Woman almost died after taking slimming drug: What went wrong

How it all started

Michelle Sword has two children (13-year-old Cadie and 18-year-old Coen) and works as a receptionist in Oxfordshire. Michelle divorced her husband, who works in the Royal Air Force. She is a cosmetologist by training.

Throughout her life, Michelle's weight has fluctuated between 57 and 69 kilograms. She is about 158 centimeters tall, so she didn't like herself at a higher weight. In 2020, after the divorce from her husband, she comforted herself with food.

Michelle Sword, 45, suffered from weight loss on drugs (photo: dailymail.co.uk)

A little later, Michelle saw herself in New Year's photos and was unhappy with her figure. It was then, in 2021, that she decided to try weight loss drugs.

The first drug

Michelle ordered several injections of the so-called Ozempic, which is actively used by Hollywood stars for weight loss. Each injection has a clear dose to be injected into the thigh once a week.

For Michelle, it worked, as her hunger was dulled. Within a few months, she lost a noticeable amount of weight.

However, she stopped when she lost too many pounds. A sedentary job and eating sweets caused Michelle to gain it back.

Advertisements for Ozempic filled her social media feed, so she ordered it again.

The drug that Michelle was sold instead of high-quality Ozempic (photo: dailymail.co.uk)

The malicious killer

She received a drug identical to the one she had last time. However, the only difference was that the dose was higher.

Within 15 minutes, she began to feel dizzy and disoriented. At that moment, her daughter Cadie had just returned from school. Michelle said she wanted to sleep, but instead collapsed in the living room.

The daughter called her mother's best friend Vicky, who used to work in an ambulance. When the doctors arrived, they took a blood sugar test. It turned out to be very low. Michelle was hospitalized.

Cadie thoughtfully took a shot of the drug from the refrigerator to the hospital. On the way there, Michelle felt better for a minute, but a moment later she had a seizure. Her life was hanging by a thread.

Michelle nearly died after injecting herself with an excessive dose of pure insulin (photo: dailymail.co.uk)

It turned out that instead of high-quality Ozempic, the fraudsters sold Michelle pure insulin, the dose of which exceeded the norm by nine times! The doctors said they had never seen anyone survive with a blood glucose level of 0.6 mmol/L.

More about fraudulent drug

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in Nice recommended the use of a form of semaglutide. This is one of the drugs for the treatment of diabetes. It can only be used for weight control under the supervision of a specialist.

Semaglutide is sold under the brand names Ozempic, Wegovy, and Rybelsus. It imitates the action of a hormone that is released from the intestines after a meal, regulating appetite and preventing overeating.

The popularity of the drug has led to the emergence of counterfeits. To boost sales, fraudsters call it the "secret Hollywood slimming drug".

Earlier, the BBC found a large number of unregulated sellers selling semaglutide without a prescription, even though the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency recommended avoiding purchases of slimming injections on the Internet.

Between January and October 2023, 369 counterfeit Ozempic injections were seized in the UK.

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