One concrete data point for the thread. For anyone assembling their own picture: Tmax is one to three days, terminal half-life about 165 to 170 hours, steady state at four to five weeks, and subcutaneous bioavailability near 89%. Those four numbers explain most of the questions people ask about timing.

Worth separating that from semaglutide, which this thread keeps folding into the same question. They behave differently and the advice does not transfer.

Following on from Dr.EndoIndy — and this may be the naive question:

What the dose-response curve actually looks like above 1.7mg, because the trial means hide how few people account for the extra loss?

hank_denver said:

For anyone assembling their own picture: Tmax is one to three days, terminal half-life about 165 to 170 hours, steady state at four to five weeks, and…

There is a second half to this that has not been said yet. The dose-response is real but shallow at the top. Across STEP 1 and STEP 4 the gap between 1.7mg and 2.4mg is a couple of percentage points of body weight on average, and the average is carrying a wide spread — plenty of people at 1.7mg sit above the 2.4mg mean. If a dose is working and tolerable, "working" is the relevant variable, not "maximal".

Reporting back.

Update. I did go to 2.4mg in the end, and the honest report is that it bought me less than the step before it and cost me two bad weeks. Worth knowing rather than worth repeating.

Dr.CardioMD said:

The dose-response is real but shallow at the top.

All true, with one condition: that curve is for people who reached the dose on schedule. Anyone who slowed the ladder for tolerability is on a different, flatter curve, and comparing yourself with the published mean will make you feel like a non-responder when you are not.