We tried a new Ozempic trick after piling on the pounds… and are stunned by our transformation

For Mary Jane Wheeler, Covid-19 was life changing. She says the virus turned her body against her.

After contracting the infection in 2021, she developed an autoimmune disease. Not long after that, she found herself in the throes of menopause. 

In just one year, Wheeler had gained 60 pounds.

‘I kind of felt like my body was hating me,’ the 53-year-old told the Daily Mail. 

The New Hampshire resident first heard about weight loss injections on TikTok in 2022, just as Ozempic – a brand name semaglutide injection initially developed to treat Type 2 diabetes – was becoming a household name, largely thanks to the radical physical transformations observed in some celebrities.

She sought the advice of her doctor who told her about the other, similar weight loss jabs already approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Prescribed under brand names such as Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound, as well as Ozempic, they work by mimicking a naturally occurring hormone called GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1). They regulate blood sugar levels and slow down the rate at which food leaves the stomach, creating the feeling of fullness and curbing appetite.

However, for Wheeler, there was a problem. Her insurance wouldn’t cover the medications. It would cost her $997 per month for Ozempic or $1,079 for Mounjaro. 

So, like tens of thousands of other Americans in a similar position, Wheeler found an alternative courtesy of the telehealth industry. These firms, which provide healthcare remotely via online portals, were quick to see the potential of the booming GLP-1 market.

But instead of expensive branded weight loss injections, many are touting off-brand ‘compounded’ weight loss medications. They contain the same active ingredients as the big hitters, but they’re dispensed by specially licensed compounding pharmacies and are far more affordable with no need for insurance coverage.

It is a development not without controversy. Some critics have dubbed compounded meds ‘Franken-zempics’ and say they are made possible by a loophole in regulation, allowing cheaper versions of name brand meds to be made and sold without FDA approval.

As of November 2024, there were around 10 deaths and 100 hospitalizations in the US associated with the use of off-brand, compounded semaglutide, according to Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of Ozempic and Wegovy. 

In her quest for these medications, Wheeler found an online service selling compounded semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy) starting at $179 a month, and compounded tirzepatide (Mounjaro and Zepbound) for $289 a month.

She had to answer a brief questionnaire about her medical history before having an online consultation with the telehealth company’s doctor, during which they came up with a dosing plan.

In researching weight loss injections, Wheeler – a content creator with more than 71,000 followers (@tiktokmomof6) – had read about ‘microdosing,’ where patients take a smaller dose of the drug than is normally recommended. She wanted to try it. 

‘I wanted to start slowly because I didn’t know how my body would respond to it,’ Wheeler told the Daily Mail, speaking about the drug.

‘I always joke with my family and my doctors when they say, “It’s highly unlikely that X, Y, Z would happen.” I always say I’m the poster child for highly unlikely. If something’s going to happen, it’s going to happen to me.’

Last August, she received a home kit that included medical wipes, a pre-filled vial of liquid compounded tirzepatide, Zofran to prevent nausea, and a syringe with measurements marked in milligrams.

Within five months, Wheeler lost 30 pounds while taking just 2.5 mg weekly – the usual introductory amount a doctor will likely increase to 5 mg after four weeks on the medication.

‘I feel so good, even though I’m losing slowly,’ she said. 

Wheeler’s experience has been a satisfactory one to date, she says. 

Though, it raises another concerning issue associated with compounded medications: the rise of microdosing.

Compounded weight loss drugs have skyrocketed in popularity amid periodic shortages of their name-brand counterparts.

In addition to being markedly cheaper, they’ve also been aggressively advertised as having fewer of the infamous side effects associated with Ozempic or Wegovy, such as nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, constipation, abdominal pain, headache, fatigue, indigestion, dizziness, and digestive disorders. 

Their packaging has made microdosing possible. 

The FDA-approved GLP-1 receptor agonists come in pre-filled pens and deliver a precise dosage, whereas the compounded version comes in a vial and patients are expected to fill the syringes themselves. This allows for a smaller or larger doses to be administered at the users’ discretion.

A spokesperson for Novo Nordisk told the Daily Mail that the company doesn’t ‘condone these practices’ of microdosing compounded semaglutide, or taking any form of a compounded GLP-1 agonist in general.

‘It’s important to understand that for Ozempic, only the marked doses on the pens – 0.25, 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 mg – are approved for use, with 0.25 mg only approved for initiation and not maintenance,’ the spokesperson said.

A representative for Eli Lilly and Company – which manufactures Zepbound and Mounjaro – told the Daily Mail the company ‘does not promote or encourage use of tirzepatide or any Lilly medicine outside of the medicine’s approved label.’

‘Dose-splitting or “microdosing” is not contemplated by the FDA-label and may pose patient safety risks,’ they added. 

The FDA has also expressed its concerns, calling it ‘risky for patients’ who lack experience with self-injection, and citing reports of people taking up to 20 times the intended dose.

According to Dr. Nidhi Kansal, an internal medicine physician at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, it’s ‘definitely not a good medical recommendation for patients to be figuring out their own dosing of medications.’

‘We don’t do that in any other field of medicine,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘Patients don’t dose their own chemotherapy or their own psychiatric medication.’

Dr. Kansal warns against the third-party markets offering their own version of name brand GLP-1s, calling them ‘not necessarily safe or healthy for patients.’ 

Those joining the growing ‘microdosing’ trend have seemingly ignored warnings from FDA officials and clinicians. Instead, they’ve boasted how the benefits of microdosing range far beyond weight loss.

For Mariah Hopkins, a 33-year-old mother of four from Utah, her microdosing journey began after she struggled for three years to lose post-pregnancy weight.

She told the Daily Mail she had her first injection of compounded semaglutide in February 2024 after a local med spa advertised its services starting at $149 a month.

Immediately after injecting her starter dosage of 0.25 mg, Mariah said she noticed significant improvements in her anxiety levels.

‘I had felt like I was almost in a constant state of fight or flight, and it was almost immediately when I started taking the medication that I felt my brain fog completely went away and I was less anxious,’ she said.

About four months in, and having lost 40 pounds, Hopkins began researching microdosing. She didn’t want to lose any more but she believed the drug eased her anxiety levels, so she didn’t want to swear off GLP-1s completely.

‘People ask, “Are you scared to stop taking the medication because you might gain the weight back?” No, I don’t want to stop taking the medication because of how I feel mentally,’ she told us. ‘It’s so much more than weight loss.’

Both Hopkins and Wheeler hope to continue microdosing – but they may face a challenge. As of March 10, shortages of brand name weight loss drugs have been declared ‘resolved’ by the FDA.

Under the law, compounding pharmacies were permitted to manufacture ‘essentially a copy’ of FDA-approved drugs during shortages, which began in 2022. 

But now that brand name semaglutide and tirzepatide injections are no longer deemed in short supply, compounding pharmacies may soon be acting illegally, along with the third-party services prescribing and supplying off-brand weight loss drugs to patients.

‘There’s no reason that we should have a third-party market,’ said Dr. Kansal.

Of course, some medical professionals say pharmaceutical companies are only interested in maximizing their profits, and want to stop access to compounded weight loss medications altogether.

‘I think trying to apply a one-size-fits-all dosing regimen of these meds is failing patients more than anything,’ said McCall McPherson, a licensed physician assistant and founder of Modern Thyroid Clinic.

Although she acknowledges microdosing may seem like ‘the Wild West’ to outsiders, she says companies offering compounded weight loss drugs ‘often undergo extremely rigorous testing and licensure regulations.’

‘I think we have to evolve our treatment, even if that [means] Eli Lilly and larger pharmaceutical companies to allow and facilitate individualized dosing.’

Proponents of microdosing argue that restrictions on compounded weight loss drugs will do more harm than good, limiting access for many more patients who could benefit. 

But clinicians still warn against telehealth companies offering their own versions, calling them ‘not necessarily safe or healthy for patients.’ 

Despite their opposing views, there’s no denying that these medications have made a lasting impact.

‘In my opinion,’ McPherson said, ‘they are the biggest thing that will happen in medicine in my lifetime.’