Mounjaro’s helped me shed 5 stone and means I now look like THIS, says JENNI MURRAY. But

I was sure I’d have only good news to report as I approached the end of my first year on marvellous Mounjaro, my weekly jab of the miraculous substance that has changed my attitude to food and made me feel it might be possible to be slim again.

But no! How dare Donald Trump shatter my belief that I could happily carry on taking it forever?

It’s been expensive enough to keep on paying the £209.50 I’ve shelled out religiously for my monthly dose of the medication – one pen containing four doses of tirzepatide to be delivered by injection weekly on the same day.

Now, some 750,000 of us who’ve discovered how effective Mounjaro is in aiding weight loss have been given the shock of discovering we’ve been caught up in a transatlantic drug price row.

Eli Lilly, the American company that manufactures the drug, is following orders from the President, who said he’d discovered that a friend of his had bought presumably a single pen of Mounjaro in London for $88 (£65) when in New York it costs $1,300 (£962).

Trump insists the company must slash its US prices and at the same time hugely raise those paid by UK consumers. That means the cost to me – and everyone else who has to buy Mounjaro online from reputable chemists rather than getting it at the standard prescription fee on the NHS – will soar in September, with Eli Lilly raising the price of the drug by 170 per cent for the top two doses and up to 138 per cent for the four smaller ones.

News reports yesterday suggested the firm, under acute pressure from UK customers, may be looking at ways to help pharmacies discount those price hikes – but nothing is very clear at this point. The Pharmaceutical Journal reckons the cost price to pharmacies will be £330 for the 15mg and 12mg dose and expects similarly hiked prices for the smaller doses. My supplier hasn’t told me how much more I’ll be paying yet but with the Lilly price for my 5mg dose apparently going up to £180, and the pharmacy’s profit on top, my current bill without those rumoured discounts will likely rise to around £300 a month. A 15mg monthly habit could cost £450 to £500 – a significant amount.

My year on Mounjaro has been utterly transformative, writes Jenni Murray. It began 11 years after I’d had the terrible shock of being told by my GP that I must do something about my weight

Apparently the price rise will not affect the NHS, but very few of us are able to get it free from our doctors. Only the grossly obese or those suffering from four or more of the following medical conditions – type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, obstructive sleep apnoea and abnormal blood fats (dyslipidaemia) – are considered. The rest of us, who are undoubtedly becoming healthier as we lose weight and less of a burden to the NHS, will have to struggle on doing it privately.

I will find the money. Yes, I’m a pensioner, but I also work. I no longer have a mortgage and my ten-year-old car is cheap as chips to run so somehow I will find the extra cash. But I pity everyone who has found it hard to find the roughly £200 a month it currently costs (the average pre-price hike cost of Mounjaro across all doses at leading UK private providers is £206.73 per month) and won’t be able to come up with the extra. It will be especially difficult for the poorest people, who are the ones who need help most.

Why am I so determined to find the extra cash necessary to stay on this particular drug when there are other ‘fat jabs’ such as Wegovy and Ozempic which are not made in America and won’t have to put up their prices?

Frankly, it’s because research has shown Mounjaro is the best when it comes to weight loss and my year on it has been utterly transformative. It began on September 4  2024, 11 years after I’d had the terrible shock of being told by my GP that I must do something about my weight. I’d groaned when he made me stand on the scales in his surgery and I saw I weighed 24st. He was right. I knew another diet wouldn’t be the answer. I’d done so many of those and had got thinner and then even fatter. There were no fat jabs in those days. Surgery, it seemed, was my only option.

I had a gastric sleeve operation, reducing my stomach by half and the success was phenomenal. I lost half my body weight within a year and settled happily at 12st. And there I assumed I would stay. I did until I had a nasty accident in 2023. I fell out of bed, broke a vertebra, suffered terrible pain and became sedentary. Walking and exercising were agony.

I wouldn’t normally have cooked and eaten so much but I took in a Ukrainian refugee, Zoryana, and couldn’t resist her delicious parcels of meat wrapped in pastry, lots of potatoes, even puddings.

I had convinced myself I couldn’t put on weight after my surgery. For years after I had it, I ate very few carbohydrates and only small portions, but somehow on my new Ukrainian diet my little stomach managed to stretch itself. I was doing no exercise. I ballooned to 16 and a half stones. It was my physiotherapist who insisted I must lose weight to help me become mobile again. I’d read about Wegovy and Ozempic, but hadn’t been convinced they would be effective. Gosia, my physio, suggested Mounjaro.

She’d been reading the medical research, thought it was the best for weight loss and had other advantages. It could, she thought, help the pain caused by inflammation after my accident. It was also, she said, thought to be good for the heart, could prevent type 2 diabetes and might have a preventative effect on cancer. It sounded worth trying.

I shan’t stop taking the drug, says Jenni, because I know how quickly vast amounts of weight tend to be regained after a sustained diet and considerable weight loss

I had no disturbing side-effects at all. I still didn’t think about chocolate brownies or, indeed, any snacks

And this time last year, it turned out to be incredibly easy to get. I simply went to Superdrug and had a strict examination by one of their doctors online, sent photos of my ungainly 74-year-old body, discussed my history of dieting and they agreed the drug would be suitable for me.

The first week of September 2024 I made my first order of a Mounjaro KwikPen at the lowest dose of 2.5mg. The instructions were detailed and clear. ‘Inject ONE dose ONCE weekly on the same day each week into the abdomen or thigh. Mounjaro is for subcutaneous use only. It must not be given in a vein or in a muscle. Dispose of all needles in the sharps bin [provided].’

Four days later a package arrived. The medication was carefully wrapped in a thick plastic bag and was surrounded by ice packs and a blanket. A pack of four needles was included.

The medicine has to be kept cold so, unpacked, it went straight into the fridge. When Sunday came around, my chosen day for doing the jabs, I felt nervous. Why had I been so relaxed about injecting myself with a powerful medicine. Supposing it made me pass out and I didn’t have anyone on hand to help me? Supposing I didn’t have the necessary dexterity to fix a needle into the pen, turn it around to ensure the correct dose and then stick the thing into myself?

Well, it was there. I’d paid handsomely for it. There was no alternative but to just do it. I prepared the pen, found a spot on my stomach in which to stick the needle and did it. I didn’t feel a thing. The needle was so sharp and short it simply did its job painlessly. What a relief.

The effect was pretty well instantaneous. For the first few days I hardly felt hungry at all. I had my standard two large skinny lattes. I wouldn’t give those up on the assumption the milk was important protein, with very little fat and would be good for my bones.

I managed half a slice of toast with peanut butter and a thin layer of raspberry jam and felt no hunger until the very early evening.

I’d prepared a stock of chicken soup – my favourite – with lots of vegetables and a little barley and ate earlier than had been my habit, around 6.30pm.

I had no desire for a glass of wine – an unexpected change that has remained a constant – and sat down to watch the news with a vodka and tonic (very small shot of vodka – tall glass filled up with very slimline tonic). I had no desire for anything more. My cravings for food disappeared. I didn’t even think of a chocolate brownie or lemon meringue pie which had been my habit in the past. And so it went on for the whole of that first month.

I rarely felt hungry, tried to stay away from the scales until I was due to order the next supplies… and was a little disappointed that I’d only lost 4lb. I hadn’t felt at all sick, had a couple of days of mild constipation, but, so far so good. I thought maybe a higher dose would accelerate the weight loss. My next order on October 5, 2024, was for a 5mg dose.

I was right. Throughout October and November I began to have fruit – raspberries, blueberries and pomegranate with a good portion of plain yogurt and a squirt of Manuka honey for my first meal of the day, usually around midday. I’m never hungry enough for breakfast. No more toast or croissants!

In the early evening it was chicken soup or maybe a lamb chop or steak with plenty of vegetables or salad. I managed a small portion of everything, enjoyed it – so my pleasure in the flavours was undiminished – but rarely managed to finish a whole steak, lamb chop or chunk of chicken. (Nothing was wasted. I had the happiest dogs in London.)

By the end of November, there was good news on the scales. I had dropped from 16 and half stones to 15.

I had no disturbing side-effects at all. I still didn’t think about chocolate brownies or, indeed, any snacks at all. But then I started to get a little scared about Christmas. Would the cravings come back when there was Christmas pudding on the menu? I’ve always loved it with lashings of rum sauce.

There’d be roast potatoes and beef. No one in the family really likes turkey. I knew that whatever was on the table would be served in huge portions. Would my December dose of 5mg Mounjaro be enough save me from temptation?

It did. I had everything – in very small portions. When the chocolates came out I just had the one. The only guilt-inducing element was a large glass of the irresistible Baileys.

I weighed myself on New Year’s Eve. No damage done at all. My weight had miraculously fallen over the festive period – this time the scales registered 14st! Two and a half stones gone in only four months with no side-effects, a hint of relief from the pain of the inflammation and, as the year turned, a visit to the nurse at my GP practice involved an injection against pneumonia and a check on my blood pressure. 120/80. She seemed surprised. ‘As good as a teenager,’ she said.

And so I’ve continued on the 5mg dose month after month. Friends out to dinner no longer comment on how little I’m eating and never say how much weight I’ve lost, although I can hear them thinking it.

There’s only been one disadvantage. An old person’s skin tends to wrinkle a bit with rapid weight loss, especially my upper arms, thighs and stomach. But my face seems to be surviving.

My current weight is 11 and a half stones. My goal had been 12. I shan’t stop taking the drug because I know how quickly vast amounts of weight tend to be regained after a sustained diet and considerable weight loss.

I wouldn’t mind losing maybe a little more but I’ll drop to the smallest 2.5mg dose, go on taking it maybe forever and, every time I have to pay for my monthly supply, I shall think very bad thoughts about Donald Trump.