Wegovy Side Effects Explained

Stomach-related side effects are common with semaglutide, particularly in the first weeks and after each increase in dose. For most people they ease. A small number of effects are serious and need medical help rather than patience, and knowing which is which before you start is the point of this page.

Important: PenCompare is an independent comparison platform, not a pharmacy or a prescriber. This page is general information and is not a complete list of side effects. The patient information leaflet supplied with your pen is the authority for your medicine. If you are unwell right now, contact a healthcare professional rather than reading on.

On this page

When to get urgent help

This is at the top rather than buried further down, because someone looking it up in a hurry should not have to scroll past a list of mild effects to find it.

Seek urgent medical help — call 999 or go to A&E

  • Severe stomach pain that will not go away, especially if it spreads through to your back, with or without vomiting. This can be a sign of pancreatitis
  • Signs of a serious allergic reaction: swelling of the face, lips, tongue or throat, difficulty breathing or swallowing, a rapidly spreading rash, or feeling faint

Do not message your online provider and wait for a reply. An online service is not set up to handle an emergency, and the time spent waiting is the thing that causes harm.

Contact your GP or NHS 111 promptly, rather than as an emergency, for pain in the upper right of your stomach with fever, yellowing of the skin or the whites of your eyes, or unusually pale stools. Those can point to a gallbladder problem, which is a recognised effect of this class of medicine.

Wait, ask, or act

  • Settles The common stomach effects usually ease over a few weeks as the body adjusts, and after each step up
    Worth mentioning at your next contact, but not a reason to stop on your own
  • Ask Contact your prescriber or pharmacist if it is not easing, or if it is stopping you eating or drinking normally
    NHS 111 can advise when you are unsure how urgent something is
  • 999 Severe or persistent stomach pain, or signs of a serious allergic reaction, need urgent medical help — not an online form
    Do not wait for a provider to reply to a message
Sorted by what to do rather than by how common each effect is, because frequency is not the useful question when something is already happening. The leaflet supplied with your pen is the authority for your medicine.

The common effects

Most of the frequently reported effects are gastrointestinal, which follows from how the medicine works: it slows the rate at which the stomach empties. Reported in more than 1 in 10 people:

  • Nausea
  • Diarrhoea
  • Vomiting
  • Constipation
  • Headache
  • Tiredness

Reported by up to 1 in 10 people: dizziness, stomach pain, indigestion, reflux, bloating, burping, wind, gastritis, hair thinning, and reactions at the injection site.

Headache and tiredness are worth flagging, because people often do not connect them to the medicine and put them down to something else. Hair thinning surprises people too: it is usually linked to rapid weight loss rather than to semaglutide directly, and it is generally temporary.

Why they cluster around a dose increase

Side effects are usually at their worst in the first weeks of treatment and in the days after each step up, then settle as the body adjusts. That pattern is the entire reason the dose is raised gradually rather than started high — see our dosage guide for how the steps work.

It also means a bad week after an increase is not necessarily a reason to abandon treatment. A prescriber can hold you at the current dose longer, or step back down, before considering stopping. That conversation is worth having before you decide on your own — and it is one reason a provider you can actually reach matters more than a provider that is a few pounds cheaper.

Advice on easing the milder effects — smaller meals, eating slowly, plainer and less greasy food, not lying down straight after eating, keeping fluids up — is widely given and generally sensible. We are not going to dress it up as clinical guidance from a comparison site. Your pharmacist can tailor it to you, including checking it against anything else you take, and that is worth more than a generic list.

The serious ones

These are uncommon, and listing them is not a prediction. They are here because they are the ones where recognising what is happening early changes the outcome:

  • Pancreatitis — inflammation of the pancreas. The characteristic sign is severe, persistent stomach pain that often spreads through to the back
  • Gallbladder problems — including gallstones. Rapid weight loss from any cause raises this risk, so it is not unique to this medicine
  • Serious allergic reaction — rare, but it needs emergency treatment rather than a call-back
  • Kidney problems — usually a consequence of dehydration from prolonged vomiting or diarrhoea rather than a direct effect. Passing much less urine than usual, or swelling in the ankles or feet, is worth reporting
  • Changes to diabetic eye disease — relevant to people who have type 2 diabetes with existing retinopathy, where rapid improvement in blood sugar can temporarily worsen it. A reason for the prescriber to know your full history
  • Low blood sugar — a meaningful risk mainly for people also taking insulin or certain other diabetes medicines. Signs include shakiness, sweating, confusion, blurred vision and unusual irritability

Two of those turn on your medical history rather than on the medicine alone, which is worth noticing. An assessment that never asked about your diabetes, your eyes or your other medicines could not have taken them into account — and that is a fact about the service, not about you.

This is not the complete list. The leaflet supplied with your pen is, and it is written for the exact product you have been given. Most of what appears above is shared with the other medicines in this family — our guide to GLP-1 side effects across the class sets out what carries across and what does not.

Reporting a side effect

Suspected side effects can be reported to the MHRA through the Yellow Card scheme, by you as well as by a healthcare professional. It is how safety signals get spotted, and reports from patients count. Deal with being unwell first; report afterwards.

Frequently asked questions

For most people they ease over a few weeks as the body adjusts, and the same pattern tends to repeat in a milder form after each dose increase. If something is not settling, or is bad enough to stop you eating and drinking normally, that is the point to contact your prescriber rather than to wait it out.

Hair thinning is reported, but it is generally understood to follow rapid weight loss rather than the medicine acting on hair directly — the same thing happens after other kinds of significant weight loss. It is usually temporary. It is still worth mentioning to your prescriber or pharmacist, partly because they can check whether you are eating enough while your appetite is suppressed.

The side effects reported are broadly the same kind, and mostly gastrointestinal, for both. Comparing how often they occur is harder than it looks, because the headline figures come from separate trials with different participants rather than from a head-to-head study. How an individual tolerates a particular medicine also varies a great deal, which is why this is a question for a prescriber rather than a table. Our guide to Mounjaro side effects covers the other side of the comparison.

Yes, and it is worth weighing before you order rather than after. Side effects are the point at which you need to reach someone, and a service that is only a checkout is no use then. A legitimate provider names the people responsible for your care and gives you a way to contact them. If you cannot reach anyone and you are unwell, use NHS 111 or emergency services — waiting for a reply is not a safe plan.

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