Wegovy is a once-weekly injectable drug that’s used to assist regulate blood sugar ranges and assist in weight reduction.
In the event you’ve been prescribed Wegovy, this is perhaps the primary time you might have ever taken a self-administered shot.
However even when you’ve got expertise with self-managed injections, Wegovy is totally different sufficient that you simply would possibly nonetheless have questions.
This text will clarify the whole lot you’ll want to find out about the place and methods to inject Wegovy.
Get to know your Wegovy pen, prescription, and dose
Wegovy is a prescription remedy for weight reduction. It has the identical energetic ingredient—semaglutide—as different medicine like Ozempic.
It is available in an injector pen (which can also be referred to as a “remedy pen” or just a “pen”.)
Most individuals consider injector pens as being simpler to make use of than syringes. It is because pens permit for easy and exact dosing of injectable medicine.
Wegovy pens are about six inches lengthy. There’s a pen cap on one finish and a small plunger button on the opposite finish.
Pens are available 5 colours, equivalent to pre-measured doses.
In the event you take off the pen cap and have a look at the ahead half of the pen, you will note the pen tip and a transparent remedy chamber proper behind it.
Proper behind that on the physique of the pen, you’ll see the label with remedy and dose data
Wegovy pens wouldn’t have a visual needle. It is because, in contrast to many different injectable remedy pens, Wegovy pens have an auto-injector.
Wegovy pens are much like insulin or Ozempic pens, besides that Wegovy pens solely administer a single pre-loaded dose.
In the event you’ve by no means used a pen, your physician’s workplace or pharmacist can describe to you methods to safely use a Wegovy pen.
The producer, Novo Nordisk, additionally maintains a webpage with particulars about safely utilizing the pen.
What does a dose appear to be?
The dose in milligrams that your physician prescribes to it is best to correspond to the dose listed on the label yow will discover on the physique of the Wegovy pen.
All Wegovy pens are designed to have only a single weekly dose in them—that means {that a} pen is designed for use as soon as after which discarded.
Although the pens could look roughly related, there are 5 totally different dose-sized Wegovy pens:
- A pen that incorporates a 0.25 mg dose is for the start of therapy. These pens normally have a teal label.
- A pen that incorporates a 0.50 mg dose. These pens normally have a pink label.
- A pen that incorporates a 1 mg dose. These pens normally have a brown or orange label.
- A pen that incorporates a 1.7 mg dose. These pens normally have a blue label.
- A pen that incorporates a 2.4 mg dose. These pens normally have a darkish grey label.
Make sure you confirm that the packaging and the pen are each clearly labeled with the dose choice in milligrams that you simply had been prescribed.
Pen colours or labels could change over time, so it’s essential to confirm that the dose is appropriately listed.
By no means take greater than you might be prescribed by your physician. In the event you overdose on Wegovy, you could expertise vital hostile unwanted side effects.
Learn Extra: Wegovy Dosing Information
The place is the most effective place on my physique to inject Wegovy?
To make sure that the remedy is efficient, it’s important to know the place to take it. Wegovy is designed to be administered proper beneath the pores and skin by injection.
Medication injected beneath the pores and skin do finest once they’re injected into elements of your physique with some fatty tissue.
Injections into lean or largely muscular elements of your physique should not advisable, as they are usually painful, could bleed greater than regular, and may trigger the drug to be much less efficient.
Wegovy ought to by no means be injected right into a vein or artery.
Based on the drug’s producer, the three finest locations in your physique to inject Wegovy are the entrance of your thighs, your stomach, and your higher arms—significantly the backs of your higher arms.
Learn extra: The right way to Keep away from Injection Web site Bruising
The right way to inject Wegovy
The quantity prescribed by your physician ought to be injected beneath the pores and skin into fatty tissue as soon as every week, on the identical day every week.
The time of day in your injection usually doesn’t matter.
The steps to comply with for injecting Wegovy are outlined beneath.
Examine your pen
Get your pen and an alcohol swab prepared.
Examine your dose to be sure to have the right pen.
Take away the cap from the entrance a part of your Wegovy pen and look by way of the pen’s plastic window to ensure the liquid contained in the pen is evident.
Discover a great place in your physique and put together the positioning for the shot
Selecting an space in your physique with extra fatty tissue, resembling your stomach, higher thighs, and higher arms is right.
Nevertheless, keep away from injecting into the identical spot every week to scale back bruising, scarring, or different pores and skin reactions.
Put together the positioning in your pores and skin by rapidly rubbing it with an alcohol swab.
Injecting Wegovy
Press the entrance a part of the pen in opposition to your pores and skin on the web site you’ve chosen in the best way your physician has proven you.
The pen ought to be perpendicular to your physique, at a few 90-degree angle.
Press the pen down firmly in opposition to your physique. The auto-injector will start administering the drug as soon as the plastic base of the entrance of the pen is pressed firmly in opposition to your pores and skin.
Pay attention for an audible click on to let you understand the injection has began.
In the event you don’t hear the clicking, you could must press the entrance a part of the pen down extra firmly in opposition to the pores and skin.
Proceed holding the pen in place firmly in opposition to your pores and skin for about ten seconds. A second click on will let you understand that the injection is ongoing.
You’ll discover a yellow plunger bar shifting contained in the pen widow and urgent the medication by way of the needle.
As soon as ten seconds have elapsed and the yellow bar stops shifting towards the entrance of the pen, you may take away the pen out of your pores and skin.
Re-cap and discard the pen
Now that you simply’re achieved, substitute the pen cap. As a result of it is a single-use pen, it may be safely discarded.
Seeing a tiny quantity of blood is regular, and you’ll apply strain to the realm along with your alcohol swab if wanted.
How do I do know if I injected Wegovy appropriately?
As you inject your dose, hear for the 2 clicks and watch the clear window on the pen to ensure the yellow plunger presses the medication into your physique.
Be sure that it stops shifting earlier than you’re taking the pen away out of your physique.
It’s a good suggestion to offer the auto-injector no less than ten seconds of agency contact with the pores and skin to do its work.
Speak along with your physician or pharmacist when you’ve got questions or fear that you might have achieved one thing incorrectly.
What’s the finest time of day to inject Wegovy?
There isn’t any clinically demonstrated finest time of day to take Wegovy.
Slightly, crucial factor is to pick a day of the week and constantly take it on that very same day every week.
In the event you resolve to take the remedy on a Monday, you may take it any time of day—however it is best to plan to take your weekly dose of Wegovy every Monday for so long as you utilize the remedy.
Write the day of the week you’re taking Wegovy on a calendar or on the field that your pen is available in.
Cellphone reminders are additionally useful to be sure to don’t miss a dose.
What do I do if I miss a dose?
In the event you miss a dose of Wegovy, take it as quickly as attainable inside 5 days of your missed dose.
Nevertheless, if the dose you missed ought to have been taken 5 days or extra in the past, then you’ll want to skip that dose.
On this circumstance, you’ll take it in your subsequent repeatedly scheduled day.
In different phrases, when you’ve simply missed one dose and your subsequent scheduled dose is lower than 2 days away (48 hours), don’t take that missed dose.
Simply wait till your common day to take the common injection.
Why does my Wegovy pen not have a needle?
If you open a brand new Wegovy pen, you’ll discover that there isn’t a seen needle, in contrast to insulin pens.
It is because Wegovy pens use an auto-injector. Auto-injectors have a tiny needle built-in into the physique of the pen.
Due to this, people who find themselves prescribed Wegovy don’t must see or deal with a needle when taking the remedy.
