A routine day at home turned into a medical emergency for one Indiana family after a young girl accidentally injected herself with her mother’s GLP-1s, sending her to the hospital for nearly a week.
According to People, Jessa Milender, now 8, said that she believed the medication was harmless. “I thought it was stomach medicine,” she said. “My mom takes it, and I thought it helped her with her stomachaches.”
In December 2024, the then-7-year-old reportedly used about 60 percent of a prefilled GLP-1 injector pen meant for her mother. These medications — commonly prescribed for diabetes and weight management — include drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Saxenda.
Her mother, Melissa, said she immediately called Poison Control and rushed her daughter to the emergency room. Doctors treated Jessa with IV fluids as vomiting and dehydration set in.
At first, the symptoms eased, and she was discharged. But once home, the sickness returned.
“I don’t think we were prepared for how bad it was gonna get,” Melissa said. She described carrying her daughter to the bathroom because she was too weak to stand. “She was thirsty… but every time she drank water, she threw it up.”
The family returned to the hospital, where doctors grew concerned when Jessa stopped urinating — a potential sign of kidney complications linked to severe dehydration.
Melissa said she feared the worst. “She didn’t eat for six days straight,” she recalled. At one point, the family gathered around her bedside because she appeared “lifeless.”
Medical experts say cases like this are becoming more common as GLP-1 medications grow in popularity. According to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, taking more than the prescribed amount can intensify the drug’s known side effects.
Overdoses often lead to extreme nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, low blood sugar, and dehydration. In serious cases, kidney stress or pancreatitis may occur. Because these drugs stay in the body for days, symptoms can linger.
There’s no specific antidote. Treatment usually involves fluids, monitoring, and anti-nausea support.
Jessa has since recovered. Melissa now stores the medication in a locked container and hopes other parents take similar precautions.
“I try not to think about the what if,” she said. “God protected us from the worst.”