NEWCASTLE, England – A mother has issued a warning after nearly dying from an overdose of weight loss injections provided by an Instagram brand that had asked her to promote the product on social media.
Leigh-Anne Lagden, 26, suffered severe side effects after mistakenly administering five times the recommended dose of the drug, leading to multiple hospital visits.
In June, Lagden, a content creator, followed a weight loss brand on Instagram, which then offered her free injections in exchange for promoting their product.
“The injections didn’t cost me a penny,” she told Kennedy News and Media.
“The page sent them to me, and I was meant to be on them for a month as I was promoting their brand. It came in a liquid solution with a needle so you had to make it up yourself.”
Shortly after taking the company’s recommended dose of 0.5 ml, Lagden experienced alarming symptoms.
“I was throwing up for four days nonstop straight after I took the injection. My vomit was black, and I was bedbound,” she recalled, adding that when she contacted the company, they dismissed her symptoms as typical side effects.
The severity of her condition led to an emergency response two days later.
“They sent an ambulance out to me. I wasn’t eating or drinking, and I couldn’t keep everything down,” Lagden said.
“When I told them my sick was black, they told me it was blood. I was just throwing up blood. I thought I was going to die.”
Lagden was discharged but returned to the hospital due to a dangerously elevated heart rate.
Hospital tests showed her liver was severely affected.
“I think the reason I got so poorly was because I took five days’ worth in one hit. In the hospital, they told me I overdosed, but that is what [the Instagram page] told me to take,” she disclosed.
After speaking to other content creators, Lagden discovered she was supposed to take only 0.1 ml, not the 0.5 ml initially suggested by the brand.
“They made me take five times the amount,” she said, referring to the injections as similar to GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy.
Following the incident, Meta, Instagram’s parent company, issued a statement saying they do not permit the sale of pharmaceuticals on their platforms and encourage users to report any such instances.
Reflecting on the ordeal, Lagden now advocates against shortcuts in weight loss, saying, “I’d never take these again. I’ve learned my lesson and am now losing weight the normal way by going to the gym and working out.”
Her advice to others struggling with body image: “Don’t be so hard on yourself… Don’t take these weight loss injections from strangers on the internet. Do your research first.”
Lagden’s case reflects an emerging health crisis related to counterfeit and unregulated weight loss drugs.
In August, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned of a rise in overdoses from compounded versions of semaglutide, often sold as alternatives to Ozempic and Wegovy.
Some patients reportedly administered doses five to 20 times higher than intended, with the FDA noting that such compounds are untested and may pose serious risks.
The FDA urges anyone using compounded weight loss drugs to consult a healthcare professional for guidance.
