Yes, Wegovy is a shot. It’s a once-weekly injection you give yourself at home using a prefilled pen. The pen delivers semaglutide, a weight loss medication, into the fat just beneath your skin. You don’t need to visit a clinic or have someone else administer it.
How the Injection Works
Wegovy comes in a single-use, prefilled pen with a small, thin needle designed for subcutaneous injection, meaning it goes into a layer of fat rather than muscle. Because the needle is so short and thin, many people don’t feel it at all. You press the pen firmly against your skin, wait for a yellow indicator bar to stop moving, then lift it away. The whole process takes seconds.
You can inject into three areas: your lower stomach (avoiding the area right around your navel), the front of your upper thigh, or the back of your upper arm. Rotating between these sites helps prevent skin irritation. Before injecting, you clean the area with an alcohol swab or soap and water, and afterward you dispose of the pen in a sharps container.
If the cold fluid bothers you, leaving the pen out of the refrigerator for 30 to 60 minutes before use (with the cap still on) makes the injection more comfortable.
Dosing Schedule and Ramp-Up
Wegovy isn’t prescribed at full strength right away. You follow a gradual dose increase over about four months to reduce the chance of stomach-related side effects:
- Weeks 1 through 4: 0.25 mg once weekly
- Weeks 5 through 8: 0.5 mg once weekly
- Weeks 9 through 12: 1 mg once weekly
- Weeks 13 through 16: 1.7 mg once weekly
- Week 17 onward: 2.4 mg once weekly (the maintenance dose for most adults)
Each dose level has its own color-coded pen, so you don’t need to measure or adjust anything yourself. You pick the same day each week for your injection and stick with it. If you miss a dose, take it as soon as you remember within a few days. If your next scheduled dose is close, skip the missed one and continue on your regular day.
How Wegovy Produces Weight Loss
Semaglutide mimics a hormone your gut naturally releases after eating called GLP-1. This hormone does three things that matter for weight management: it signals fullness to the brain’s appetite center, it slows down how fast your stomach empties (so you feel satisfied longer after a meal), and it helps regulate blood sugar by prompting insulin release when glucose rises.
The net effect is that most people simply feel less hungry and get full faster. In clinical trials, participants on the 2.4 mg maintenance dose lost an average of about 15% of their body weight over roughly a year and a half, compared to about 4% in participants taking a placebo. Both groups also followed a reduced-calorie diet and exercise plan.
Who Can Get a Prescription
The FDA has approved Wegovy for adults with a BMI of 30 or higher (which qualifies as obesity) or adults with a BMI of 27 to 29.9 (overweight) who also have at least one weight-related health condition, such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol. It’s also approved for adolescents aged 12 and older whose BMI is at or above the 95th percentile for their age and sex.
Wegovy is prescribed alongside dietary changes and increased physical activity, not as a standalone treatment.
How Wegovy Differs From Ozempic
Both Wegovy and Ozempic contain the same active ingredient, semaglutide, and both are weekly injections. The key difference is their approved purpose and dosing ceiling. Ozempic is approved for type 2 diabetes management and tops out at 2 mg per week. Wegovy is approved specifically for weight loss and goes up to 2.4 mg per week. That higher maximum dose is part of why Wegovy tends to produce greater weight loss in clinical comparisons.
Common Side Effects
Stomach-related symptoms are the most frequent side effects, especially during the dose ramp-up period. Nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and constipation are the ones reported most often. Abdominal pain, bloating, acid reflux, gas, and indigestion also occur in a meaningful number of users. Some people experience headache, fatigue, dizziness, or hair loss.
For most people, nausea is the biggest complaint early on and tends to fade as the body adjusts to each new dose level. That gradual titration schedule exists specifically to make this transition easier. About 4% of patients in trials stopped treatment because of gastrointestinal symptoms, with nausea and vomiting being the top reasons.
Storing Your Pens
Wegovy pens should be kept in the refrigerator between 36°F and 46°F, ideally in their original carton. If you’re traveling or don’t have refrigerator access, an unused pen can stay at room temperature (up to 86°F) for a maximum of 28 days, as long as it’s kept away from direct light and doesn’t freeze. After 28 days out of the fridge, the pen should be thrown away even if it hasn’t been used.