What's the best injection site for GLP1s?
What's the best site for injecting Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, or Zepbound? We check anecdata, manufacturers, and 3rd parties.
One of the great things about the widespread popularity of GLP1 Receptor Agonists is the large amount of "anecdata" (anecdotal data) that can be collected with just a quick search of the internet.
Anecdata doesn't (and likely shouldn't) engender the same amount of trust as a randomized double-blind trial, but it's fantastic for gathering on-the-ground reactions and experiences with medications from the view of the average person, which is incredibly important for early diagnosis and information gathering.
There have been many threads about GLP1s on social media debating which areas were most beneficial for injection of GLP1s, which we'll cover below.
What experiences did people find online?
We've looked across threads on Reddit (so you don't have to) and found many threads with people essentially suggesting the following when managing dosing for GLP1s:
- Thigh injections being preferable to stomach for some
- In this case the person who reported was getting "violently ill" days after stomach shots.
- Splitting dosage (2x/week)
- Some experienced less fatigue
- Switching injection sites when efficacy changes
- General "feeling better" after switching injection sites
The anecdata from people doing personal experiments (of a sort) is really helpful to see, and to see that even with experimentation the GLP1 class of drugs is still very safe to take.
While of course manufacturer's recommendations should always be followed, the safety margins for GLP1s are clearly wider than other drugs. People are trying to find things that work for them, and in general writing about it and spreading knowledge.
What are the recommended areas for injections?
There are many GLP1 brands, as we've covered:
GLP1.Guide Staff
And they all have roughly the same recommendations as to injection places – here are some common visuals, with the medication they were proposed for.
The most important sources for instructions on how to take medications is the manufacturer and your local primary health professional!
Ozempic (Novo Nordisk)
Wegovy (Novo Nordisk)
Zepbound (Eli Lilly)
Mounjaro (Eli Lilly)
What are other providers recommending?
One thing that is interesting is that many providers seem to be using roughly the same graphic for how to inject, which is surprising but maybe not a sign of bad behavior necessarily:
Some are branded with the company that produced them (with the word "produce" being loosely used):
Maybe all the sites above were owned by ZAVA and just look to be unrelated (many are "online doctors" that will provide prescriptions), but it's a little disconcerting to see so many supposedly different sources of information have the exact same guidelines in different colors, which seem to just be copied.
That said, this is much less of a problem if the guidelines are correct – i.e. you can think of them as an re-illustration of the manufacturer's instructions.
Juniper, a larger operation out of the UK has a slightly more involved guide, which at least looks different from the others:
We haven't posted all the steps above, so please check out their site directly for the full guide if you're interested.
