1+ year stall on max dose: ideas?

[bored_cumin]

Me too - three years with zero problems. Maxed out on it. Type 2 diabetic.

 

[HealthDiary661]

For me personally, max dose gets limited by how much I can tolerate side-effect wise. Might be above or under the official trial max.

 

[CutFWIW]

A year at max dose with 8 lbs remaining is set point defense - the body holds harder the closer to baseline. Options are a caloric adjustment, adding Reta's glucagon component, or extending the timeline rather than escalating.

 

[Jamie_2003]

first dose is brutal when your body's adjusting. hang in there, it's worth it. one tip: take your shot in the evening so you can sleep through the worst side effects. hydrate the day before, day of, and day after too.

 

[BayArea_Brian]

on 2.5 first week and the appetite bounce came back around day 6, needed to eat a little more to stay full. normal move at the lowest dose. probably happens again at the higher steps. might prep some good snacks for end of week when it wears thin.

 

[Busy-Crew]

Ask your doctor to drop the dose to something you can actually tolerate. Maybe use other diabetes meds if needed. GI side effects were ongoing for me the first 2 years - psyllium helped slowly for loose stools but add it gradually. Pepto or Immodium when it's bad. Try to find a dietitian who knows GLP-1.

 

[Keto_Log]

Grey market has real risk. Only way to know is get it tested or notice effects. I researched here first, looked for no controversial stuff and good reviews — but how do I know they labeled it right? Give it a month.

 

[freshstart_vibes]

Solid point right there. Going slow and steady beats rushing into anything.

 

[BigTex_LessNextYear]

Exploring surgery after 6-7 years at max dose makes sense - conservative options are fully exhausted at that point. Worth getting a specialist opinion on what the specific pattern responds to.

 

[chickpea_recomp]

Staying at 2.5mg the whole way to goal is something a small number of people do manage, but the stall pattern on the target thread is more common at that dose. The OP stalled at max for a year is the scenario where adding a different mechanism rather than going higher on the same one tends to be more effective. Has the appetite suppression faded at 2.5 or is it still active just without scale movement?

 

[Green-FWIW]

7.5mg barely eating and then stepping back to 5mg maintaining is the pattern where the dose creates more side effects than benefit and the lower dose is actually more sustainable. The OP stalled at max for over a year is a different problem from your 7.5 experience - they're stable at a dose that isn't moving the scale anymore. What was the appetite like when you were at 5mg and losing versus now maintaining?

 

[noodle-potter88]

the split-dose approach makes sense for poor responders - the even coverage across the week can be more effective than a single weekly spike especially when the peak dose produces side effects that limit how high you can go. the total weekly dose staying the same but distributed differently can give cleaner signal on whether the plateau is a volume problem or a frequency problem

 

[chill_mango]

The forever question on a high dose is the one that comes up when the cost side and the clinical reality collide. The OP at a year stall on max dose is actually in the territory where stepping down to a lower maintenance dose can sometimes break the plateau - the body defending a set point at maximum suppression can respond differently to a dose change than a continued hold. What's the current dose and what did the loss trajectory look like in the months before the stall?

 

[Martin]

Read plenty of accounts here where people scale back one or two dose levels and that actually kickstarts their weight loss again. No personal experience with that myself. Also worth asking if your provider has anything they could add alongside the current medication to get things moving.