Wegovy is a once-weekly injectable drug that’s used to assist regulate blood sugar ranges and help in weight reduction.
In case you’ve been prescribed Wegovy, this could be the primary time you have got ever taken a self-administered shot.
However even in case you have expertise with self-managed injections, Wegovy is totally different sufficient that you simply may nonetheless have questions.
This text will clarify all the things it’s worthwhile to learn about the place and the right way to inject Wegovy.
Get to know your Wegovy pen, prescription, and dose
Wegovy is a prescription treatment for weight reduction. It has the identical lively ingredient—semaglutide—as different medication like Ozempic.
It is available in an injector pen (which can also be referred to as a “treatment pen” or just a “pen”.)
Most individuals consider injector pens as being simpler to make use of than syringes. It’s because pens enable for easy and exact dosing of injectable medication.
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 in 5 colours, akin to pre-measured doses.
In case you take off the pen cap and have a look at the ahead half of the pen, you will notice the pen tip and a transparent treatment chamber proper behind it.
Proper behind that on the physique of the pen, you’ll see the label with treatment and dose info
Wegovy pens shouldn’t have a visual needle. It’s because, not like many different injectable treatment pens, Wegovy pens have an auto-injector.
Wegovy pens are just like insulin or Ozempic pens, besides that Wegovy pens solely administer a single pre-loaded dose.
In case you’ve by no means used a pen, your physician’s workplace or pharmacist can describe to you the right way 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 seem like?
The dose in milligrams that your physician prescribes to it is best to correspond to the dose listed on the label you could find 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.
Regardless that the pens might look roughly comparable, there are 5 totally different dose-sized Wegovy pens:
- A pen that accommodates a 0.25 mg dose is for the start of therapy. These pens often have a teal label.
- A pen that accommodates a 0.50 mg dose. These pens often have a pink label.
- A pen that accommodates a 1 mg dose. These pens often have a brown or orange label.
- A pen that accommodates a 1.7 mg dose. These pens often have a blue label.
- A pen that accommodates a 2.4 mg dose. These pens often have a darkish grey label.
You should definitely confirm that the packaging and the pen are each clearly labeled with the dose possibility in milligrams that you simply have been prescribed.
Pen colours or labels might change over time, so it’s essential to confirm that the dose is appropriately listed.
By no means take greater than you’re prescribed by your physician. In case you overdose on Wegovy, it’s possible you’ll expertise vital hostile unwanted effects.
Learn Extra: Wegovy Dosing Information
The place is the perfect place on my physique to inject Wegovy?
To make sure that the treatment is efficient, it’s important to know the place to take it. Wegovy is designed to be administered proper underneath the pores and skin by injection.
Medicine injected underneath the pores and skin do greatest after they’re injected into components of your physique with some fatty tissue.
Injections into lean or largely muscular components of your physique are usually not advisable, as they are usually painful, might bleed greater than regular, and might 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 greatest 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: How one can Keep away from Injection Web site Bruising
How one can inject Wegovy
The quantity prescribed by your physician ought to be injected underneath the pores and skin into fatty tissue as soon as every week, on the identical day every week.
The time of day to your injection typically doesn’t matter.
The steps to comply with for injecting Wegovy are outlined beneath.
Test your pen
Get your pen and an alcohol swab prepared.
Test your dose to be sure you have the proper pen.
Take away the cap from the entrance a part of your Wegovy pen and look by the pen’s plastic window to verify the liquid contained in the pen is obvious.
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, equivalent to 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 shortly 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 website 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.
Hear for an audible click on to let you realize the injection has began.
In case you don’t hear the clicking, it’s possible you’ll 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 realize that the injection is ongoing.
You’ll discover a yellow plunger bar transferring contained in the pen widow and urgent the medication by the needle.
As soon as ten seconds have elapsed and the yellow bar stops transferring towards the entrance of the pen, you possibly can take away the pen out of your pores and skin.
Re-cap and discard the pen
Now that you simply’re finished, change the pen cap. As a result of this can be a single-use pen, it may be safely discarded.
Seeing a tiny quantity of blood is regular, and you’ll apply stress 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 verify the yellow plunger presses the medication into your physique.
Make sure that it stops transferring earlier than you’re taking the pen away out of your physique.
It’s a good suggestion to provide the auto-injector at the least ten seconds of agency contact with the pores and skin to do its work.
Discuss along with your physician or pharmacist in case you have questions or fear that you could have finished one thing incorrectly.
What’s the greatest time of day to inject Wegovy?
There isn’t any clinically demonstrated greatest time of day to take Wegovy.
Quite, a very powerful factor is to pick out a day of the week and constantly take it on that very same day every week.
In case you determine to take the treatment on a Monday, you possibly can 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 treatment.
Write the day of the week you’re taking Wegovy on a calendar or on the field that your pen is available in.
Telephone reminders are additionally useful to be sure you don’t miss a dose.
What do I do if I miss a dose?
In case you miss a dose of Wegovy, take it as quickly as potential 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 it’s worthwhile to skip that dose.
On this circumstance, you’ll take it in your subsequent commonly scheduled day.
In different phrases, in case 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?
While you open a brand new Wegovy pen, you’ll discover that there is no such thing as a seen needle, not like insulin pens.
It’s 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 treatment.
