Indeed no. 15mg is the most concentrated/expensive pen. Entry level 2.5mg pens are about half that price.
Thing with weight loss medication tho is that the appetite suppression effect wears off over time, so the dosage needs to be increased to stop any backtracking.
This may not be true for everyone, but has been my experience.
I’ll be interesting what happens when these come off patent in 2031/32.
I’ve never seen a syringe from SHEIN so that’ll be fun.
That’s precisely the procedure I’ve used (very infrequently) with my insulin pen phials. The movable rubber plug, which is normally pushed by the pen plunger to force the liquid through the needle, actually seems to be rather low-friction inside the phial. So if you use a separate syringe to withdraw the liquid the plug is just ‘sucked’ (technically ‘pushed by atmospheric pressure’) along the bore of the phial.
Since full weight-loss pens cost so much we might wonder why the manufacturer has waited until now to minimise the liquid wastage. I guess that in fact they don’t care about wasting the liquid. The cost of the pen will not reflect the cost of the liquid. They can probably synthesise that for pennies. The cost will be set by the R&D, trialling and licensing, all of which they have to recoup, and by their desire to make the biggest possible profit. They’ll have minimised the ‘wastage’ now as a revenue protection response to people working out how to get at all of what they’ve paid for. It’s not about cost saving at all.
Interesting, just looked at pricing, a 10mg pen seems to be less than double of a 5mg pen and the savings get more for the higher doses. So couldn’t you just buy the highest dose and take smaller amounts with your own needles to save money?
All the big pharma I’ve worked with spend zero effort on cost reduction when revenue maximisation is relatively easier and is how the vast majority are incentivised.
I guess big pharma are saving the tablet form of the drug for then.
It’s not really possible to start on any pen stronger than 2.5mg. When you order a pen, you have to fill in a questionnaire and provide proof of identity, your GP details, and BMI/weight. (Usually by photos, sometimes by uploading a video. This can also include a continuous vid of you stepping on scales and panning the camera down to the readout on the scales)
You can step up to a 5mg pen on the next purchase and increase by 2.5 increments up to 15mg. But you cannot jump to say 7.5 from 2.5.
If you continue with the same supplier, it’s pretty simple - just confirmation of the amount of weight loss.
Thing is tho, there are fucking loads of pharmacies after your business, so it’s incredibly competitive. Lots of pharmacies offer introductory discounts (sometimes as much as 40%) on the first pen you buy with them.
For this reason, I’ve never bought a second pen from the same supplier, I always seek a intro discount using this comparison site. Yes you have to fill in a new questionnaire every time with pics, but the savings are significant 
Next drug on the horizon?
(Should be paywall free)
The market in the US is huge, There are 24 million Americans who have what is characterized as severe obesity, a body mass index of at least 40.
If Lilly get the biologic classification then expect them to use that to justify a price to higher than the current jabs.
Interestingly I watched a video on retatrutide but from the point of view of someone who lifts weights. They stopped taking it as it was too effective at weight loss. They only wanted to loose a small amount of weight to reach a lower body fat %. So would have been starting at 15% body fat, but they stopped after a few weeks due to how quickly they were loosing weight and also lost muscle mass.
Someone I know gets this using a loophole that allows you to buy it, before it’s been approved, for research purposes.
It works really well in that they are virtually never hungry, ever, and have no interest in food whatsoever and have to force themselves to eat.
I don’t know what dose they’re taking, but that’s not a situation I want to be in, I still want to enjoy food when I eat it and not have to force myself.
I have taken some advice mentioned upthread, as I’m eating a lot less I’m a lot more careful about what I’m eating, making sure I get fibre etc, and I’m also taking a multivitamin/mineral supplement.
That’s what I’ve been doing. I buy the 15mg pen and a load of 8mm 1ml insulin syringes and extract 0.3ml so I’m getting the equiv of a 7.5mg dose. This way I can get 11 weeks out of a single pen.
PS just received a 15mg pen and it still has the golden dose so looks like they still have some of the old ones in stock
2 months in, and I’ve lost 2 1/2 stone, which is half of my target. I lost a ton in my first week and now it’s levelled off at around 3-4 pounds a week.
I’m fitting in clothes that haven’t seen the light of day since before the pandemic and stuff I’ve bought recently is way too big so off to recycling/chazzer.
Speaking of the pandemic, some of you might remember I got long covid and was off work for just over 6 months, which is when I piled a lot more weight on. One of the lingering symptoms that I never really shook off was a constant feeling of fatigue. I have felt like I was operating at about 80% of what I used to before getting ill.
Well, that has completely gone, I feel like I’ve got more energy than I’ve had in years. Claire found an article somewhere that discussed Mounjaro and its effect on long covid symptoms and it seems like this is a common occurrence.
So I’m a very happy lad at the moment!
Nice one Rob! 
Excellent result
Will pass this onto a friend who has long covid and is struggling.
Now 7 stone/44.5 kg lost, 2 official and 1 golden shot of 12.5 Mounjaro to go. Never had to go to the 15mg. Hopefully get to something starting with 15st by then. Plan is to have the 10 day break and move to minimum Ozempic that i can, then come off that. Eating habits have completely changed, as has diet. Jeez, i even do some basic resistance exercise to counter some of the muscle wastage.
Measured the old belt and replacement belt, 12" reduction in belt size. The trick is going to be too keep it that way. At some stage i know coming off it will hit me like bus to the face.