‘Borderline alcoholic' shed 6st with the help of Mounjaro after it stopped her downing two bottles of wine a night
"Day to day, I have no craving for alcohol," the 29, from Barnstaple, Devon, said.
7
7
"Mounjaro has completely changed my life and my relationship with alcohol."
Shane had struggled with her weight since childhood.
The content creator tipped the scales at 18st 12lbs at her heaviest and struggled to squeeze into a size 24.
She had tried every diet in the book, but after marrying her husband, Mert Iscen, 30, a barber, she "got comfortable" and piled back on the pounds.
In part, she put the weight gain down to her ability to "easily" polish off two bottles of wine in an evening - and would drink four or five times a week.
"I was borderline alcoholic," she explained. "I would drink three to four times a week."
She went to the doctors for help slimming down and claims she was told to "move more and eat less" - leaving her in floods of tears.
In 2024, she decided enough was enough and she resorted to the weight loss drug, Mounjaro.
It works by mimicking two hormones that help control blood sugar and appetite.
It reduces hunger, helping people eat less, which leads to weight loss.
Julia Hartley-Brewer slams government plan for NHS to offer free 'fat jabs' to tackle obesity crisis
She started buying Mounjaro privately from a pharmaceutical company - Right Angled - setting her back £112-a-month.
She said: "When I started Mounjaro I was 18st 12lbs and now I am 5lbs away from hitting my goal weight of 12st.
"I do one injection a week - which costs £28 a week. It has been smooth sailing for me since I started."
For Shane, the biggest effect Mounjaro has had on her life was related to her alcohol consumption.
"Now, I don't crave it, I don't need it. If I do have a drink, I will have a glass," she explained.
"The only regret I have is that I wish I had started it sooner. It has given me a new lease of life," she added.
Before starting on Mounjaro, Shane said she would cry when looking in the mirror and avoid going clothes shopping.
Since starting the weight loss jab, Shane said she has become more confident and loves going out to buy new clothes.
Shane said: "I have always been a bubbly person, when I was at my biggest, I felt like I wore a mask.
7
7
"I used to portray myself as being happy, but I was miserable within myself.
"Anytime I had to look in the mirror, I could cry.
"But now, I feel confident, I'm happy within myself, and I love looking at myself in the mirror.
"Going on Mounjaro is the best thing I have ever done, and I wish I had done it sooner."
Shane said she used to cook "hearty English meals" before starting her weekly jabs - including pasta, cottage pie, and a roast dinner.
Now she has ditched carb-loaded meals and swapped them out for heavy protein-based meals - like chicken salad.
Shane said: "I would eat very normal, English food - it wasn't necessarily the food I was eating, but the portion sizes.
"We would have a takeaway once or twice a week for convenience.
"I would make hearty meals like pasta, cottage pie and traditional English food.
"I would wake up and be hungry. Once that hunger had worn off, I would eat something.
"But now, that voice inside your head telling you that you are hungry is gone."
Weeks away from goal weight
Shane said she will continue taking a 15mg dose of Mounjaro until she hits her 12st target.
She will then lower her dosage to help maintain her weight loss.
Shane said: "I think I will hit my goal within the next 12 weeks, but as I get smaller and smaller, the weight loss gets smaller.
"I hope to stay on Mounjaro for a while.
"Once I hit my goal weight, I will lower the dosage to maintain my weight loss for six months to a year if possible."
Shane said she does worry that she will pile the pounds back on.
But is confident she has changed her relationship with food and her lifestyle to maintain her weight.
7
7
She said: "I think everyone has a slight worry of putting weight back on or going back to an old habit.
"I am hoping I have changed my relationship with food enough, and my habits so much that I can carry on with my lifestyle."
'More comfortable in my own skin'
Shane has already scheduled surgery for July 2025 in Istanbul, Turkey, to undergo a tummy tuck and skin tightening on her stomach, thighs, and 'bingo wings'.
The surgery is costing £6500, and Shane said she wanted to take the opportunity now while she has disposable income.
She said: "I'm really looking forward to the surgery, I'm nervous as I've never had an operation before, so I am really throwing myself in the deep end.
"In hindsight, my excess skin is not extreme, there are people out there with extreme cases.
"The operations will allow me to feel more comfortable in my own skin."
7
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scotsman
43 minutes ago
- Scotsman
SNP urged to 'get a grip' of NHS as millions spent on consultancy services
Scottish health boards have spent public money on a range of consultancy services. Sign up to our Politics newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... SNP ministers have been told to 'get a grip" on NHS Scotland's use of external consultants after new figures revealed that health boards across the country have spent millions on external management consultants since 2019/20. The public money spent on consultants includes £97,000 paid by Public Health Scotland to KPMG in 2022-23 and £205,692 paid by NHS Highlands to a company specialising in conflict management resolution. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad NHS boards have spent millions on consultancy services | Jane Barlow/Press Association Other spending include a £1,230 fee paid by NHS Lothian for cancelling at short notice and £23,477.76 spent by The State Hospital — a high-security psychiatric hospital — on a media strategy. In total, health boards spent more than £53 million on management consultants in the years between 2019/20 and 2023/24, although in some cases this figure includes capital spend and building projects which required outside consultants. READ MORE: The scandal of Scottish NHS nurse forced to go private by long waiting list for urgent health check Only some of the health boards provided a breakdown of spending, and as not all health boards responded, the total figure is likely to be even higher. Scottish Labour's health spokesperson, Jackie Baillie, said: "While outside expertise will always be needed, these figures show that at a time when our hospitals and surgeries are under pressure, health boards are still haemorrhaging cash. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad "The SNP must get a grip on health boards' spending and ensure that where money does go to external consultants, it can be clearly justified. Scottish Labour deputy leader Dame Jackie Baillie | PA "It's the Scottish Government which should show leadership when it comes to reforming our health service, yet after nearly two decades the SNP is out of ideas. "The reality is that John Swinney and the SNP have no meaningful plan, no strategy and no ideas to save our NHS. "A Scottish Labour government will make sure our NHS is free and available at the point of need, declare a national waiting times emergency, end the 8am rush for a GP appointment and do whatever it takes to fix the NHS." Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The statistics show that Public Health Scotland paid £97,000 to KPMG for consultancy in relation to a review of portfolio, programme and project management, as well as 'business services capabilities and redesign'. NHS Highland paid out £205,692 to Conflict Management Plus Ltd, a company which describes itself as 'supporting employers with workplace relationship issues'. NHS Lothian faces a £1,230 fee from BSI Management Systems over a 'short notice visit cancellation charge'. Meanwhile the State Hospitals Board for Scotland paid McClaw's Consultancy £23,477 for "consultancy on developing proactive material for media'. A Scottish Government spokesperson said: 'Spending on external consultants is a tiny fraction of the NHS budget. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'NHS boards make decisions on their spending, including the use of external consultants and overseas travel, where this is necessary to provide the most effective services. 'This information is published to ensure transparency and discussions are held on a regular basis with each NHS board on how it is utilising its resources to ensure value for money.' In June, Finance Secretary Shona Robison published her Government's long-delayed medium-term financial strategy, which starkly warned ministers are braced for a funding gap of £2.6bn for day-to-day revenue spending and £2.1bn for capital investment plans by 2030 to cover proposed spending commitments. More than 12,000 jobs in the devolved public sector workforce, including the NHS, are set to be cut in the coming years to make the target. Ms Robison has not ruled out compulsory redundancies if all other methods do not produce results at the scale required. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad She confirmed the Scottish Government would cut the devolved public sector workforce by 0.5 per cent on average per annum over the next five years. The Scottish Government's public service reform strategy commits to reducing the annual combined corporate costs of the government and Scotland's public bodies by £1 billion over the space of five years. One NHS health board has issued an urgent plea to the public to help it cover a multi-million pound deficit. NHS Dumfries and Galloway (NHS D&G) said the move was to help plug a £33.6 million gap between the funding available and what is needed to maintain services in their existing form this financial year.
BBC News
44 minutes ago
- BBC News
Devon patients want thyroid drug made available to all
Some patients in Devon have said they are spending hundreds of pounds a year on thyroid drugs which are not routinely prescribed on the Liothyronine (T3) can be prescribed by NHS specialists, the standard treatment from other NHS doctors in Devon is levothyroxine - known as British Thyroid Foundation said despite efforts to work with NHS England to clarify guidance, patients in some parts of the country struggled to get a T3 Devon said its advice for prescribing T3 was out for "specialist review". The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) said there was "currently not enough evidence T3 was safer or more effective long-term than T4". The thyroid is a gland in the neck which makes hormones to help control energy levels and growth. An underactive thyroid can make people feel tired, experience weight gain, low mood and low libido. Vivienne Wells, 68 of Exeter, was diagnosed with an underactive thyroid 18 years ago. She said the hormone replacement T4 worked for 10 years but she then felt like she had "fallen off a cliff". "My dose was constantly raised and raised but I felt consistently worse," she said."I couldn't work. My brain wouldn't work. I couldn't think."She was referred to an endocrinologist - a hormone specialist - who prescribed a low dose of T3. Currently only endocrinologists can prescribe the hormone long-term. Going private Ms Wells said within two days of taking T3 her brain function had improved. She said she wanted a larger dose prescribed long-term, but it was not available on the NHS. She said she now spent hundreds a year buying T3 and another drug, naturally desiccated thyroid (DCT), from a private UK pharmacist."Without these drugs, I wouldn't function," she said. "I wouldn't be able to get up in the morning and decide what I want to do and achieve it."Ms Wells added: "You get more successful treatment in some areas of the country but a lot of people have to pay privately and a great number of people who need to be treated privately, can't afford it." Jane Chapple, 70, from Exeter, was diagnosed with an underactive thyroid in sources T3 from overseas and in 2020 set up a Devon and south west thyroid support group which has more than 500 members. "I think everybody who needs that drug should have access to it. It shouldn't be a postcode lottery," she said. "It would save the NHS a lot of money if people were treated properly with the drug that suits them best." Simon Waters, 56 of Woodbury Salterton, was diagnosed with an overactive thyroid in 1991 and had the last remaining part of his thyroid removed in was prescribed T4 but suffered chronic diarrhoea and tiredness. He said he was given T3 by a friend and within hours, his symptoms had now buys T3 from an online pharmacy overseas."The big symptom which cleared up almost immediately was diarrhoea. It cleared up within hours of taking the drug." NHS Devon said current advice was T3 should only be given by an NHS consultant endocrinologist when being prescribed for British Thyroid Foundation said this reflected a regional variance in prescribing said NHS guidance was unclear and left scope for local prescribing bodies to "de-prescribe, limit prescriptions or not initiate new patients on this treatment".The charity said scientific evidence to support the benefits of T3 was unclear so not all endocrinologists were willing to prescribe it. But the charity supported calls for more Priestley, from the charity, said: "We think patients who have been shown to have a clinical need for T3 should be able to access it on the NHS, wherever they live. "We work with other UK charities to help patients who may benefit from T3 to obtain it fairly, consistently and based on clinical need. "We also support research to answer unsolved questions about T3's effectiveness and long-term safety."The charity warned that self-sourcing the drug without appropriate medical supervision could be dangerous. A spokesperson for NHS Devon said it currently had local guidance on the prescribing of liothyronine. "Updated guidance, which adopts the advice published by NHS England is currently out for specialist review, with a view to be published in the autumn," it added.A spokesman said the price of T3 was "significantly higher" than T4. "Since 2017, the price of T3 has fallen but it is still significantly higher than the price of levothyroxine tablets." NHS Devon added some exceptions had been made for a cohort of patients who were found to require T3 following a clinical working group.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Ipswich and Colchester hospital staff train for digital record rollout
Hospital staff were being trained to use new electronic patient record systems, which would replace paper multi-million pound software was being rolled out at Ipswich Hospital and Colchester Hospital, both part of the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation overall cost of the upgrade was expected to reach "several tens of millions of pounds over a ten-year period", according to hospital chief executive of both hospitals, Nick Hulme, said some staff may need to undertake training on days off to meet the 2 October targeted switchover. Mr Hulme said the hospitals currently run on a paper-based record system. "With that comes risk and it's expensive and it's not the most efficient way to provide healthcare," he added. He said the new system, called Epic, will give medical staff access to full patient records, including test results and GP letters. Patients will also be able to use a new app to see their own information, appointment details and Hulme said the new software, developed by an American firm, was "not the cheapest by any means" but was the "best in class". He said most of the funding for the project came from the government, but there would be savings gained from not having to pay for different software licences - the hospitals currently run around 50 various hospitals also currently spend millions on stationery every year, and it's thought those expenses would come down. 'Training is one of our biggest challenges' Mr Hulme said staff training had begun, and the length of time it would take depended on the staff member's role. He said his own training would take around three hours, but other staff members may need a full added that 94% of staff had their training scheduled. "We're making sure it is as convenient as possible for staff, obviously not everybody can have the training on the specific day they might want to, so some people might have to come in on different days and get the time back," he Hulme said he expected it to be "business as usual at the hospitals" but asked the public to "bear with us" as things may take longer than usual initially. Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
