Zepbound and Some It's Lovely Side Effects

[Bellemorte1979]

Hey all! Hoping to get some good thoughts. Sorry for the long post.

Long story, very short, swapped from Wegovy to Zep back in December 2025. Slowly went up. I was basically maintaining the little bit of weight I had lost until late March, and then I took off a bunch when I went to 7.5. Then, in late April, I started on 10 MG. Wow. It has been bad. Terrible stomach/gas issues, strong food aversion, diarrhea (sorry for the overshare lol). Was on the road for work most of May. Sadly, even the last two weeks at home and trying to eat my normal ol boring diet of nutritious foods (high in fiber and proteins), and still having all kinds of issues. I have tried all the actual real tricks. I don't eat if I'm going to bed in less than four hours. Still have terrible gas issues all morning. I've cut down to one or no carbonated beverages a day. I mean, I never drank more than two anyway, and that was super rare, but I have done that. I feel nauseous occasionally, it's been mostly bad gas (pain, bloating) and really bad food aversion. I have tried Gas-x and it sometimes works. I was on Wegovy last year and did have strong, STRONG food aversion as I got higher up in doses, so we swapped to Zep, hoping it wouldn't be as bad. This might be worse. When I can eat I know that normal digestion is a rarity so it's been really hard to want to eat. If I were even remotely close to being near a goal, I might stop. I'm still 90-100 lbs from being under 200. I can't stop now. Does anyone have suggestions? I was still losing on 7.5. Would swapping lower cause issues? When I stopped a high dose of Wegovy and went to a low dose of Zep I had really bad food noise issues and was constantly non-stop hungry. Would you just stick with it and hope?

I appreciate any advice. 🙂

 

[Skidude]

I had many gastro side effects when I was at the 5-10 level that eventually went away.
If you are monitoring your BM frequency and ensuring to stay hydrated, it might be as simple as reducing dosage to 7.5 or 8.. if you were losing anyway it might not be time to raise the dose.
my 2cents

 

[deluge]

If you were losing on 7.5 and had no or fewer side effects, I’d stick with that dose.

I’ve been on Tirz nearly identical to your time and dosage. No side effects, though.

 

[cheaperseeker]

If you were still losing on 7.5 mg, you should go back to that. Let your system stabilize. Then, if your weight loss stalls for more than 4 weeks, you can increase again. Do it slowly though, since you had such a strong reaction to 10 mg. Try 0.5 mg increments and stay at each new dose for at least 4 weeks.

Don't increase if you are still losing, even if it's only 1/2 pound per week. If you are not losing after 4-6 weeks at each new dose, then you can increase again. You want to take the smallest dose that works so you have room to increase later if you build a tolerance.

 

[Bellemorte1979]

If you were still losing on 7.5 mg, you should go back to that. Let your system stabilize. Then, if your weight loss stalls for more than 4 weeks, you can increase again. Do it slowly though, since you had such a strong reaction to 10 mg. Try 0.5 mg increments and stay at each new dose for at least 4 weeks.

Don't increase if you are still losing, even if it's only 1/2 pound per week. If you are not losing after 4-6 weeks at each new dose, then you can increase again. You want to take the smallest dose that works so you have room to increase later if you build a tolerance.

Thanks so much for responding. I'm actually lucky enough to get to use the single-dose pens. The only good thing about my job is the insurance covers it, and I'd prefer to stay on the pens, so it's 7.5 (or maybe they are 7) and then 10. I'm heavily thinking about messaging my physician and seeing if he thinks we can drop back. I was on the 7.5 dose for 3 months so it might be best to go back. Thanks again!

 

[Bellemorte1979]

If you were losing on 7.5 and had no or fewer side effects, I’d stick with that dose.

I’ve been on Tirz nearly identical to your time and dosage. No side effects, though.

I'm thinking about it seriously. I'm perfectly OK with appetite suppression, but the gastrointestinal issues are getting to the point of interfering with life! Let's just say flying was not a good time. Many thanks!

 

[Bellemorte1979]

I had many gastro side effects when I was at the 5-10 level that eventually went away.
If you are monitoring your BM frequency and ensuring to stay hydrated, it might be as simple as reducing dosage to 7.5 or 8.. if you were losing anyway it might not be time to raise the dose.
my 2cents

I've been on 10 about 1.5 months so I was hoping it would have smoothed out by now. The big issue is that I travel for business, sometimes by air or driving in the middle of nowhere. Gastro issues kinda get a bit tricky with that lol. I was certainly losing, so I'll definitely consider that. Thanks for the input.

 

[cheaperseeker]

I'm actually lucky enough to get to use the single-dose pens.

I guess that's good and bad. I wish they would make them more like the insulin pens with the ability to change doses. As you know, 2.5 mg is a big jump for some people.

I'd call or message your doctor's office if you don't have an appointment in the next week or two and ask about decreasing the dose.

 

[lessthanhalf]

Just because you are using the legit pens rather than grey versions does not mean you cannot fine tune the dose. After ozempic for a year and a single horrifically expensive tirz prescription , I have done this personally.

Side effects like you are having do generally improve over time, but often slowly over months, dropping the dose is a better solution than waiting months for improvement. For me ozempic caused nausea and malaise that never went away over year, despite a lot of fiddling with microdosing every second day, but thankfully for me tirz was much better.

If you have side effects that are difficult to tolerate or seriously unpleasant, there are 2 possible solutions, one is half the dose twice as often, if the side effects are only bad a few days after each dose, or drop the dose to where side effects were better, and then increase very slowly, once side effects have improved and stabilised, and after a delay. The dose increases for tirz are actually pretty sensible, but side effects seem very variable from person to person, you might be better only increasing doses 0.5mg or 1mg at a time. This lack of fine dose adjustment is a limitation of the pens, but the priority was making it idiot proof not optimal.

The legit pens have a certain number of clicks per dose, look it up online and find the tables with clicks per dose for each dose pen, so that if you want to do 6mg dose and ( for example , I do not remember exactly ) 72 clicks is a 7.5mg dose, then 6/7.5=0.8 0.8 x 72 is 58 clicks, so that when you dial in the dose, you just twist it very slowly and count how many clicks you hear till you get to the right number, but the tables are easier than trying to calculate it. Do double and triple check the table you use is the same as your pen, it is not that easy to stuff it up and get a wrong dose but not impossible, so care is needed. ( which is why the manufacturer does not advise this )

I just saw the bit about single dose pens at the end. I do not know if they allow click counting, but should be pretty easy to google it and see if there is a way to adjust doses with them, or just get the multidose pens instead, or go over to the dark side and save a stack of money and be able to adjust your own doses. Assuming they are similar to the multidose pens, it is possible to extract the drug from them with an insulin syringe, and then use that to administer the drug, but you need to calculate the volume that is the correct dose correctly. The old multidose pens had 5 doses per pen and the only way to use the 5th dose was to extract it like that.

 

[Bellemorte1979]

I just saw the bit about single dose pens at the end. I do not know if they allow click counting, but should be pretty easy to google it and see if there is a way to adjust doses with them, or just get the multidose pens instead, or go over to the dark side and save a stack of money and be able to adjust your own doses. Assuming they are similar to the multidose pens, it is possible to extract the drug from them with an insulin syringe, and then use that to administer the drug, but you need to calculate the volume that is the correct dose correctly. The old multidose pens had 5 doses per pen and the only way to use the 5th dose was to extract it like that.

I wish there was a way I could do the click pens because I feel like a dose twice a week instead of once a week would absolutely fix me up. My insurance covers tirz super cheap (25 for 3 pens) so I can't afford to do anything else right now. Malaise was a massive issue for me on Wegovy. I felt horrific after a couple months on it. While my stomach and gastro issues have been really, really annoying and sometimes life affecting, I don't feel like I did on that. I still have energy and actually want to do things. The biggest issue with lower doses is they had 0.0 appetite suppression with it. Luckily I'm a fairly nutritious and controlled eater nowadays so I can handle it but the 10MG has been nice that way. I didn't deal with food noise or bad cravings before GLP1s. I might just have to stick it out for a while until my body adapts. We will see. Multidose pens would be so cool. Thanks for the input. 🙂 Appreciate it.