Your Wegovy next dose: what to expect at each stage of the schedule

You're sitting in your kitchen on injection day, wondering whether this is the week your dose goes up

It's a question that lands in our prescribers' inboxes most weeks: "My four weeks are up — do I just move to the next pen?" The honest answer is that the schedule exists to protect you from a level of nausea, vomiting, or fatigue that might otherwise push you to stop altogether. The 0.25 mg starting pen isn't a therapeutic dose in the full sense; its job is to let your gut and your blood-sugar signalling pathways adjust before the medicine does its heavier work. Moving too quickly through the steps tends to amplify side effects without meaningfully improving results.

The licensed Wegovy titration runs 0.25 mg for weeks one to four, 0.5 mg for weeks five to eight, 1.0 mg for weeks nine to twelve, 1.7 mg for weeks thirteen to sixteen, and 2.4 mg from week seventeen onward as the standard maintenance dose. If you're currently on the starting pen and wondering what the next dose of Wegovy is after 0.25 mg and what that step-up involves, that page walks through it plainly. In January 2026 the MHRA approved 7.2 mg as an additional maintenance option, with a dedicated single-dose pen receiving approval on 14 April 2026. You can read the full breakdown of Wegovy's UK doses and what each stage involves if you want the schedule laid out plainly before your next appointment.

The MHRA and the Wegovy SmPC are clear that a prescriber may recommend staying at a lower dose for longer if tolerability is poor, that's not a failure of the medicine or of you; it's the schedule working as intended. Side effects like nausea and loose stools are most noticeable in the first week or two after a step-up, and they usually settle. The NHS semaglutide medicines page sets out what to expect at each stage and when a symptom warrants calling your prescribing team.

What actually happens on the day your next injection is due

Wegovy is taken once weekly, ideally on the same day each week, because keeping a consistent rhythm helps maintain steady drug levels. You can take it at any time of day, with or without food, which gives you flexibility most people find easy to build into a routine. The injection goes under the skin of the abdomen, the front of the thigh, or the outer upper arm; rotating between sites each week reduces the chance of local skin reactions building up in one spot.

Before injecting, check the pen: the liquid should be clear or faintly yellow, with no particles floating in it. Take it out of the refrigerator a few minutes beforehand so it's closer to room temperature, injecting a cold solution is a common cause of brief stinging that people don't always connect to the pen being straight from the fridge. Storage temperatures and the exact window you have out of refrigeration are specified in the Patient Information Leaflet, and those figures are the ones to follow; do not rely on recalled advice from a forum or a previous product.

If you are at a step where a dose increase is due, that increase should only happen after your prescriber has confirmed it is appropriate for your current tolerability and weight-loss progress. At nume, every repeat order is clinically re-reviewed before dispatch; no repeat goes out on autopilot. If you are curious about whether it is safe to take your next Wegovy dose early, that page covers the pharmacology and the clinical reasoning in full.

When you have missed a dose and you're not sure what the next step is

Missed doses are among the most common practical worries on any weekly injectable medicine. The right guidance depends on how close you are to your next scheduled injection: if fewer than five days have passed since you were due, the generally accepted approach is to take the missed dose as soon as you remember, then resume your usual weekly day from that point. If more than five days have passed, most clinical guidance recommends skipping the missed dose and continuing on your normal schedule rather than doubling up.

This is where the Patient Information Leaflet is the definitive source, not a web page, including this one. The detail matters because what applies at 0.25 mg may differ from what applies at 2.4 mg in terms of the clinical risk of a gap. Your prescribing team can advise on your specific situation. If you are mid-titration and uncertainty about a missed dose is making you think about pausing altogether, reaching out to our aftercare team is quicker than waiting to see whether the question resolves itself.

One practical detail worth knowing: if you've recently moved to a new dose step and experienced a difficult first week, a missed dose during that window sometimes makes the second week of the new dose feel like a re-start in terms of side effects. That isn't dangerous, but it can feel discouraging. Flagging it with your prescriber means they can decide whether to stay at the current dose a little longer before considering the next rung. If you're on 0.5 mg and want to understand what the next dose of Wegovy after 0.5 mg looks like and when moving up is appropriate, that page covers the clinical considerations in detail.

How cost, supply, and clinical review connect at each dose step

Each step up in the titration schedule corresponds to a different pen, and the cost of private treatment changes accordingly. Higher doses carry a higher list price, Eli Lilly revised Wegovy's UK pricing in August 2025, and the market for private semaglutide pens now spans a meaningful range by dose and provider. A Wegovy price comparison for the UK sets out the market context honestly so you can see what different providers charge and what those prices typically do or don't include.

At a private clinic or online pharmacy, a dose increase is not a purely administrative step. A legitimate prescriber will want to know that the current dose has been tolerated, that weight-loss progress is consistent with continuing, and that no new contraindications have emerged. That review is what makes the increase safe, not just convenient. If you've reached maintenance and your prescriber is considering options beyond 2.4 mg, our page on the new Wegovy dose approved by the MHRA and what it means for patients explains the latest guidance. Wegovy is a prescription-only medicine; the clinical check-in before each repeat is part of the package, not a hurdle.

If you are weighing up whether private treatment makes sense for your situation, the weight-loss treatment overview sets out what the licensed options are and how they compare. And if you'd like a prescriber to look at where you are in your titration and whether the next step is right for you, starting a free consultation with our clinical team is the place to begin.