The Wegovy Dose Schedule and What It Means for Your Treatment

Why the dose escalation exists, and the misconception worth clearing up

A lot of people assume the starting dose is the therapeutic one, and that weeks one to four are doing the heavy lifting on weight. They are not. The 0.25 mg opening dose is a settling period, its job is to acclimatise your gut to semaglutide's mechanism, which slows gastric emptying and acts on appetite centres in the brain. At that level, most people experience little effect on hunger. That is by design.

Each subsequent step roughly doubles the dose. The climb from 0.25 mg to 0.5 mg to 1.0 mg to 1.7 mg takes around twelve weeks; you arrive at the 2.4 mg maintenance dose at around week sixteen if you follow the standard semaglutide dosage schedule. This is where clinical trials reported meaningful weight reduction, specifically, the STEP 1 trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found an average body-weight reduction of roughly 15% over 68 weeks at 2.4 mg. The escalation is not a formality you push through. It is the reason the treatment is tolerated well enough to reach that dose.

If nausea, vomiting or other gastrointestinal effects make a four-week step feel too fast, your prescriber can hold you at a dose for longer before moving up. That flexibility is part of the wegovy doses schedule, not a detour from it. The titration schedule in full sets out what those pauses look like.

The decision your prescriber makes at each step

Every dose increase is a clinical assessment, not a calendar event. Your prescriber will want to know how you tolerated the previous dose: whether the gastrointestinal side effects that often accompany early treatment have settled, whether there are any new health changes to account for, and whether the dose is working as expected. This is particularly true at the maintenance threshold.

At 2.4 mg, NICE guidance (set out in its appraisal of semaglutide for weight management (TA875)) recommends that treatment is reviewed if less than 5% weight loss has been achieved after six months at the maintenance dose. That review is a conversation about whether continuing is right for you, not an automatic stop.

The newer 7.2 mg option adds a further decision point. The MHRA approved this higher maintenance dose in January 2026, and the dedicated single-dose 7.2 mg pen followed in April 2026. It is licensed for adults with a BMI of 30 or above, but it is not the default destination for everyone. Whether it is appropriate depends on how you responded at 2.4 mg and your wider clinical picture. Our prescribers discuss that as part of the repeat review, not as an assumption. See the Wegovy maintenance dose page for detail on how the upper end of the schedule works.

What the Wegovy dose schedule chart would look like in practice

If a wegovy dose schedule chart were laid out week by week, it would show four columns of four weeks each, then an open-ended maintenance phase. Weeks 1–4: 0.25 mg. Weeks 5–8: 0.5 mg. Weeks 9–12: 1.0 mg. Weeks 13–16: 1.7 mg. Week 17 onwards: 2.4 mg until a clinical review decides otherwise.

The pen itself changes at each stage, different strengths are supplied as separate devices. Each pen contains four weekly doses. You do not draw up or measure anything; the dose is pre-set. Rotating the injection site between your abdomen, thigh and upper arm is part of standard practice, and your Patient Information Leaflet sets out the exact technique. For more on how individual pens at each level are supplied, the Wegovy pen doses guide covers the format in detail.

One practical note: each pen in the schedule is a prescription item in its own right. That means each dose step requires a fresh clinical review, at nume, this happens before every repeat order, with a real prescriber reading your update, not an automated system. For people curious about how that intersects with cost, the Wegovy pricing page explains what the service includes at each stage.

When the schedule needs to flex, and what to do

The four-week cadence is a guide, not a rule that overrides your experience. A minority of people move through the escalation faster than expected; more commonly, the step from 1.0 mg to 1.7 mg or from 1.7 mg to 2.4 mg brings a fresh wave of nausea or fatigue. The NHS page on semaglutide sets out the side effects to expect at each stage and the signs that warrant prompt medical attention.

You should not adjust your dose timing yourself. If side effects are significant, contact your prescriber before your next injection, not after. At nume, the aftercare line is open seven days a week for exactly this reason. For questions about what happens at the opening phase specifically, the starter dose guide covers the 0.25 mg period in more depth, and the broader Wegovy doses overview sits alongside it.

Wegovy is a prescription-only medicine requiring assessment before each stage of treatment. If you are considering starting, a free consultation with a GPhC-registered prescriber is the right first step. Start your free consultation.