Missed Wegovy injection: the five-day rule and longer breaks

Count from when the dose was due

The five days start when your weekly injection was due, whatever day you notice the mistake. Write down the planned day and today's date before you decide which instruction applies. If you are unsure of the timing, ask a pharmacist. Do not guess under pressure.

Once you have followed the missed-dose instruction, go back to your usual weekly schedule. Do not add an injection because your appetite feels harder to control. A short-term change in hunger tells you nothing about how much semaglutide is left in your body.

Worked examples

Say your injection was due on Monday and you remember on Thursday. You are inside the five days, so take it. If you remember more than five days after the due date, the leaflet tells you to skip the missed injection. If the timing is borderline, or you cannot remember whether you injected, speak to a pharmacist.

The five-day rule applies to Wegovy injection only, not to every GLP-1 medicine. Mounjaro uses a different missed-dose interval, and oral Wegovy has its own daily routine. Label your instructions by product so you never apply a familiar rule to the wrong medicine.

Changing your regular injection day

UK product information lets you move your weekly injection day as long as more than 72 hours pass between doses. Treat this as a planned change to your schedule. Do not use it to shorten the gap between doses again and again or to raise your total weekly dose.

If a catch-up dose and a planned day change fall close together, ask the dispensing team to write out the dates. A written schedule helps most when you travel, work shifts or move to a new provider. Make one timing change at a time.

If you have missed more than one dose

After a longer break, a dose you once handled well may cause more side effects. The product information says your prescriber should consider a lower starting dose when you restart after several missed doses. No online table gives a safe restart strength for everyone. Your prescriber needs your history to choose one.

Tell your prescriber the date and dose of your last injection, why you stopped and whether you had side effects. A break caused by vomiting, pregnancy or suspected pancreatitis is a different matter from a courier delay. The reason you stopped may matter more than the number of days.

Avoid the next gap

Check the storage dates before you use a part-used pen after a break. Medicine left in the pen is no longer usable once the in-use period has expired. If you inject an extra dose by accident, get medical advice promptly, especially if nausea, vomiting or signs of hypoglycaemia develop. Give the exact amount and time.