When Caroline first participated in Wegovy, it was no secret: she told her boyfriend, mother and close friends. Over the course of six months, they watched him lose 30 pounds and return from 130 to what he calls his “healthy original weight” of 100 pounds. Still, his loved ones were worried about the rate of weight lossand he didn’t want her to lose any more.
“I tried every way under the sun to lose weight,” Caroline tells SELF. The 34-year-old woman, who lives in Montreal, only asked for her first name to protect her privacy. “I’m so tired of trying.” At 5’4”, she was not obese and did not think her primary care physician would approve a prescription.
So she went online and found a doctor who prescribed the medicine over the phone and didn’t know what Caroline actually weighed. Right after launching Wegovy, he says, “the weight it started coming out incredibly fast.“After six months, she decided to stop. But as soon as she got off Wegovy, the weight came back: she gained 10 kilos in a month. ‘I realized I can’t stop,’ says Caroline.
So for the last six months it has been taking Wegovy again, this time with maintenance level dosing. But there’s one big difference: this time he’s keeping it a secret from his friends and family. “Now that we’re talking about the kids, he’s seen all the effects (of the drug) and he’s done with it,” she says. Since he lives alone, it’s relatively easy to hide his medicine from him – he hides it in the back of the fridge because it needs to be kept cold. But she’s still afraid he’ll see her, and when they travel together she has to hide the medicine in the hotel room fridge—or, if they’re visiting her parents, in their refrigerator. “So imagine hiding the stuff in my parents’ fridge, hoping they don’t see it,” she says. “Super awkward.”
Sometimes avoidance is the easiest solution
Caroline isn’t the only woman doing her best to keep her GLP-1 use a secret. The a recent thread On the r/GLP1microdosing subreddit, women shared their tips and tricks on how to hide medication from their partners. One hides them in a box of tomato paste. Another uses a toy kitchen from a children’s kitchen. Still others used an opaque feta cheese container, a butter stick box, an anchovy paste box, empty women’s probiotic and Alani Nu supplement bottles, a plastic container, a metal water bottle, a wine box, and a baking soda box in the back of the refrigerator—all to hide the diet pill.
