Wegovy Injection Guide: Where and How to Inject?

Wegovy is a once-weekly injectable drug that’s used to assist regulate blood sugar ranges and help in weight reduction.

If you happen to’ve been prescribed Wegovy, this could be the primary time you might have ever taken a self-administered shot.

However even you probably have expertise with self-managed injections, Wegovy is completely different sufficient that you just may nonetheless have questions.

This text will clarify the whole lot that you must learn about the place and methods to inject Wegovy.

Get to know your Wegovy pen, prescription, and dose

Wegovy is a prescription medicine for weight reduction. It has the identical lively ingredient—semaglutide—as different medicine like Ozempic.

It is available in an injector pen (which can be referred to as a “medicine pen” or just a “pen”.)

Most individuals consider injector pens as being simpler to make use of than syringes. It’s 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, comparable to pre-measured doses.

If you happen to 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 medicine chamber proper behind it.

Proper behind that on the physique of the pen, you’ll see the label with medicine and dose info

Wegovy pens would not have a visual needle. It’s because, in contrast to many different injectable medicine 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.

If you happen to’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 seem like?

The dose in milligrams that your physician prescribes to it’s 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—which means {that a} pen is designed for use as soon as after which discarded.

Regardless that the pens could look roughly related, there are 5 completely different dose-sized Wegovy pens:

• A pen that incorporates a 0.25 mg dose is for the start of remedy. 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.

Remember to confirm that the packaging and the pen are each clearly labeled with the dose choice in milligrams that you just had been prescribed.

Pen colours or labels could change over time, so it’s necessary to confirm that the dose is accurately listed.

By no means take greater than you might be prescribed by your physician. If you happen to overdose on Wegovy, it’s possible you’ll expertise vital antagonistic negative effects.

Learn Extra: Wegovy Dosing Information

The place is the perfect place on my physique to inject Wegovy?

To make sure that the medicine 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 elements of your physique with some fatty tissue.

Injections into lean or largely muscular elements of your physique aren’t advisable, as they are usually painful, could 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: The way to Keep away from Injection Website Bruising

The way to inject Wegovy

The quantity prescribed by your physician needs 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 in your injection usually doesn’t matter.

The steps to observe for injecting Wegovy are outlined under.

Verify your pen

Get your pen and an alcohol swab prepared.

Verify 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 obvious.

Discover a great spot 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.

Nonetheless, keep away from injecting into the identical spot every week to cut 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 towards your pores and skin on the website you’ve chosen in the best way your physician has proven you.

The pen needs to be perpendicular to your physique, at a couple of 90-degree angle.

Press the pen down firmly towards 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 towards your pores and skin.

Pay attention for an audible click on to let you realize the injection has began.

If you happen to don’t hear the press, it’s possible you’ll have to press the entrance a part of the pen down extra firmly towards the pores and skin.

Proceed holding the pen in place firmly towards 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 shifting contained in the pen widow and urgent the drugs 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 just’re achieved, exchange 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 may apply stress to the world together with your alcohol swab if wanted.

How do I do know if I injected Wegovy accurately?

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 drugs into your physique.

Be certain that it stops shifting earlier than you’re taking the pen away out of your physique.

It’s a good suggestion to provide the auto-injector at the very least ten seconds of agency contact with the pores and skin to do its work.

Speak together with your physician or pharmacist you probably have questions or fear that you could have achieved one thing incorrectly.

What’s the greatest time of day to inject Wegovy?

There isn’t a clinically demonstrated greatest time of day to take Wegovy.

Slightly, crucial factor is to pick out a day of the week and constantly take it on that very same day every week.

If you happen to determine to take the medicine on a Monday, you may take it any time of day—however it’s best to plan to take your weekly dose of Wegovy every Monday for so long as you employ the medicine.

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 to don’t miss a dose.

What do I do if I miss a dose?

If you happen to miss a dose of Wegovy, take it as quickly as attainable inside 5 days of your missed dose.

Nonetheless, if the dose you missed ought to have been taken 5 days or extra in the past, then that you must 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?

Once you open a brand new Wegovy pen, you’ll discover that there is no such thing as a seen needle, in contrast to 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 have to see or deal with a needle when taking the medicine.