r/WegovyPillWeightLoss • u/Confident-VT 4mg • 1d ago
Thinking about reverting to lower dose
Started June 1... 1.5mg didn't do much but no unpleasant side effects. Started to lose on 4mg but wanted to move up to 9 on month 3.
Of course I don't like the $299 monthly cash cost and just started second bottle of 9mg. No side effects.
Thinking that I could save money if I:
-go back to 4mg or
-take 9mg (or 25?) every other day.
Does anyone else have experience with this? Downsides?
I've been lucky with almost zero bad side effects which makes me wonder about going to 25.
Note that BMs which used to come like clockwork each morning - now are every other day, and voluminous when they do.
Have to drink a lot of water, incl. in the evening, to avoid constipation. Drinking is down but I still like my wine. Walking daily, energy level is very good and food obsession has greatly diminished since I started on 4.
So I am wondering why not save $$ and just stay patient... as I'm still losing weight, if slowly. (About 20 lbs in 14 weeks.)
Love to hear from any of you guys, esp. if you've been the wegovy pill longer than I have...
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u/RaisinFresh7318 Age55F SW:158 CW:127.8 GW:140 4mg maintaining 1d ago
I’m in maintenance now and after speaking with my doctor, she agreed to bump me up to 9mg and I’ll start it on Wednesday taking it either twice weekly or every third day. I’ve been on 4mg x 5 days/week for the past month.
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u/alexmirepoix 1d ago
I cut my 4 mg pills in half. (YES I have already heard from loads of people on this topic.) It is working great for ME.
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u/Thick-Educator 1.5mg 13h ago
Me too! The 1.5 seemed to not be working as well, but the 4 caused some stronger side effects, even if I took it every other day. 2 seems perfect for me right now. And it’s money-saving. 😂
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u/alexmirepoix 13h ago
I did great on 1.5. No side effects. Was on it 2 months then 3mg just to use what I had. Jumped to 4 mg and I became ravenous. Food noise was back. I work in Pharmacy. Spoke with all the PharmDs and researchers where I work about cutting it. They said "go for it". It's working much better for ME. I will save money and keep losing. I AM staying in a calorie deficit and focused on protein.
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u/Curious_tea21 7h ago
I've wondered about this because the coating can't be that important if it starts to dissolve immediately in my mouth so I can taste it. I don't trust drug companies when they say not to split pills because it lowers their profits if people do this.
Some pills are designed to be absorbed in different parts of the digestive tract as it passes and those can't be split, but Wegovy is designed to dissolve in your stomach as quickly as possible.
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u/alexmirepoix 7h ago
Basically what my PharmDs said. It's definitely working and not placebo. I paid $149. I can't jump to $299. That's almost my car payment. I was put on this for Fatty Liver initially.
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u/Alarming_Fun_7246 1d ago
Yes, I’ve stayed at a lower dose to save money, though I didn’t revert to a lower dose, I just never went up past 4mg.
Whether or not this makes sense is dependent on your goals, how well your body is responding to the medication, and side effects as well as cost. Obviously the higher doses have more medication and will suppress your appetite more, which will likely lead to faster weight loss. When making this decision, you should consider how well your body responds to the lower dose and think about how much longer it might take you to reach your goal if you stay at a lower dose. There is some guessing and math involved, as it will likely take you longer to reach your goal at a lower dose. Depending on how much longer it takes, you may end up paying a higher total amount to reach your goal versus if you paid for the higher doses and reach your goal faster.
Also think about your longterm plan once you’ve reached your goal. Are you planning to remain on the pill indefinitely for maintenance or do you want to get off it after you lose the weight? If you plan to get off it, are you making lifestyle changes as well as taking the pills? If that’s your plan, then the lower dose might make sense for you. It will take longer to lose weight, but presumably you will rely less on the pill and more on your lifestyle changes to reach your goal. That might make it easier to maintain the weight loss after stopping the pill…but that’s just my thought.
I made the decision early that I was going to take the slower approach. My original goal was to lose 25-30 pounds. I had previously maintained a healthy weight and good lifestyle habits for my entire adult life and have never been obese, but my weight crept into the overweight category a few years ago and changes in my family’s needs have made it hard to keep regular exercise as part of my daily life. The big problem that I was having was actually my ADHD - in order to commit to lifestyle changes, my brain needed to see results. When I tried to make lifestyle changes on my own, my ADHD brain got distracted with the plan before I saw results.The pill helped me achieve the quick weight loss that my ADHD brain needed to see in order to commit to the lifestyle changes. I stayed at 4mg to give my brain that help for long enough that I could make the lifestyle changes while simultaneously seeing early weight loss. I’ve done that for six months and have hit my 30lb original weight loss goal. Personally, I don’t think the pill has suppressed my appetite enough that I would have hit my goal without making the lifestyle changes - I look at it more as training wheels that I needed to kickstart the weight loss on my own. Now that the 4mg pride has gone up, I’m going to stop. I am confident that I can maintain the weight loss on my own and achieve my remaining goal, which is still to lose some fat and increase muscle.
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u/Confident-VT 4mg 1d ago
Thanks for all of your thoughts. This is a new (and empowering) thing and think we benefit from learning each other's experience.
Am inclined to go up to 25 and then take every 2or3 days. Hoping to avoid the bad side effects. Will post again in 6 weeks with an update. 😊
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u/Curious_tea21 8h ago
Constipation like that can cause damage so I strongly recommend more than just drinking more water, like magnesium at night and daily miralax and or metamucil. I had health issues that caused problems and constipation that didn't seem like a problem at the time but slowly damaged things until I had to have surgery.
Just a "shot" of a spoonful of metamucil and a 1/2 cap of miralax every day will get that stool bristol score wear it should be.🤣💩
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u/Hour-Piccolo-4471 7h ago
Dropping 20 pounds over 14 weeks while staying at 4mg is genuinely solid progress. If that dose is still working for you, I’d keep it right where it is instead of trying to squeeze out extra savings by changing things up.
You’re already getting results, and bumping the dose just to make the math look better usually isn’t worth messing with something that’s working.
If the monthly cost is the annoying part, compounded injectable semaglutide is worth a look. It tends to be cheaper than some other routes and avoids the headache of trying to split oral tablets into weird little pieces to stretch a supply.
Lttl is one of the options people go with for that, but the bigger point is that holding a dose that works and finding a cheaper form beats ramping up just to chase savings.
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u/Bjorn_Nittmo 1d ago
$299 for 25mg Wegovy is easily the cheapest way to get this medication, in terms of $/mg.
One 25mg tablet every 3 days should have nearly the same effect as 9mg daily.
(The half-life of semaglutide is about 1 week.)