Wegovy side effects

The label's table counts reactions reported by at least 2 in 100 people and more often than on placebo, pooled from three placebo-controlled trials with 2,116 adults on Wegovy and 1,261 on placebo for up to 68 weeks. All of it comes from the 2.4 mg maintenance dose, because the label reports no breakdown by dose level. Every row below is from that table, out of every 100 people, against 100 on placebo (Prescribing Information).

• Nausea: 44, against 16 on placebo
• Diarrhea: 30, against 16
• Vomiting: 24, against 6
• Constipation: 24, against 11
• Abdominal pain: 20, against 10
• Headache: 14, against 10
• Fatigue: 11, against 5
• Indigestion: 9, against 3
• Dizziness: 8, against 4
• Bloating: 7, against 5
• Burping: 7, against fewer than 1
• Low blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes: 6, against 2
• Gas: 6, against 4
• Gastroenteritis: 6, against 4
• Reflux: 5, against 3
• Gastritis: 4, against 1
• Hair loss: 3, against 1
• Altered skin sensation: 2, against 1

The footnotes matter when you read those rows. Abdominal pain pools upper and lower abdominal pain, gastrointestinal pain, tenderness, discomfort, and epigastric discomfort; fatigue includes weakness; altered skin sensation covers tingling, heightened sensitivity, burning, and sensitive skin; and the low blood sugar row means a reading under 54 mg/dL, with or without symptoms, in people with type 2 diabetes who were not also on insulin (Prescribing Information).

Counting every stomach-related reaction together, 73 in 100 on Wegovy reported at least one, against 47 in 100 on placebo, and severe ones were reported by 4.1 in 100 against 0.9 in 100 (Prescribing Information). Just under 7 in 100 stopped Wegovy for any adverse reaction, against 3.2 in 100 on placebo, and 4.3 in 100 stopped specifically because of a stomach reaction, against 0.7 in 100 (Prescribing Information). The label also says Wegovy is not recommended for people with severe gastroparesis (Prescribing Information).

The cutoff on this table is 2 in 100. The Ozempic and Mounjaro labels report at 5 in 100, so a longer list means a wider cutoff was used, and it says nothing about which drug is easier to take (Ozempic and Mounjaro Prescribing Information).

The label puts the timing in one sentence. These reactions were most frequently reported during dosage escalation (Prescribing Information). It makes no claim that they fade with time, so nothing on this page will make one either. Novo Nordisk's own site says nausea specifically was generally transient and that most cases of it did not lead to stopping Wegovy, and that line is about nausea alone (Wegovy.com).

The schedule is the lever the label describes. Weeks 1 through 4 are 0.25 mg once weekly, weeks 5 through 8 are 0.5 mg, weeks 9 through 12 are 1 mg, weeks 13 through 16 are 1.7 mg, and from week 17 onward the maintenance dose is 2.4 mg once weekly, or 1.7 mg once weekly (Prescribing Information). If a dose is not tolerated during escalation, the label tells the prescriber to consider delaying the next step by 4 weeks (Prescribing Information). That is a conversation to have with them rather than a change to make on your own.

The label gives a small number of practical instructions, and these are the ones that come up in the first weeks.

• Same day each week. Take it on the same day each week, at any time of day, with or without meals (Prescribing Information). The day and the injection site can both change without any dose adjustment, as long as your last dose was given 2 or more days before (Prescribing Information).
• A missed dose. The rule is written around the next scheduled dose. If that next dose is more than 2 days away, take the missed one as soon as possible. If it is less than 2 days away, do not take the missed dose, and resume on your regular day of the week (Prescribing Information). Other GLP-1 labels write their rule as a window after the missed dose, so read this one in its own terms.
• Two or more missed in a row. The label says to resume as scheduled or, if needed, to restart and follow the escalation schedule again, which may reduce the stomach reactions that come with restarting (Prescribing Information). Which of those two is yours belongs to your prescriber.
• Where it goes. Inject under the skin of the abdomen, thigh, or upper arm, and rotate the site with each injection rather than using the same one twice (Prescribing Information).
• Drink fluids. Diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting can cost you fluids, and the label ties dehydration to kidney problems (Medication Guide).
• The diet and activity part. Wegovy is indicated alongside a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity, and that sits in the indication itself (Prescribing Information).

The bland-food and eat-slowly advice you will see on other pages is not in the prescribing information or the Medication Guide. Novo Nordisk publishes it on the Wegovy site instead (Wegovy.com).

The Medication Guide, revised February 2026, sorts symptoms by how fast to move, and its gallbladder line is worded more gently than the same line on the Ozempic and Mounjaro guides. These are its lines in plain form.

• Stop and get medical help right away: swelling of the face, lips, tongue, or throat, trouble breathing or swallowing, a severe rash or itching, fainting or dizziness, or a very rapid heartbeat (Medication Guide).
• Stop and call your prescriber right away: severe pain in your stomach area that will not go away, with or without nausea or vomiting, sometimes felt through to the back (Medication Guide).
• Call your prescriber: pain in your upper stomach, fever, yellowing of the skin or eyes, or clay-colored stools, which can be symptoms of gallbladder problems including gallstones, some of which need surgery (Medication Guide). This bullet says call, without the "right away" that the Ozempic and Mounjaro guides put on the same symptoms.
• Tell your prescriber right away: nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea that does not go away (Medication Guide).
• Tell your prescriber: a lump or swelling in your neck, hoarseness, trouble swallowing, or shortness of breath, which can be symptoms of thyroid cancer (Medication Guide).
• Tell your prescriber: your heart racing or pounding in your chest for several minutes, because Wegovy can increase your heart rate at rest and your prescriber should be checking it (Medication Guide).
• Tell your prescriber: stomach problems that are severe or will not go away, and, if you have type 2 diabetes, any change in your vision during treatment (Medication Guide).
• Tell every provider you see that you take Wegovy before surgery or any other procedure, because it may increase the chance of food getting into your lungs (Medication Guide).
• For too much Wegovy, which can bring severe nausea, severe vomiting, and severe low blood sugar, call your prescriber or the Poison Help line at 1-800-222-1222, or go to the nearest emergency room right away (Medication Guide). Call 911 if someone has collapsed, had a seizure, has trouble breathing, or cannot be woken (MedlinePlus).

Three more parts of this label are worth reading before the first follow-up, and the last one is a change to the document itself.

Low blood sugar is the first. The Medication Guide says the risk is higher for people with type 2 diabetes who also take insulin or a sulfonylurea, and it tells you to check your blood sugar before you start Wegovy and while you take it (Medication Guide). In a cardiovascular outcomes trial in people without type 2 diabetes, there were 3 episodes of serious hypoglycemia on Wegovy against 1 on placebo, and among people with a history of bariatric surgery there were 2 in 87 on Wegovy against none in 97 on placebo (Prescribing Information).

The eyes are the second. In a 2-year trial of semaglutide injection in people with type 2 diabetes and high cardiovascular risk, diabetic retinopathy complications occurred in 3 in 100 against 1.8 in 100 on placebo, and the gap was wider among people who already had retinopathy at the start, 8.2 against 5.2 (Prescribing Information). In the weight-reduction trial in people with type 2 diabetes, diabetic retinopathy was reported by 4 in 100 on Wegovy against 2.7 in 100 on placebo (Prescribing Information).

The third is the removal. The February 2026 revision took out the suicidal behavior and ideation section, and the label's Recent Major Changes block records it as removed in 02/2026 (Prescribing Information). The current Medication Guide carries no mental-health bullet at all. Pages that quote one are quoting a version of this label that no longer reads that way.

I never change your dose, never tell you to skip one, and never diagnose. What I do is ask every day how the nausea is, keep your answers with their dates, and when your pharmacy printout is on file hold what you tell me against its stop-and-call list so a bad turn gets noticed on the day it happens. I also keep the escalation weeks on your real calendar, so the week you step up is a week somebody is paying closer attention.

No clinician reviewed this page. It restates the FDA prescribing information and Medication Guide, Novo Nordisk's Wegovy side-effects page, and MedlinePlus, linked below, and those are the documents to trust over anything here.