Charlotte Griffiths is far from overweight, but she — like many other women — took a weight-loss jab to get into her pre-baby jeans. After just one dose, she realized she had made a terrible mistake. Although she has a BMI of 21.7 — at the lower end of the “normal” range — she jabbed herself with a Wegovy injection pen. Within 10 minutes, she felt a little dazed, and when she woke up the next morning, she felt hungover. The brain fog was savage, and not only was a sip of her morning coffee repulsive, so was a sip of water. Before a meeting at work, she took a bite of a protein bar, but 20 minutes later felt a surge of nausea. Barely making it to the restroom in time, she was violently sick 3 times. By 3 p.m., she went home from work with migraine symptoms and the need to be alone in a dark room. Her husband was away on business, so she called an emergency babysitter to look after her children. The next morning was no different. It was becoming increasingly clear that she had poisoned herself. She even wondered if she could die from it. Thankfully, she survived, but there are dozens of stories where women were actually hospitalized after taking the drug. What the 39-year-old realized is that there are no shortcuts to make the side effects go away — Wegovy stays in your system for weeks. She eventually used anti-nausea medication to help her stop being sick. Professor Naveed Sattar, an obesity expert at the University of Glasgow, says: “We have to tighten the system so people who are not eligible to receive these drugs aren’t able to misuse them." As for Charlotte, she was able to get into her pre-baby jeans, but took them off an hour later because they were a depressing reminder of how stupid she had been. Instead of spending $65 on Wegovy and another $250 on emergency babysitters, she could have treated herself to a nice pair of new jeans that actually fit her.
