger. Just a slight nagging feeling sometimes late evening.

My typical day (eating window about 7-10 hours)
Noon: 250g full fat greek yoghurt, tangerine, low cal hot choc
Lunch (if required): 3 boiled eggs, apple OR unsweetened porrige.
Dinner: unprocessed meat/fish plus veg. 2 squares of dark chocolate. Possibly another low cal hot choc. (I don't drink tea or coffee)
Later (if required): 2 babybels

I generally eat about 1200 calories. I'm fairly sedentary but looking to invest in a treadmill for at home over the winter.

@DustSalad you're making me laugh with having to turn to a life of crime to fund ozempic!!! It is pricey.

Who are you with just now? I'm with juniper and my health coach advised 1400 calories a day I'm 52,chronically ill on meds and lazy. You aren't eating a great deal maybe you aren't eating enough if you're still actually hungry. I overeat mainly due to stress and bingeing on crap rather than hunger.

I was sceptical but what made a difference to me re hunger and plateaus was increasing my water to 3 litres. It really helps to shift the scales I never believed it till I did it.

Good luck xx

@SarahC50 Haha, yeah can you see it now - Panorama Special: a wave of middle-aged, middle-class, slightly tubby ladies turn to crime to fund their semagulutide habits! Shops now won't allow in anyone wearing a mumsnet scarf.

I've been using Right Angled.

I actually drink loads of water. Always have done. Definitely going to try rotating injection sites tho. Per pp I was skeptical that this would work but worth a try.

Thing is, I think I'm just a hungry sort of gal. Even when I've eaten 2000 plus cals of healthy food in a day, I can still feel hungry. Not ideal when I'm probably only burning 1800 cals a day.

@DustSalad I'm with you !! I'm there running red faced and sweaty with a stitch!!

Sounds like you know and are doing all the right things. Not alot you can do about being hungry.

I think I'm going to long term try and stay on 0.25mg. Not that it will do much but hopefully it will tricky body into feeling less hungry.

How have right angled been as supplier? X

@SarahC50 yeah RightAngled are mostly ok. I'm looking forward to being able to buy it over the counter in Superdrug/Boots though.

@DustSalad read the glucose goddess. This was a game changer for me.

Your typical day is quite high is sugar/carbs and there are nowhere near enough veg.

The injections are an aid but you still need to re-examine what you are eating.

Just a slight nagging feeling sometimes late evening.

I think you're expecting a lot from Ozempic to get it to take away that 'snacky' feeling in the evening as well. Feeling peckish or eating in the evening out of habit isn't the same type of hunger it was designed to suppress.

It also sounds like you're relying on it a bit too much to do the work for you. You keep telling yourself the effects aren't working as well, but realistically if your goal is to avoid hunger completely forever, I'm not sure it can do that. The mental work involved in both recognising and managing your own hunger ("okay, I'll have a glass of water first... nope, I still have a 'gap'... I think I want something to chew more than something to eat...") and making healthy choices (nothing wrong with babybel really?) is tougher than you think.

Ozempic etc is a tool designed to reduce the 'food chatter' and manage the physical, and many on the Ozempic threads say it frees up their headspace so they can focus on the psychological. It's a tool, not a magic bullet.

The sad truth of it is that all ozempic can really offer you is a reprieve from hunger for a period of time and then it’s up to you to learn willpower to overcome hunger. I say this as someone who lost 3st on ozempic with another 1.5 to go and isn’t taking ozempic anymore. I have had to learn how to manage my hunger. That’s the crux of it. Learn how to space your meals out or what fills you up or doesn’t, how to learn to be hungry and not give in, how hunger is a cue not a death threat. Obviously I don’t let myself get so hungry I am unwell but being hungry has to be something that happens to me at times that I can manage. I am hungry now, I will eat breakfast in the next half an hour. I have had to learn not to binge the instant I get hungry or how to talk to myself to avoid evening snacking and use distraction.

you are holding onto ozempic being magic. It isn’t. The work is all done by you. You have to learn how to be hungry and not freak out. Be hungry and accept it and not let it control you

What you eat is similar to me. What helps me is having a large 50 gram dry weight portion of porridge when I break my fast at 11. Made half water half semi skimmed. So I’m having my carbs first to give me more energy in the day. I have full fat Greek yogurt for lunch with berries and whatever everyone else is having for tea minus the carb element and replaced by a big salad with full fat mayo.
So I’d recommend just switching to porridge for breakfast not the yogurt, the big portion really knocks my hunger and you’ve all day to burn the carbs

Can I ask a question about Rightangled?

I had the 0.25 Ozempic pen from them and I now want to move up to the 0.5. If I log into my account, it gives me the option to re-order the 0.25 but nothing else. It looks as if I have to do the full assessment and send a photo again to be prescribed the 0.5.

Does that sound right? I tried to ring them but the phone number doesn't work (which is not inspiring confidence).

I was using Oxford Pharmacy, but it seemed to wear off. Never heard of changing the injection sites.

Wonder if I should try again, and do this?

I'm with boots but I have had to do the consultation again in month 2 - it's not on an auto prescribe thing seemingly

I would look at massively increasing your veg intake and ditching the lo cal hot chocolate - it will be damaging to it gut biome which might be making all your cravings worse.

Thanks - I have just ordered a 0.5 pen and although I had to answer the medical questions, it didn't ask me for ID or a photo again.

£249 was quite painful though. Hoping the prices come down soon.

Incidentally, I have just seen Saxenda at Pharmacy2U for £75 per pen, if anyone is looking for it.

Thanks again, all. Good advice. Yeah, I need to woman up and just ride out the nagging/hungry feelings. At least Ozempic takes the edge off.

Boots is a fair bit cheaper