Call your healthcare provider and ask for advice—they’ll tell you what the best course of action is.
If you made a mistake while preparing your Ozempic pen and accidentally took a higher dose than prescribed, what should you do next?
Firstly: don’t panic. You may experience stronger side effects than before, like nausea and vomiting. Call your healthcare provider and ask for advice—they’ll tell you what the best course of action is.
For people taking Ozempic, it’s important to be clued up on what can happen if you take too much—and what you can do to prevent that from happening. We’ve laid out what you need to know below.
You’ve taken too much of a drug when you take anything more than what’s been prescribed to you.
Higher doses (read: higher strengths) of a drug are generally more likely to bring on side effects. Some studies have found that people who took higher doses of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic, experienced side effects more often.
In the UK, the maximum available dose of Ozempic for weight loss in people who don’t have type 2 diabetes is 1 mg per week. You could also be on a 0.5 mg dose, or a 0.25 mg dose if you’re in your first four weeks of taking it.
There are other drugs which use higher doses of semaglutide than Ozempic. For example, there’s Wegovy, which is specifically licensed as a treatment for weight loss and is available in doses as high as 2.4 mg. Ozempic is licensed as a medicine for type 2 diabetes, but is prescribed off-label to help with weight loss.
Scientific research has shown that among people taking 2.4 mg doses of semaglutide, side effects tended to be mild or moderate in nature and usually went away on their own.
Guidance from the European Medicines Agency notes that Ozempic overdoses of up to 4 mg in a single dose have been reported in clinical trials, but that everyone in those studies recovered without complications. The most commonly reported side effect was nausea.
That said, you should always take medicine in the dose that’s prescribed to you. Taking more won’t make the drug work more effectively—it will only make you more likely to get side effects. And while these might be manageable, they could also be more serious. It’s not a risk worth taking.
It’s important to see your doctor immediately if you get severe pain in your stomach and back, have any changes to your vision, get an allergic reaction (like trouble breathing or swollen lips), your symptoms get worse or don’t go away.
Your Ozempic pen comes pre-filled, but you need to select the correct dose when you’re preparing the pen for use. We’ve written a complete guide on how to use Ozempic, that explains how to get the pen ready and use it safely in more detail.
The part where you select your dose comes after you’ve checked that the solution is clear and colourless, have carefully attached a new needle and removed the caps, and confirmed that medicine is flowing through the pen correctly.
Once you’ve gone through those steps, you need to make sure that the correct dose shows up on the dose counter, which is the small white window towards the bottom of the pen (the side that doesn’t have the needle) with a number or symbol inside it.
Turn the dose selector (the bit of the pen that turns, below the window and above the clicker) until your dose (0.25 mg, 0.5mg, or 1.0 mg) appears in the dose counter. The number needs to line up exactly with the tip of the small arrow beneath the dose counter window. Then, you’re ready to use the pen.
You should take Ozempic only once per week. If you need to change your injection day, you can switch to any day that’s at least three days after your last dose. But this new day needs to be your regular Ozempic day going forward.
This medicine is designed to be taken weekly, because this ensures that enough of the drug stays in your system for it to work how it’s supposed to. So, you should try to stick to that schedule as best you can.
While Ozempic is licensed for treating type 2 diabetes, it’s been shown to be effective in supporting weight loss, too. In fact, the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends semaglutide for this purpose.
But, as with any drug, not everyone can or should take it. If you’ve got type 1 diabetes or are pregnant or breastfeeding, then Ozempic isn’t for you. It also might not be recommended if you have a history of problems with your pancreas, liver, or thyroid.
People who may benefit from taking Ozempic are those with a BMI of 30 or more, and who have at least one other health problem that’s related to their weight. People of certain ethnicities can be eligible with a BMI of 27 or higher.
If that’s you, and you’re thinking about trying medication to support your weight loss journey, check your eligibility for our weight loss programme by filling out this short form. It takes less than five minutes.
Our programme is designed for gradual and sustainable weight loss. It combines a repeat prescription for weight loss medication like Ozempic with regular check-ins and weekly advice from a dietician, so you can make changes that last.
Weight loss medication isn’t a “quick fix”: it’s meant to be used alongside healthy diet and lifestyle habits. Scientific research has shown that semaglutide is effective when used in this way—and that’s exactly how it’s used on our programme.
Check your eligibility via this short form to get started.
