A seven-year-old girl ended up overdosing on her mum’s GLP-1 injector pen after thinking it would help her with a stomach ache.
This is the medicine that may often be known as Ozempic or Mounjaro, used to treat Type 1 diabetes as well as to aid weight loss.
They work by mimicking the body’s natural hormone to suppress appetite and make you feel fuller for longer. But like all medicines, they can cause side effects such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea.
And when Jessa Milender from Indiana, US, injected herself with 60 percent of her mum’s medicine, she ended up ‘lifeless’ in hospital with grave concerns for her health.
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Now eight years old, she doesn’t quite remember how scary the ordeal was for her parents as she told WHAS11: “I thought it was stomach medicine because my mom takes it, and I thought it helped her with her stomach aches.”
When Melissa discovered what Jessa had done, she instantly called the poison centre and took her daughter to the ER.
Here, Jessa was hooked up to an IV and was showing symptoms of dehydration and vomiting.
Doctors then apparently sent her home as the ‘worst of the symptoms’ stopped, but Melissa said: “I should have never let them discharge her.”
After a night of rest, the girl’s vomiting started back up, and her mom explained: “She was thirsty, that’s the only thing that she wanted to do, was drink water.
“But then she would throw it up.”
With Jessa getting weak, she was admitted back to hospital where she ‘didn’t eat for six days straight’.
Medical records show concerns about the child’s kidneys, including renal shutdown as she stopped urinating.
At this point, her family were ‘100 percent’ worried her life was at risk.
“We as a family gathered around her,” Melissa continued, “because she was just laying there like lifeless really.”
Luckily, the little girl is ‘back to Jessa’ as she made a full recovery and her mum quickly took precautions to stop a similar incident ever happening again.
Melissa now keeps the medication in a locked box that she got the day Jessa overdosed.
“I try not to think about the what if,” she added. “God protected us from the worst and I firmly believe that.”
It is highly advised that medications are kept out of reach of children. Always speak to a medical professional if you have concerns.
Jess Battison