{"id":398484,"date":"2026-04-14T20:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T20:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/398484\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T20:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T20:08:13","slug":"i-lost-an-organ-and-couldnt-walk-after-weight-loss-jabs-turned-my-tongue-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/398484\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I lost an organ and couldn’t walk after weight loss jabs turned my tongue black’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sarah-Jayne Crawford turned to Wegovy to lose weight ahead of her wedding, but experienced a terrifying complication that resulted in emergency surgery\"Sarah-Jayne<\/p>\n

Sarah-Jayne Crawford’s tongue turned black after she started taking Wegovy in August 2025(Image: Sarah-Jayne Crawford \/ SWNS)<\/p>\n

A woman who turned to weight loss jabs ahead of her wedding day has issued a urgent warning after her tongue turned black and she was forced to have an organ removed.<\/p>\n

Sarah-Jayne Crawford, 32, started taking Wegovy in August 2024 when she weighed 19 stone 9 lbs and was a UK size 20. She was due to talk down the aisle in November 2025, and paid \u00a3199 through an online pharmacy for a month’s supply of the jabs with an entry-level dosage of 0.25mg.<\/p>\n

Over the following weeks, Sarah-Jayne paid a further \u00a3350 on Wegovy and upped her dose to 1mg. But after 12 weeks on the jabs, she started experiencing “episodes of intense pain” in her upper stomach and “bouts of vomiting”. That quickly progressed to an “excruciating” trapped wind sensation and she was left bed bound. Within a 24-hour period, the mum was shocked to discover that her tongue had turned black.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: ‘I nearly died after mixing weight loss jab with alcohol – I’d rather be overweight’<\/a>READ MORE: ‘I lost 9 stone after being bullied for my weight\u00a0and I didn\u2019t use jabs’<\/a>\"Sarah-Jayne<\/p>\n

Sarah-Jayne’s tongue turned black after she started taking Wegovy(Image: Sarah-Jayne Crawford \/ SWNS)<\/p>\n

Spicy foods, peppers and onions left her in agony and she suffered severe mouth pain along with foul “egg-smelling” sulphur burps. “At the start, everything seemed fine,” she said. “My appetite slowly disappeared and I felt great for the wedding. But I wasn’t noticing a huge amount of change.<\/p>\n

“When the pain left me unable to leave my bed I knew something was up. The black tongue seemed like a cherry on top and a warning of what was to come. It all happened so quickly. It went from really sharp pains that were enough to leave me bed bound to having sulphur burps, that smelt of egg, and a black tongue. It was terrible.<\/p>\n

“The pain was so unbearable I couldn’t walk. I would rather give birth to five kids at the same time than go through with the pain again.” Sarah-Jayne immediately stopped taking the jabs and rushed herself to A&E at Antrim Area Hospital where an emergency MRI and CT scan revealed she had multiple gallstones blocking her bile duct – leaving her at risk of pancreatitis.<\/p>\n

\"Sarah-Jayne<\/p>\n

The mum-of-one wanted to lose weight before her wedding day in November 2025(Image: Sarah-Jayne Crawford \/ SWNS)<\/p>\n

She was booked in for a total cholecystectomy – a procedure to remove the gallbladder – on February 10, 2025, and her surgeon encouraged her to stay off Wegovy so she could go under the anaesthetic.<\/p>\n

“By this point, I was 18 stone and had hardly lost any weight,” she said. “The procedure was about an hour and I cracked on with the recovery. I’m slowly transitioning back to normal and eating more food now – but I’m still far from normal.”<\/p>\n

The personal secretary for the NHS<\/a>, from Antrim, Northern Ireland, added: “Wegovy was my last resort. I know a lot of people who are on the jabs and it worked like a dream for them. I had been battling my weight for what felt like forever and I was dying to slim before my wedding – but dieting, exercising and starving myself never worked. Before, I had heard stories about the dangers and my friend even joked about gallstones.<\/p>\n

\"Sarah-Jayne<\/p>\n

Sarah-Jayne has spoken out to warn others about the potential dangers of weight loss drugs(Image: Sarah-Jayne Crawford \/ SWNS)<\/p>\n

According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, semaglutide (the active agent in Wegovy which boosts glucose control and weight loss) is known to cause dry mouth, halitosis, and sulphur-smelling burps from slowed digestion – and can reportedly contribute to a black-coated tongue.<\/p>\n

Sarah-Jayne – who has since married – said her tongue has regained its colour but she still carries the scars of trauma. “I did my research and thought I’d be okay,” she reflected. “But it was the complete opposite. It’s not worth it. Weight loss jabs are a temporary fix and the dangers aren’t obvious. I’m proof that anything can happen once you inject yourself and I have now changed my mindset.<\/p>\n

“Please do you research before you commit – I can’t stress enough how much women are putting themselves at risk.”<\/p>\n

\"Sarah-Jayne<\/p>\n

Sarah-Jayne after getting her gallbladder removed(Image: Sarah-Jayne Crawford \/ SWNS)<\/p>\n

A spokesperson from Novo Nordisk, a Wegovy manufacturer, said: “Patient safety is of the utmost importance to us at Novo Nordisk. To ensure healthcare professionals have a detailed understanding of our medicine\u2019s safety profile, the adverse reactions we have observed in clinical trials are detailed in our medicine\u2019s Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC).<\/p>\n

“In the registrational trials for this medicine, cholelithiasis (acute gallstone disease) was reported in 1.6% of patients and led to cholecystitis in 0.6 percent of people living with obesity treated with semaglutide 2.4 mg.<\/p>\n

“For this reason, acute gallstone disease (cholelithiasis) is listed as a ‘common’ potential adverse reaction for Wegovy (semaglutide injection) in the product’s UK SmPC and should be considered when patients are being evaluated for this medicine. As part of this work we also monitor reports of adverse drug reactions through routine pharmacovigilance.<\/p>\n

“If you know of someone who might be experiencing side effects from any medicine, we would advise you to report it to your healthcare provider, and via the MHRA Yellow Card Scheme.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sarah-Jayne Crawford turned to Wegovy to lose weight ahead of her wedding, but experienced a terrifying complication that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[5015,103,3267,61,60,4630,371,782,13158,15527,14955,2114,69610],"class_list":{"0":"post-398484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-giving-birth","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-hospitals","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-marriage","14":"tag-medication","15":"tag-nhs","16":"tag-novo-nordisk-as","17":"tag-wedding-day","18":"tag-wegovy","19":"tag-weight-loss","20":"tag-weight-loss-injections"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398484","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=398484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}