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Wegovy side effects, as its own label reports them
Nausea is the side effect Wegovy’s label reports most often: 44 in every 100 adults on the 2.4 mg weekly shot, against 16 in every 100 on placebo.
Source: Read from the Wegovy label, revision 06/2026
What matters first
Medically reviewed by Jennifer Montecillo, MD · non-practicing medical reviewerReviewed 2026-08-12every number here is sourced
The 2.4 mg weekly shot, in the weight trials
Read the placebo column first. Nearly everything below happens to some people on a dummy injection too, and the gap between the columns is the part the drug is answerable for.
Trial armsPlacebo: n = 1,261Wegovy 2.4 mg: n = 2,116
| Side effect | Placebo | Wegovy 2.4 mg |
|---|---|---|
| Nausea | 16% | 44% |
| Diarrhea | 16% | 30% |
| Vomiting | 6% | 24% |
| Constipation | 11% | 24% |
| Belly painGroups upper, lower and general belly pain, tenderness and discomfort | 10% | 20% |
| Headache | 10% | 14% |
| TirednessGroups fatigue and weakness | 5% | 11% |
| Indigestion | 3% | 9% |
| Dizziness | 4% | 8% |
| Bloating | 5% | 7% |
| BurpingThe label prints the placebo figure as less than 1% | 1% | 7% |
| Low blood sugar, in type 2 diabetesBlood sugar under 54 mg/dL, in people not on insulin | 2% | 6% |
| Wind | 4% | 6% |
| Stomach bug | 4% | 6% |
| Acid reflux | 3% | 5% |
| Stomach lining irritation | 1% | 4% |
| Viral stomach bug | 3% | 4% |
| Hair loss | 1% | 3% |
| Odd skin sensationsGroups tingling, burning, oversensitive skin and skin pain | 1% | 2% |
The 7.2 mg weekly shot, against 2.4 mg and against placebo
Trial armsPlacebo: n = 303Wegovy 2.4 mg: n = 304Wegovy 7.2 mg: n = 1,311
| Side effect | Placebo | Wegovy 2.4 mg | Wegovy 7.2 mg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nausea | 13% | 35% | 39% |
| Vomiting | 6% | 16% | 22% |
| Odd skin sensationsGroups tingling, burning, oversensitive skin and skin pain | 0% | 6% | 22% |
| Constipation | 8% | 19% | 20% |
| Belly pain | 7% | 9% | 12% |
| Tiredness | 5% | 9% | 11% |
| Headache | 7% | 8% | 9% |
| Dizziness | 1% | 5% | 6% |
| Hair loss | 1% | 3% | 6% |
| Wind | 2% | 2% | 4% |
The boxed warning: thyroid tumors in rodents
Wegovy carries the strongest warning the FDA uses. Rodents given semaglutide grew thyroid C-cell tumors. Whether the same happens in people is unknown. The label rules the drug out for anyone with a personal or family history of medullary thyroid cancer, and for anyone with the inherited condition MEN 2.
What does the label tell prescribers to watch for?
These sit above the table in the label, in the section reserved for the problems that are rare but matter most.
| Warning | What this label says about it |
|---|---|
| Pancreatitis | The label tells prescribers to stop the drug where it is suspected. |
| Gallbladder disease | Gallstones were reported by 1.6 in 100 on the shot and 0.7 on placebo. |
| Low blood sugar | Mainly in people also taking insulin or a sulfonylurea. |
| Kidney injury | Usually after fluid loss from being sick or having diarrhea. |
| Severe stomach and gut problems | Reported by 4.1 in 100 on the shot against 0.9 on placebo, and 2 in 100 on the tablet against none. The label says Wegovy is not recommended where gastroparesis is severe. |
| Serious allergic reactions | Including swelling of the face and throat. |
| Diabetic eye disease | Fast improvement in blood sugar can make existing eye damage worse. |
| A faster resting heart rate | This warning is Wegovy’s own. Resting heart rate rose 1 to 4 beats a minute on average, and 26 in 100 adults had a jump of 20 beats or more at some visit, against 16 on placebo. |
| Breathing in stomach contents under anesthetic | The label says food can stay in the stomach longer than expected. |
| Sharing a pen | The label says a FlexTouch pen must never be shared, even with a fresh needle. |
What have people actually reported about Wegovy?
21,044 reports naming Wegovy have reached the FDA’s public database. A report is not proof the drug caused anything, and there is no way to know how many people took it.
| Most reported | Reports | Share of Wegovy reports |
|---|---|---|
| Nausea | 2,861 reports | 14% of Wegovy reports |
| Vomiting | 1,839 reports | 8.7% of Wegovy reports |
| Diarrhea | 1,156 reports | 5.5% of Wegovy reports |
| Off label use | 1,119 reports | 5.3% of Wegovy reports |
| Weight increased | 1,015 reports | 4.8% of Wegovy reports |
| Constipation | 1,011 reports | 4.8% of Wegovy reports |
| Weight loss poor | 921 reports | 4.4% of Wegovy reports |
| Fatigue | 892 reports | 4.2% of Wegovy reports |
| Device malfunction | 822 reports | 3.9% of Wegovy reports |
| Device leakage | 795 reports | 3.8% of Wegovy reports |
Nausea leads the Wegovy report pile too, which is the rare case of the trials and the reports agreeing on what sits at the top.
Two things in the top ten have nothing to do with the body: reports about the pen itself, and reports that the drug did not work. Neither is a side effect. Both are things people file when a product does not behave as expected.
4Interpret the page
The 7.2 mg dose brings something the lower doses barely show
Odd skin sensations went from 6 in 100 people on 2.4 mg to 22 in 100 on 7.2 mg. On placebo it was almost nobody.
The label describes it as tingling, burning, oversensitive skin or skin pain, and says it got more common as the dose and the drug level in the blood went up. Of the 288 people it happened to on 7.2 mg, 2 in 100 stopped for good, 8 paused, and 23 dropped to a lower dose. About 18 in every 100 had not recovered by the end of the trial. Of 38 people who went back up to 7.2 mg after recovering, 17 got it again.
This is the clearest reason not to read the 7.2 mg dose as simply more of the same drug.
The pill has its own trial and its own numbers
204 adults took the 25 mg Wegovy tablet for up to 64 weeks. 6.9 in every 100 stopped for good because of a side effect, against 5.9 on placebo.
The label says the kinds of side effects and how often they came up were much like the shot. The one figure it prints separately for the tablet is odd skin sensations, at 5 in 100 people against none on placebo. It also reports gallstones in 2.5 in 100 on the tablet against 1 on placebo.
Why do Wegovy and Ozempic report different numbers for the same drug?
Both are semaglutide. The percentages differ because the trials behind them differ, not because one product is gentler than the other.
Each label opens its table with the same warning: rates from one drug’s trials cannot be set against another’s. That holds here even though the drug substance is identical. The two sets of trials enrolled different people. They ran to different doses. And they used different cut-offs for what got printed at all.
Where to read next
Two pages carry the parts this one leaves out.
- The Wegovy dose schedule has the step pattern these percentages are attached to.
- Side effects of semaglutide itself covers the drug across every product built on it.
Questions readers ask
What are long-term side effects of Wegovy?
How much weight can you lose in 3 months with Wegovy?
What medications should be avoided with Wegovy?
What's the worst day on Wegovy?
- WEGOVY (semaglutide) injection and tablets — DailyMed SPL, sections 5 and 6.1retrieved 2026-08-12FDA label