I bought fake Ozempic to get rid of belly fat — it felt like my heart was going to explode
A mom-of-three is warning other women not to purchase illegitimate Ozempic, saying a “skinny jab” she bought online “triggered organ failure.”
Lynsay McAvoy, 42, suffered a severe allergic reaction to the medication, which she purchased in April 2022. At the time, she weighed just 112 pounds.
McAvoy didn’t disclose the brand name of the jab she bought on the internet, which was advertised as a GLP-1 RA.
Those drugs, originally developed to treat diabetes, suppress a user’s appetite and have now become popularly prescribed by doctors to help patients lose weight. Legitimate versions of the medication are sold under brand names such as Ozempic and Wegovy.
“At the time I was looking to lose a bit of weight on my stomach, which is ridiculous because I didn’t have weight to lose,” the Scottish woman told Kennedy News. “But I was unhappy with how my body looked.”
McAvoy admits that she bought the medication through an unverified seller, saying: “I didn’t look into it, I just trusted this person.”
While Wegovy and Ozempic are injected just once per week, McAvoy was required to inject herself once per day. She did so for two months without issue and shed 7 pounds.
However, after buying a second batch of the medication online, the British beautician suffered an adverse reaction immediately after injecting herself with the first shot.
“Within seconds my tongue was really itchy — it was swelling up,” she harrowingly recalled. “Then my eyeballs began to burn. I could hardly open my eyes, they hurt so much”
Figuring she was having some sort of reaction to the medication, McAvoy took an antihistamine tablet — but her symptoms only became more severe.
“My heart started beating really fast and sweat was just pouring off me,” the Scot said. “I remember being on all fours and my heart felt like it was about to explode, I knew something wasn’t right. I thought I was dying.”
After falling unconscious, McAvoy woke up on her bathroom floor, with no memory of moving rooms.
The mom had unknowingly hit her head against a wall, leaving her unconscious and with a dislocated jaw
“I had no idea where I was,” she declared. “I couldn’t remember lying down, I didn’t know what was going on.”
“The next thing I remember waking up on the living room floor then the dining room floor and have no memory getting between the rooms,” the beautician continued. “The last time I woke up I managed to get my phone and ring the ambulance and my mom who lives on the next street.”
After being rushed to hospital, medics told McAvoy that she was in the latter stages of an anaphylactic shock and the next stage would be death.
“I was terrified, I felt ashamed,” she declared. “I’m a single mom with three kids. I should’ve known better.”
McAvoy says doctors later ran tests on the medication she injected herself with and they “couldn’t identify anything that was in it.”
“I was led to believe that it was for diabetics but we have no idea what was in this,” the mom claimed. “The doctors said the antihistamine I took at the very start could’ve saved my life, I feel lucky to be alive.”
“Everybody is so obsessed with their body appearance and I definitely fell into that category, and they’re completely taken advantage of,” McAvoy subsequently stated, urging others to stay away from shady injectables. “Absolutely do not do it, there’s nothing positive that can come out of it.”
McAboy isn’t the only mom to suffer a medical emergency after injecting herself with a so-called “skinny jab.”
Earlier this week, a British bride-to-be said she “thought she was going to die” after similarly snapping up shady shots online in a bid to lose weight.
And last September, mom Michelle Sword collapsed and suffered a seizure at her home when her blood sugar dropped to dangerously low levels following her self-administering of the drug.