It’s been six months since I accidentally poisoned myself with a weight-loss jab I shouldn’t have taken.
But while the memory of that horrible time has faded, the effect of that single, large dose is yet to wear off.
Back in July, I was convinced by a fellow school mum to try her Wegovy injection ‘pen’, which is, alongside Ozempic and Mounjaro, one of the self-administered slimming jabs that have taken the world by storm.
They were designed for diabetics and people who are obese and have tried everything else to lose weight. But my friend – who was already slim – managed to get hold of it by buying it online.
Looking back now, I can’t believe how stupid I was. Firstly, I was a perfectly healthy weight. I also didn’t realise that patients given these appetite-suppressing jabs will start on a small dose and work their way up to a larger amount over several months.
The injection I took was four times stronger than the dose most obese patients begin on – and it had disastrous consequences.
Within 24 hours I was suffering bouts of violent vomiting, accompanied by the worst migraine I’ve ever suffered. This went on for several days, and there were points where I wondered whether I might have to go to hospital. Thankfully the symptoms slowly faded and, after a few weeks, I made what seemed like a full recovery.
Or so I thought. It appears that just one dose has altered my appetite. And, unfortunately, it’s had the opposite effect I had hoped for. I’m constantly hungry, and feel completely unable to stop eating whatever is put in front of me.
Back in July, Charlotte Griffiths was convinced by a fellow school mum to try her Wegovy injection ‘pen’ – with disastrous consequences
Wegovy, alongside Ozempic and Mounjaro, is one of the self-administered slimming jabs that have taken the world by storm
And as I’ve now discovered, this is a recognised problem for patients when coming off weight-loss jabs.
Experts I spoke to after my Wegovy fiasco told me it was likely I’d suffered a severe reaction, as the drug isn’t meant for people who are a healthy weight.
Could I be suffering this bizarre and extreme side effect for the same reason? And could other women using these medications as a quick-fix to get ‘beach body ready’ end up suffering the same fate? Yes, say doctors.
I’ve always been conscious of my diet. Previously I was careful to diligently skip breakfast and do my best to avoid carb-heavy meals. At work I avoided snacking between meals – surely the quickest way to gaining weight.
I’d argue this is all fairly standard practice for a woman my age – I’m 40 – who’s had children and is desperate to fit into her old jeans. My body mass index (BMI) before taking the Wegovy jab was 21.7, which is at the lower end of the ‘normal’ range.
But I’ve always felt like I should be slimmer, which is, in no small part, why I was swayed into trying the drug. But since my Wegovy experience, I’ve lost control. I am constantly hungry.
Where once I went without breakfast, I’m now eating buttery toast and my children’s Coco Pops. I can’t help myself grabbing a bag of sweet popcorn or a chocolate bar from the office canteen when I get hungry at around 4pm. And when I walk in Pret
A Manger – in a past life, a shop I frequented only for its coffee and salads – there is only one thing I want: sandwiches. Sometimes more than one. I’m calling it the ‘Glastonbury effect’, because in my wild-child heyday I used to spend a weekend dancing at music festivals but barely eating, and then afterwards I’d binge all week on junk food.
It’s as if taking the weight-loss jab has completely destroyed my willpower to moderate what I eat and created a binge pattern. The scales don’t lie, either.
Charlotte’s dose of Wegovy has left her overindulging at all times of the day and she now feels unable to stop eating whatever is put in front of her
My terrible Wegovy experience meant that I lost half a stone in days – likely because I was too sick to keep food down. Now, six months on, I’m a couple of pounds heavier than I was before the jab.
Experts say this is common in people who stop taking these injections. There’s even a term for it: rebound hunger.
‘When people lose a large amount of weight in a short period the body sees this as a threat, because it believes it is being starved, and tries to counteract this loss of weight,’ says Prof Carel Le Roux, an expert in metabolic medicine at University College Dublin.
‘For this reason, it’s very normal for those who come off these drugs to get intense hunger – this is the body trying to get back to its original weight. Often this increased appetite will mean that people end up heavier than when they started taking the injections.
‘This is usually more common in people who have been on the drugs for a long time. But if a patient took one jab and ended up losing a lot of weight due to severe side effects, the body would react in the exact same way.’
And I’m not the only one affected by long-lasting side effects from these weight-loss jabs – though other people seem to have a very different problem. Last month The Mail revealed that TV celebrity Sharon Osbourne was struggling to put any weight back on after coming off the jabs.
The 72-year-old had lost three stone in a matter of months, and was said to be keen to get off the injections for fear of losing any more. But, apparently, Sharon still cannot gain any weight, despite her claims of a high-calorie diet of roasts, burgers and club sandwiches.
Research shows that taking injections such as Wegovy, and the even more potent Mounjaro, helps overweight patients lose as much as a fifth of their body weight. Around two-thirds of those who come off them will regain some or all of their weight.
But about five per cent of people who stop taking the injections struggle to put weight back on.
Why this happens is a mystery. And to many this may sound like a miracle – after all, who would not want to eat burgers every day and not see their waistline swell?
But I believe there is a darker side to the problem. Because I know someone else who is struggling with this weight regain issue: and that’s the same friend who gave me the Wegovy injection in the first place.
This close pal – who I will name Lauren – has long suffered with anxiety about her postnatal frame, even though she has always been a normal weight to my eyes.
When she told me she had begun taking Wegovy, I admit I didn’t think much of it. At the time I saw it as nothing more than a passing diet fad.
Sharon Osbourne revealed in an interview with the Mail in November that she has used Ozempic to shed the pounds
However, now that I know its potency, I’ve become increasingly worried about the effect it may be having on Lauren and women like her.
She is now petite to the point of being the size of popstar Ariana Grande – whose waif-like appearance in the new film Wicked has sparked much discussion.
Lauren now disappears underneath her jumpers, which have become baggy, and her old jeans hang off her. Two months ago she told me she had stopped taking the jabs because she’d ‘lost enough’. But four weeks later she hadn’t gained any weight at all.
We decided to do a check and I brought my weighing scales over to her house (she’s never owned a set). We were both shocked to discover she weighed seven stone – making her extremely underweight. She began to get emotional. ‘I just can’t put the weight back on, I can’t believe it,’ Lauren told me. ‘I’ve been trying to eat more. What am I going to do?’
Then it all came out: she hadn’t actually quit Wegovy. Instead, she is, for want of a better word, constantly ‘relapsing’.
She says she can’t resist taking it because she’s fearful of gaining weight again. It left me incredibly worried. I told her the truth: I don’t think she can afford to lose any more weight.
But she said she didn’t feel she could stop the drug without sinking back into her old pattern of what she called binge-eating, on sugary snacks.
To me, this sounded worryingly like Lauren was in danger of developing the symptoms of an eating disorder. And clinicians say they are seeing a growing number of young women suffering with Ozempic-induced weight anxieties (see panel on left).
It makes me wonder whether the reason other people who claim they can’t regain weight after coming off weight-loss jabs are having the same problem.
It’s not that they can’t put the pounds back on, it’s that they are hooked – unable to stop themselves from relapsing for fear of returning to a body size they hated.
Of course, there is no way to know if this is true for everyone else besides Lauren, but I do wonder whether Sharon Osbourne is really scoffing burgers.
Given this worrying trend, I feel lucky that I tried Wegovy only once. I can easily see how, after several months of consecutive weight loss, it would be scarily difficult to give up the jabs.
As for me, I’ve begun tracking my calories again. My goal is to eat 1,200 calories per day, using the My Fitness Pal app.
I’m also doing intense exercise in the form of spin classes – though they kill my back, they burn 300 calories a session, which means I can get away with consuming 1,500 calories on those days. So far this regime has been hard work, I regularly go over my calorie allowance and I haven’t really seen the scales shifting.
You’ll think I’ve lost my mind, but in my most frustrated moments I find myself wondering whether it would be easier to take another dose of Wegovy again.
At one particularly low moment a few weeks ago, I asked my friend if I should try another one of her jabs, but this time in a lower dose. Thankfully she refused, partly because she’s a great friend but also because she doesn’t want me to become hooked on them like she was.
I am pleased to report that since Lauren came clean to me about her problem, she hasn’t taken another Wegovy injection. And in just a few weeks she has already gained half a stone. I hope she won’t mind me saying that she looks much better for it.
Has Ozempic created a new type of eating disorder?
‘In my clinic, we are starting to see patients who take these drugs and their weight-loss spirals out of control,’ says Dr Chukwuemeka Nwuba, a London-based eating-disorder specialist. ‘When they see how much weight they’ve lost, they become scared about coming off the injections and regaining it.’
Some 6 per cent of UK adults have an eating disorder, a condition where they use the control of food to cope with feelings. The most common are anorexia, where patients try to control their weight by not eating enough, and bulimia, where patients take drastic action to not put on weight.
Research suggests weight-loss jabs may help treat those already suffering with bulimia by reducing binge-eating behaviours.
Novo Nordisk, which manufactures Wegovy, said it continuously collects safety data on its medicines.
