Prepare your questions
Take a short list into the visit.
It is easy to forget a question once the visit starts. A short written list helps keep your concerns in the conversation.
What to check
Bring your medicine list and health history.
The official medicine information for liraglutide (Saxenda) tells prescribers to ask about thyroid cancer in you or your family. The thyroid is a gland in the neck.
Bring the names of any cancers in your family, or say if you do not know the type.
Prescribers also need to hear about past problems with the pancreas or gallbladder, organs in the belly, and about pregnancy plans.
If the names are unfamiliar, bring your health records or describe the illness, surgery, or hospital visit.
Ask which checks fit your situation.
The medicine information calls for the person treating you to check blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes and check the resting heart rate, meaning the pulse while resting quietly.
It also points to kidney checks when vomiting or diarrhea causes substantial fluid loss.
Ask who will arrange these checks, where they happen, and how you will get the results.
Ask about overlap with other medicines.
The medicine information for liraglutide (Saxenda) advises against using it with another medicine containing liraglutide or another GLP-1 medicine.
Xultophy also contains liraglutide; semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) belongs to the same GLP-1 medicine family.
Ask the prescriber or pharmacist to mark every medicine on your list that belongs to this family. You do not have to recognise them all yourself.
Ask how the decision will be reviewed.
What will we look at in follow-up, and how will we decide whether the choice still makes sense?
A note before moving on
A question about tests
Which tests, if any, are needed for my assessment? What would each result change?
Also ask where testing would happen and whether its cost is in the quote.
Open the record
Read this for the detail
- The liraglutide (Saxenda) label
The cautions and patient information sections give concrete topics to discuss. Leave treatment decisions to the visit.
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