Why the Nice Things Keep Breaking

[jpru2001]

A telehealth patient took a GLP-1 dose far above the label and wound up in the ER



Poison centres have logged a 1,500% increase in calls tied to GLP-1 side effects and overdoses, and this piece follows one woman whose hospital stay came after a single oversized GLP-1 shot.

www.today.com

Unhappy with how little she had lost, she injected 5x the amount she had been told to use, and spent 3 days in hospital.

Allegedly on the telehealth doctor's say-so.

 

[European]

Lucky for them that this stuff is so forgiving. Scroll reddit and you'll see the same pattern everywhere — orders placed long before anyone reads up on what they're taking. It's maddening.

 

[Vash]

Instant gratification is all anyone expects anymore.

 

[Ravenclawblues]

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I really doubt a prescriber handed her instructions for an overdose. Browse Reddit or any of the other social platforms and you quickly run into posters who can't tell units from dose, or who have no idea how much they are actually taking. Several of them admitted to shooting air without realising. And beyond that, people accidentally overuse self-administered medication all the time.

 

[CandyCap]

Ravenclawblues said:

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I really doubt a prescriber handed her instructions for an overdose. Browse Reddit or any of the other social platforms and you quickly run into posters who can't tell units from dose, or who have no idea how much they are actually taking. Several of them admitted to shooting air without realising. And beyond that, people accidentally overuse self-administered medication all the time.

Not long ago a reddit user posted about an OD. In her own words it was an “allergy” — she genuinely believed that was all it was.

She attached a photo of her script, and it showed the doctor had put her on close to 15mg every week. She was brand new to this and had no clue.

So yes — the prescriber really could have dosed her far too high.

My guess is that plenty of people claim prior GLP use when they sign up, purely to get the biggest dose their prescriber will write (despite never having touched it). None of them factor that in when they work out what to inject, and simply follow the label — a label built on a lie.

 

[Ravenclawblues]

CandyCap said:

Ravenclawblues said:

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I really doubt a prescriber handed her instructions for an overdose. Browse Reddit or any of the other social platforms and you quickly run into posters who can't tell units from dose, or who have no idea how much they are actually taking. Several of them admitted to shooting air without realising. And beyond that, people accidentally overuse self-administered medication all the time.

Not long ago a reddit user posted about an OD. In her own words it was an “allergy” — she genuinely believed that was all it was.

She attached a photo of her script, and it showed the doctor had put her on close to 15mg every week. She was brand new to this and had no clue.

So yes — the prescriber really could have dosed her far too high.

My guess is that plenty of people claim prior GLP use when they sign up, purely to get the biggest dose their prescriber will write (despite never having touched it). None of them factor that in when they work out what to inject, and simply follow the label — a label built on a lie.

Sure, that scenario is real — I've witnessed it myself. What makes me doubt it in this particular case is that no actual dose figure is ever given; the reporting stays on “units” and offers nothing to back it up. Anyone who describes their dose purely in units, with no clarification, raises my suspicions. Most of the time this sort of thing comes down to patient error rather than a prescriber's mistake.

 

[CandyCap]

Ravenclawblues said:

CandyCap said:

Ravenclawblues said:

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I really doubt a prescriber handed her instructions for an overdose. Browse Reddit or any of the other social platforms and you quickly run into posters who can't tell units from dose, or who have no idea how much they are actually taking. Several of them admitted to shooting air without realising. And beyond that, people accidentally overuse self-administered medication all the time.

Not long ago a reddit user posted about an OD. In her own words it was an “allergy” — she genuinely believed that was all it was.

She attached a photo of her script, and it showed the doctor had put her on close to 15mg every week. She was brand new to this and had no clue.

So yes — the prescriber really could have dosed her far too high.

My guess is that plenty of people claim prior GLP use when they sign up, purely to get the biggest dose their prescriber will write (despite never having touched it). None of them factor that in when they work out what to inject, and simply follow the label — a label built on a lie.

Sure, that scenario is real — I've witnessed it myself. What makes me doubt it in this particular case is that no actual dose figure is ever given; the reporting stays on “units” and offers nothing to back it up. Anyone who describes their dose purely in units, with no clarification, raises my suspicions. Most of the time this sort of thing comes down to patient error rather than a prescriber's mistake.

Fair enough — though I should add that I've come across plenty of overdoses that started at the prescribing end too.

 

[mtomm]

The way every single photo caption has to remind us that her current weight loss is down to diet and exercise.

Right — as if nobody else is doing the same.

 

[Pete369]

22,000 cases spread across 6 years, when 11% of adults are on GLP1s, doesn't strike me as a crisis. My hunch is that a good share of it comes down to people being bad at maths. And yes, sloppy prescriptions and unclear dosing instructions do happen and should be fixed quickly — but look at this figure for comparison:

Over-the-counter NSAIDs get used by roughly 29 million Americans for pain, and every year in the United States these drugs are linked to about 100,000 hospital admissions and 17,000 deaths.

Choosing Common Pain Relievers: It’s Complicated

 

[Chunkomatic]

Ravenclawblues said:

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I really doubt a prescriber handed her instructions for an overdose. Browse Reddit or any of the other social platforms and you quickly run into posters who can't tell units from dose, or who have no idea how much they are actually taking. Several of them admitted to shooting air without realising. And beyond that, people accidentally overuse self-administered medication all the time.

Nothing makes me wince quite like seeing someone ask how many units of a given peptide they ought to be taking per day.

 

[jpru2001]

Ravenclawblues said:

CandyCap said:

Ravenclawblues said:

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I really doubt a prescriber handed her instructions for an overdose. Browse Reddit or any of the other social platforms and you quickly run into posters who can't tell units from dose, or who have no idea how much they are actually taking. Several of them admitted to shooting air without realising. And beyond that, people accidentally overuse self-administered medication all the time.

Not long ago a reddit user posted about an OD. In her own words it was an “allergy” — she genuinely believed that was all it was.

She attached a photo of her script, and it showed the doctor had put her on close to 15mg every week. She was brand new to this and had no clue.

So yes — the prescriber really could have dosed her far too high.

My guess is that plenty of people claim prior GLP use when they sign up, purely to get the biggest dose their prescriber will write (despite never having touched it). None of them factor that in when they work out what to inject, and simply follow the label — a label built on a lie.

Sure, that scenario is real — I've witnessed it myself. What makes me doubt it in this particular case is that no actual dose figure is ever given; the reporting stays on “units” and offers nothing to back it up. Anyone who describes their dose purely in units, with no clarification, raises my suspicions. Most of the time this sort of thing comes down to patient error rather than a prescriber's mistake.

Chunkomatic said:

Ravenclawblues said:

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I really doubt a prescriber handed her instructions for an overdose. Browse Reddit or any of the other social platforms and you quickly run into posters who can't tell units from dose, or who have no idea how much they are actually taking. Several of them admitted to shooting air without realising. And beyond that, people accidentally overuse self-administered medication all the time.

Nothing makes me wince quite like seeing someone ask how many units of a given peptide they ought to be taking per day.

Might I point you in the direction of r/retitrutide?

 

[Skidude]

mtomm said:

The way every single photo caption has to remind us that her current weight loss is down to diet and exercise.

Right — as if nobody else is doing the same.

Pilates and a bit of hiking, that sort of thing