Pre-surgery advice for Patients on Ozempic, Mounjaro, or Wegovy – PIL1594 version 1

This leaflet will give you some information about taking diabetic or weight loss drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy or Mounjaro if you are having surgery.

What are these drugs?

Medicines like Ozempic, Wegovy or Mounjaro work by making your body think that you have certain hormones (called GLP-1 hormones). The medication can be prescribed for diabetes and for weight loss.

These medications can also be called:

• Semaglutide.
• Tirzepatide.
• Dulaglutide.
• Liraglutide.
• Exenatide.
• Lixisenatide.

GLP-1 hormones are released from the lining of your stomach when food is digested. These hormones slow down how often your stomach empties.

GLP-1 medication and surgery

Around the time of surgery these medicines can have some rare risks. We need to balance the risk of stopping or continuing these medicines before you have surgery.

Possible risks of not stopping the medication before surgery:

When people have a general anaesthetic or sedation the muscles in the body become relaxed. This means that reflexes that usually protect our lungs, like coughing, are not as effective.

If your stomach is full the relaxing of your muscles can mean you are sick (vomit).

Because your coughing reflex isn’t as good as usual this can mean you breathe in your sick, which can cause an infection in your lungs, or inflammation of your lungs. This can then cause some problems with breathing.

This is called pulmonary aspiration. It is rare that this happens, but it can cause you to be quite unwell.

Your anaesthetist (the doctor who looks after you during your operation) can do certain things to try and stop you breathing in sick. This might include:

• Pressure on the front of the neck when you are drifting off to sleep.
• Medicines that speed up stomach emptying.
• Using a breathing tube that protects the lungs.
• Not lying completely flat when having your surgery.
• A tube through the nose or mouth to drain the stomach before an anaesthetic or before being woken up.
• Ultrasound scan of the stomach before an anaesthetic.

Possible risks of stopping these medicines before surgery:

Stopping these medicines can lead to high blood sugar levels. High blood sugar levels can lead to:

• Slower recovery.
• Infections.
• Heart complications.
• Needing admission to intensive care.
• Postponing surgery.

What to do before surgery

If you take a GLP-1 medication like Ozempic, Wegovy or Mounjaro, and are due to have surgery, your nurses or doctors will make a plan with you.

The plan will depend on the type of medication, why you take it and any other health conditions you might have. The plan will also be different depending on the surgery and anaesthetic you will be having.

The risk of taking the medication will be weighed up against the potential risk of stopping the medication.

Key points to remember

• Discuss your risk and options with an anaesthetist.
• You should continue to take GLP-1 medication before and after surgery.
• You should follow fasting (eating) instructions given to you before surgery.
• Where it is possible, your anaesthetist may suggest you have the procedure awake. For example, with regional block (numbing a specific area of the body) or spinal anaesthetic.

Comments, concerns, compliments or complaints

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Telephone: 01642 624719
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