What is the semaglutide dosing schedule?

Wegovy (weight management): | Weeks | Dose (weekly) | Purpose | | --- | --- | --- | | 1–4 | 0.25 mg | Tolerance-building — not a therapeutic dose | | 5–8 | 0.5 mg | Still building | | 9–12 | 1.0 mg | Meaningful effect begins for most | | 13–16 | 1.7 mg | Recognized maintenance option | | 17+ | 2.4 mg | Full maintenance dose | Ozempic (diabetes; off-label weight): 0.25 → 0.5 mg, then optionally 1 mg and 2 mg at 4-week intervals as needed. The flexibility the table hides: - Every step is a 4-week minimum. Extending a rough step by a month is standard, consequence-free practice. Nausea at each jump is the signal to slow down, not push through (management). - The top is optional. If you’re losing steadily at 1 mg with zero side effects, many prescribers hold there — lowest effective dose is mainstream, and on cash-pay programs it’s also cheaper. - Stepping down is allowed after a bad escalation; stabilize, then re-try or stay. Different ladders for different forms: compounded injectable protocols often use finer increments (one common pattern: 0.3 → 0.6 → 0.9 → 1.5–2.2 mg weekly), which is a legitimate advantage of compounding for sensitive patients. Sublingual semaglutide uses an unrelated scale (commonly 1–6 mg weekly) because absorption differs — never map between forms yourself; that’s a prescriber conversion. Deliberate below-ladder dosing has its own logic (microdosing).