WHEN Danielle felt ill after injecting herself with what she thought was Ozempic, she at first brushed it aside, knowing that the diabetes drug could sometimes cause some unpleasant side effects.
But she grew scared after waking up during the night to find her heart beating out of her chest.
"It woke me up and my heart was beating so fast I honestly thought I was going to have a heart attack," she told The Times.
"That obviously scared me and I honestly felt like I was going to die."
Ozempic – whose main ingredient is semaglutide – is only approved in the UK for treating diabetes.
But its appetite reducing properties have led many to seek out the drug for weight loss, in what its manufacturer Novo Nordisk calls 'off label' use.
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Soaring demand has meant that diabetes patients prescribed the drugs have been unable to get hold of them due to shortages, driving them to try to source them from disreputable channels in desperation.
Danielle said she'd bought the pens from a seller who approached her on Facebook, after also also being offered them on Instagram for as little as £60 per injection.
She now suspects she was sold insulin. A friend who bought the drug with her also suffered similar side effects.
According to The Times, counterfeit versions of the drug containing insulin or other unidentified substances are also being peddled on TikTok.
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As they often look like the real deal, users often won't know they're injecting something other than semaglutide until they start to experience extreme side effects.
Francesca began buying Ozempic from an online pharmacy in 2018 to deal with confidence and weight struggles after the birth of her daughter.
By April this year, she was finding it impossible to source the pens from a reputable seller – as she doesn't have diabetes, she couldn't get Ozempic through a GP.
Willing to try anything, the desperate mum, who was only just starting to regain her self confidence, bought what she thought was the raw peptide version of the drug – a hormone substitute for insulin.
But it left her with debilitating side effects, which have persisted even after she stopped taking the drugs over a week ago.
“If I eat more than one small meal a day, I have terrible gastrointestinal issues, I can’t sleep at night because of cramps in my stomach and I have terrible sulphur burps which make it embarrassing to leave the house because of the smell and my stomach is constantly bloated and full of wind," Francesca told The Times.
Novo Nordisk told the paper it was aware of websites, marketplaces and social media posts making illicit or off-label promotions for its medicines.
The spokesperson added that its counterfeit monitoring and takedown team had “significantly” increased its efforts to remove counterfeit postings of the drugs in the last year and a half.
Meanwhile, a Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) spokeswoman said: "Buying Ozempic, or any medicinal product, from illegally trading online suppliers significantly increases the risk of getting a product which is either falsified or not licensed for use in the UK.
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"Purchasing from illegal suppliers means there are no safeguards to ensure products meet our quality and safety standards, and taking such medicines may put your health at risk."
With supplies of diabetes drugs like Liraglutide and Ozempic dwindling due to demand – sparking fears they won’t be replenished for at least another year – pharmacists have been told to prioritise the drugs they have for people with the worst cases of diabetes.
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