Drug facts
Where semaglutide is injected
Quick answer
The label names three: the abdomen, the thigh and the upper arm. Rotate with each dose. Changing the site — or the time of day — does not require any change to the dose.
The three sites1
The instruction is to inject subcutaneously in the abdomen, thigh or upper arm. Those three are the whole list — the label names no others, and it does not rank them.
Rotation, and what can change1
The label says to rotate injection sites with each dose. It also says something people often assume the opposite of: the time of day and the injection site can be changed without any dosage modification. What does not move is the day — it is once weekly, on the same day each week, with or without meals.
How often there is a reaction2
In the adult weight-reduction trials, injection site reactions were reported by 1.4% of participants on the drug against 1% on placebo — including itching, redness, inflammation, induration and irritation. It is one of the least common things in the label, and the placebo rate is nearly the same.
What this means for a compounded vial1
On the label — Wegovy / Ozempic
A pen delivers a fixed dose into one of the three named sites, with nothing to draw up.
In a compounded vial
The sites are a property of the molecule, not the vial, so they do not change. What does change is that the dose has to be drawn to a mark first — see units and milligrams.