A mother has warned about the dangers of ‘quick fix’ weight loss jabs after being admitted to hospital with possible organ damage.
In an effort to lose a few pounds and impress corporate clients, Kerry Boland bought a month-long weight-loss treatment from a beautician who is also a nurse.
The 34-year-old suffered a painful headache for hours after injecting the first dose into her abdomen and was found collapsed in the bathroom two days later by her eight-year-old daughter.
The family of drugs known as semaglutides, or GLP-1 RAs, were originally developed to treat diabetes but are now often used for weight loss because they were found to suppress a patient’s appetite.
Mrs Boland, from Denton in Greater Manchester, who was only a dress size 12-14, paid £150 for the jabs.
In an attempt to lose a few pounds to impress corporate clients, Kerry Boland bought a month-long weight loss treatment from a beautician who is also a registered nurse.
Kerry was left with an excruciating headache and unable to eat or sleep after taking her first dose of the slimming jab
Kerry was found collapsed in the bathroom by her daughter Isobel, who was eight at the time
Recalling her ordeal, she said: “I wasn’t big, but my brain told me I looked like Bruce Bogtrotter.
‘I just wasn’t feeling well and wanted a quick solution. Being a busy mom, I didn’t feel like going to the gym.
‘I had seen other people get good results with (weight-loss injections) and I just thought: ‘If it works for them, why not for me?’
‘I was about to have a photo shoot for my company. I was quite new to the business at the time and I had this image that you had to be a ‘powerful, slim’ woman to be taken seriously.
“When I think back, it’s absolutely barmy, but that was the chapter of my life I was in.
‘Within two hours of taking it, I was passed out. I drove to visit my sister, but I couldn’t get off the couch. I couldn’t lift my head, it felt like a boulder on my shoulder and I had a bad headache.’
For the next two days, Ms Boland was left bedridden in ‘absolute agony’, with extreme stomach cramps.
She felt nauseous, but nothing happened and she could not eat more than one bite of banana, which made her very weak.
Kerry was rushed to hospital by her gas engineer partner Matt Myerscough, 35
Mum-of-three Kerry is warning others about the potential dangers of weight loss shots after suffering agonizing pain and possible organ damage
Jabs designed to treat type 2 diabetes have become popular weight-loss drugs after they were found to suppress a patient’s appetite
She said: ‘I can’t even describe the pain, I was just rolling around on the bed. It was absolutely terrible.
‘I was doubled over, it felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach, and I had constant diarrhea.
“I walked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame because I couldn’t stand up straight.
‘My friend said, “You have to keep eating,” but it just made me feel worse. I would eat one bite of banana at a time and it would last for hours. I was up in the toilet every hour all night.”
Two days after injecting the drug, the mother of three collapsed in the bathroom and was woken up by her frightened daughter Isobel, who was just eight years old at the time.
Ms Boland, the founder and CEO of business coaching company Growth Coaching Collective, had to be taken off the floor by her gas engineer partner Matt Myerscough, 35.
He took her to Wythenshawe Hospital in Wythenshawe, Greater Manchester, where doctors hooked her up to a drip to give her painkillers and fluids.
She said: ‘I remember being hunched over the toilet and wanting to make myself sick because the pain was so bad, and then I fell on the bathroom floor.
‘I was gone for a few minutes and then I remember my daughter Isobel touching me and saying, “Mum, are you okay?”
‘I don’t think I was cold for a long time, I was just so weak. She screamed for my partner and he took me to the hospital. They put me on a drip for fifteen hours.’
Now Ms Boland fears she could have caused permanent damage to her organs and is sharing her terrifying experience from June 2022 to warn others against using the ‘quick-fix’ products.
She said: ‘The doctors couldn’t get any blood out, I was so dehydrated. They put me on an IV and then gave me painkillers through the IV because I was in so much pain.
Semaglutide injections work by causing the body to produce a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1, which is released naturally from the intestines after meals.
“It was really scary, I just thought, ‘What have I done?’
‘I was afraid I would damage my organs, especially after reading horror stories online. I was worried, ‘Oh my God, how long am I going to be in this condition?’ because I couldn’t bear the pain.’
A shocked Mrs. Boland was discharged the next evening and slowly began reintroducing small portions of food.
She said: ‘It took a few days for me to feel like myself again. I slowly started introducing small portions of food, it was nothing like what I would normally shovel in.
‘I felt much better after being rehydrated, but I was still on painkillers. My partner came home and threw it away.’
Now Ms. Boland works with a nutritionist and hormone coach and vigorously trains in the gym five times a week to achieve her fitness goals.
She said: ‘I don’t recommend the jabs at all, my advice would be don’t go near them.
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‘The quick fix of putting on a dress doesn’t exist because you always put it back on. I don’t think it’s about the number on the scale, it’s about how I feel.
“Success doesn’t happen overnight, but the internet would have us believe otherwise and I think that’s the problem.”
NHS data shows that 26 percent of adults in England are obese and a further 38 percent are overweight.
Obesity is also taking a huge financial toll in Britain, with lost working years, healthcare costs and NHS treatment costing the economy an estimated £100 billion a year.
Experts have pointed to a lack of exercise and poor diets high in ultra-processed foods as major drivers of Britain’s obesity epidemic.
Semaglutide jabs Ozempic and Rybelsus are currently only available on the NHS as a treatment for controlling blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes.
The dramatic weight-loss effects of Ozempic caused doctors and pharmacists to distribute it ‘off-label’ to people who wanted to lose weight.
However, officials urged not to do so due to supply issues.