Check if you qualify
Frequently asked questions
The things people want to know before they start
Straight answers, in the order people usually ask them. This page is general information rather than medical advice about you personally. If your question is not here, the free eligibility check is the quickest way to get a doctor to look at your situation.
Before you begin
Getting started
What actually happens between deciding to look into this and a doctor giving you an answer.
No. The consultation is done online with a doctor registered with the HPCSA, from wherever you are in South Africa. If that doctor decides you need to be examined in person, or wants blood results before going further, they will say so.
Everything else, the review of your history, the decisions about dose and the follow-ups, is handled online.
As a starting point, treatment is usually considered at a BMI of 30 or more, or 27 or more where there is a weight-related condition such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure or sleep apnoea. The free check takes about two minutes and gives you an early answer, and a doctor makes the final decision after looking at your history.
If you want to work it out for yourself first, the BMI calculator takes seconds, and who qualifies sets out the criteria in plain language.
A doctor reviews your answers, may come back to you for more detail, and then decides whether treatment is appropriate. If it is, a licensed South African pharmacy dispenses your medication and couriers it to you.
If it is not, the doctor explains why and points you towards something more sensible for your situation. How it works walks through the whole path, step by step.
Your height and weight, a picture of your general health, the medicines and supplements you already take, and what you have tried before. Be honest about all of it, including the parts you would rather not mention, because that is what makes the assessment worth anything.
Some people are asked for recent blood results before starting or during treatment, depending on their history. Those tests are done at a laboratory and billed by the laboratory. What to expect from your first consultation covers it in more detail.
The treatment
The medication
What GLP-1 treatment is, where ours comes from, and what it can and cannot be expected to do.
GLP-1 is a hormone your gut releases after you eat. This class of medication copies it, so the stomach empties more slowly and the appetite centres in the brain get the message that you have had enough. Most people describe the effect as food taking up far less room in their head.
It is not a stimulant, and it does not burn fat directly. How GLP-1 medication works explains the biology without the hype.
Yes. Only SAHPRA-registered medication, dispensed by licensed South African pharmacies and couriered in cold chain at 2 to 8 degrees. We do not touch compounded copies or grey-market stock.
We are not a pharmacy ourselves. We are the medical service, and a licensed pharmacy does the dispensing. If a price sits far below everyone else in the market, that is usually the reason, and how to spot genuine medication shows what to check.
Both exist, and which one suits you is a clinical decision rather than a menu choice. Some GLP-1 medicines are taken once a week and others once a day, and they differ in cost, in how forgiving they are of a missed dose, and in how they are started.
The doctor talks the options through with you instead of defaulting to one. Weekly or daily compares them side by side.
We will not give you a number, because nobody honestly can. In the trials of this class of medication, average weight loss ran from roughly 8% to over 20% of body weight, over many months rather than weeks, and your result can be different. Some people respond strongly, some modestly, and a few barely at all.
It also works best alongside changes to food, movement and sleep, not instead of them. What the trials actually showed goes through the evidence.
Still not sure whether this is for you?
The check asks a few questions about your weight, your health and what you have already tried, then tells you whether GLP-1 treatment is worth exploring.
Check if you qualifyFree, takes about 2 minutes, no obligation. You only pay if a doctor recommends treatment for you.
The money side
Cost and payment
What you pay us, what you pay the pharmacy, and what happens to your money if treatment turns out not to suit you.
The full programme is R299 a month, or R2,999 for a year paid up front. A once-off online consultation, without the ongoing programme, is R850.
Medication is dispensed and billed separately by the pharmacy, and blood tests are billed by the laboratory. The pricing page lists exactly what each option includes.
Usually not for weight loss on its own. Some plans allow you to pay from a savings benefit, and cover can apply where a related condition is being treated, but this varies from scheme to scheme and from plan to plan.
Ask your scheme directly before you budget, and try to get the answer in writing. Medical aid and GLP-1 treatment explains what to ask and how to phrase it.
Then you pay nothing for medication, because none is recommended for you. The doctor explains the reason and suggests what would be more useful, whether that is a different route to weight loss or dealing with something else first.
The eligibility check itself is free, so finding out where you stand costs you nothing at all.
Yes, and they catch people out. The medication is the largest one, and it is separate from the programme fee. Beyond that there can be blood tests, and the medication cost can change if the doctor moves you to a higher dose later on.
We would rather you saw the full picture before you start than halfway through. The costs nobody mentions and what treatment really costs lay it out.
The honest part
Safety and side effects
The part we would rather over-explain than under-explain. None of it replaces the conversation with your own doctor.
GLP-1 medicines need a doctor's oversight for a reason. A doctor checks your history, your conditions and the other medicines you take for anything that would make treatment unsuitable, starts you on a low dose, and stays involved while you are on it.
This class of medication is not new. It has been used in medicine for years, and everything dispensed through us is registered with SAHPRA. The safety sits in the assessment and the follow-up, not in the product alone.
Nausea, constipation, reflux and other gut effects are the most common, particularly in the first weeks and for a few days after a dose increase. Starting low and moving up slowly is what keeps them manageable, and for most people they settle.
Tell your doctor if they are severe, or if you cannot keep fluids down, rather than quietly pushing through. Managing side effects covers the practical things that help.
It is not suitable during pregnancy or breastfeeding, or for anyone with a personal or family history of medullary thyroid cancer or MEN 2. A doctor also weighs a history of pancreatitis, certain gut conditions, and some of the other medicines you may already be taking.
The assessment exists to catch this before anything is recommended. Who should not use GLP-1 medication lists it in full.
Weight tends to return when treatment stops abruptly, because the biology that drove it has not gone anywhere. That is not a failure of willpower, it is how appetite regulation works.
So this suits a long-term plan that you and your doctor review together, and stopping is a decision to make with a clinician rather than on your own. Stopping treatment explains how to do it sensibly.
Day to day
Practical questions
Delivery, injecting, privacy, and what the rest of your week has to look like while you are on treatment.
A licensed pharmacy couriers it to you under cold chain, held between 2 to 8 degrees, because the pens are temperature-sensitive. You are told when the parcel is on its way, so that somebody can be there to take it in.
When it arrives it goes straight into the fridge, not the freezer and not the boot of a car. Injecting and storage covers how to keep it in good condition.
Yes, and almost everybody worries about this far more beforehand than afterwards. The pens use a very short, fine needle into the fat just under the skin of the stomach, the thigh or the upper arm, and the whole thing takes seconds.
You are shown exactly how to do it, and you can ask again at any review if you are unsure.
If you want the result to hold, yes. The medication makes eating less far easier, but it does not do the work for you, and eating very little of the wrong things is a poor trade.
Protein, movement and sleep matter more than most people expect, especially for holding on to muscle while you are losing weight. Protein and muscle explains why that part is not optional.
Your medical information is handled in line with POPIA. It is seen by the clinical team involved in your care and by the pharmacy that dispenses for you, and by nobody else.
It is not sold, and it is not handed to your employer or your medical aid without your say-so. Our privacy policy sets out what is collected, why, and how long it is kept.
Question not answered here?
Ask us. Send a message from the contact page or email hello@glp1weightloss.co.za, and a real person will come back to you. If it is a question about your own health, a doctor is the one who should answer it, and the eligibility check is the fastest way to get in front of one.
Two minutes to find out where you stand
Answer a few questions and see whether GLP-1 treatment could suit you. Free, no obligation, and you only pay if a doctor recommends treatment for you.
Check if you qualify