{"id":167304,"date":"2025-11-30T08:49:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T08:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/167304\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T08:49:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T08:49:17","slug":"parents-finding-ozempic-needles-hidden-underneath-teens-pillows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/167304\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents finding Ozempic needles hidden underneath teens&#8217; pillows"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More and more parents are finding Ozempic needles in their teenagers\u2019 bedrooms because their children have bought the drug illicitly online.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The weight loss drug was first approved for use in 2018 by the European Medicines Agency and has been hailed by medics as revolutionising the treatment of obesity.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However, increasingly it is being bought without a doctor\u2019s prescription by people who simply want to lose weight.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newstalk.com\/shows\/pat-kenny-show-234857\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Pat Kenny Show<\/a>, HSE Obesity Lead Dr Donal O\u2019Shea said it is vital that people remember what the drugs are actually for.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u201cWe need to change the narrative away from weight loss drugs to obesity treatments &#8211; because that\u2019s what these medications are,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are treatments for the chronic disease of obesity and they\u2019re very effective in about 40% of people who take them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey don\u2019t work in about 25 to 30%, the ones we currently have. In a few years time, we will have drugs that appear in trials to work for everybody.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen they cause side effects that make them intolerable for 20, 25% of people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2183579\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/3C3TEAD.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\"\/> A woman with Ozempic pens. Picture by: Alamy.com.<\/p>\n<p>Dr O\u2019Shea warned that anyone taking weight loss medication to lose weight will start to gain weight again as soon as they stop taking the medication.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He added he finds it \u201cincredibly concerning\u201d how many young people have been able to obtain weight loss drugs through adverts on TikTok.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cParents are finding these pens under their kids\u2019 pillows in their bedrooms,\u201d he explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a real thing; we don\u2019t know quite how widespread it is but when you hear reports from GPs\u2026 then it\u2019s happening a lot more than we think it\u2019s happening.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Given the serious side effects the medication has on some people, Dr O\u2019Shea urged people not to take them without medication support.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re playing Russian roulette with a needle and syringe that\u2019s arriving at your door in an envelope,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Main image: An Ozempic injection. Picture by: Alamy.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More and more parents are finding Ozempic needles in their teenagers\u2019 bedrooms because their children have bought the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[103,61,60,371],"class_list":{"0":"post-167304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-medication"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}