Understanding the Dosing Schedule for Saxenda: The Ultimate Guide

When people are starting a new weight loss medication, it can be a little intimidating; particularly when they’re dealing with medication injectors, like the ones provided with Saxenda prescriptions.

How does the Saxenda dosing schedule work? What can affect your dosage? What’s the goal when it comes to dose changes? What’s the best time of day to take Saxenda? These are all questions that patients may find themselves asking when they start taking Saxenda.

You should always ask your healthcare practitioner at Felix these questions during your assessment, but to help you learn more at your convenience, we’ve put together some useful information on this page to help you make sense of these important questions.

Typical Dosages & Dosing Schedule

The starting dose for Saxenda is 0.6mg per day. In most cases, this dosage will increase by 0.6mg per week; depending on your individual response to the medication, as well as any side effects you experience.

However, your practitioner’s goal will be to find the lowest possible steady state dose that will work for you, up to a maximum of 3.0mg per day. 

Typically, the first prescription will be for 3 months, so that your healthcare practitioner can evaluate how you’re reacting to the medication and make any necessary adjustments.

After reaching the steady state dosage that your practitioner determines is best for you, you should not change the dosage, without first talking to your practitioner at Felix.

What Does It Mean to Reach a 'Steady-State' Dose?

Reaching a steady state with your dose means you’ve been taking the same dose for several months, and it’s providing stable oradequate results. This can sometimes be subjective but isn’t something that you’ll have to navigate on your own. Your practitioner will help you determine when you’ve reached a steady state based on how the medication is affecting your body in relation to your personal health goals. 

Every body is unique, which is why it’s important to avoid aiming for a specific dose and focus on the effects of your current dose instead. 

Dose Changes: What’s the Goal?

Everyone’s Saxenda experience is different, including their steady-state dose. The goal of dose increases isn’t to reach the maximum dose available, but to find the lowest possible dose that still provides effective results. This means that the dose that’s right for you might not be the dose that’s right for someone else. 

Your practitioner may use the term “effective enough for you” when referring to your dosage goals, meaning it provides the intended results at the lowest medication dose. 

Factors That Can Affect Your Dosage

The biggest factors that can impact your dosage are the side effects that you start to experience as you find the right steady state dose. They may suggest staying at a lower dosage for longer than the average time (7 days), or to remain at that dosage indefinitely.

As you change your dosage, your practitioner will ask you to monitor any side effects that you’re experiencing, and then check-in with them if any of these side effects start to become significant.

Open communication with your practitioner is vital throughout the early stages of taking this medication, and it’s extremely important to follow your practitioner’s Saxenda dosing instructions as they work with you to find the right dosage.

How Many Doses are There Per Pen

The amount of doses per pen depends on your particular dose that you are on at that time. .

The first pen that’s given with a Saxenda prescription will have 17 doses if you are taking 0.6mg for the first week, 1.2mg for the second week and 1.8mg for the 3rd week. 

The second pen will have 8.5 doses in it, and the third pen will have 6.5 doses in it, if you are increasing your dose by 0.6mg each week. This means that on day 26 of taking this medication, you will finish the last partial dose from pen #2, and take a partial dose from pen #3.  You do this by taking 2 injections that day, one with pen #2 and one with pen #3.

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After your third pen, pen number 4 and all subsequent pens will contain 6 doses if you are taking the 3.0mg dose each day.

Saxenda Dosage Calendar

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On your first day, you begin with the lowest dose possible – 0.6mg. You should continue with seven doses of 0.6mg during week 1 before moving to the next dose of 1.2mg for week 2 and so on.

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During week four, you might find that you have some solution left in your Saxenda pen, this should amount to half the dose that you need for one day. On that day, you should inject the remaining solution from your current pen, then inject 1.8mg from a new pen to make the dose up to 2.4mg, you can then carry on as normal.

NOTE: If taking partial doses on day 26 has you wondering, “can I split my Saxenda dose?”, the answer is no. You should never change your dose without discussion with your healthcare practitioner at Felix.

What Time of Day is Best to Take Saxenda

There is no specific best time to take Saxenda each day, but it is important to try and take the medication at the same time each day.

Some people enjoy taking it at night, because they may sleep through any negative side effects, while others prefer the morning, so they can more easily manage side effects during the day. Also, there’s no need to take Saxenda with meals. This means that you can comfortably build this into your daily schedule, wherever makes the most sense for your lifestyle.

To help ensure that you don’t miss any doses, it might be a good idea to make a Saxenda dose chart that you can use to track your daily dose.

Not only will it help make sure you’re tracking your doses, you can also put it somewhere highly visible in your living space, so it works as a daily reminder to take your injection.

What to Do If I Miss a Dose of Saxenda

If it occurs to you that you’ve missed your dose during the same day, you should take it as soon as you remember about it.

However, you should never take two doses in the same day, or increase the dosage of your pen to make up for a missed dose. That can lead to increased negative side effects.

On the chance that you’ve missed 3 or more doses of Saxenda in a row, you should talk to your healthcare practitioner at Felix about how you can safely and effectively restart your treatment.

Have any other questions about how to safely use Saxenda? We’d love to talk with you. Just take a short online assessment, and speak with a healthcare practitioner at Felix today.

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