Stephanie Hill, 40, ordered a four-week course of the injectable online and rapidly shed weight. However now full of regret, she can’t believe how easy it was for her to take the medication that left her seriously ill
A mum’s dreams of dazzling in her wedding dress turned into a nightmare after she had to have emergency surgery due to complications from an over-the-counter ‘skinny jab’.
Stephanie Hill, keen to boast a slimmer figure for her vow renewal with husband Mark Hill, bought a weight loss injection online from a pharmacy in October 2024. The 40 year old saw her appetite plummet and just two months later, had managed to drop two stone before her big day in December.
But come January, her feelings of joy were replaced with agony, as Stephanie found herself doubled over, fearing a heart attack. She was rushed to hospital where medical tests revealed a whopping five stones lodged in her gallbladder. Doctors pinpointed the skinny jabs as the culprit behind the severe inflammation.
Advised to immediately ditch the injections, Stephanie was soon back in the hospital, this time for emergency surgery to remove her battered gallbladder in February. Now recovery-bound, Stephanie, from Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, is sharing her cautionary tale, warning others about the dangers of quick-fix weight-loss solutions, urging them to avoid following in her painful footsteps.
Looking back at the ordeal, Stephanie recalled: “I started taking the injectable in October thinking I wanted to look my best in my wedding dress. My main priority was to lose weight, I just didn’t realise how quickly I would.
“Especially having young kids I wanted to catch up with them while out playing and not sit on the sidelines. I was the heaviest I’ve ever been. I got chatting to a friend of mine who was using weight-loss injections and recommended it to me.
“It got to the point where I was struggling to get up the stairs to our top floor flat. I’d tried Slimming World, Weight Watchers and nothing had ever worked.” The ‘final straw’ came during a 2023 holiday to Majorca, where the mum felt too self-conscious to take any photographs of herself.
She made the drastic decision of taking the jab after researching it online and joining support groups where “everything was really positive.” She ordered a four-week course of weight-loss jabs from an online pharmacy – paying £110 for the medication after providing details about her weight and GP.
She explained: “Looking back, I realise you could’ve made up anything [to get the jab]. I don’t think they actually care who it goes to as long as they keep selling the product.
“The first few days after each injection I would feel incredibly sick, but I’d read about that already. As the week went on, I would feel incredibly full after just two mouthfuls and the weight literally dropped off me. I thought this was great.”
As weeks progressed, Stephanie recalls feeling increasingly drained, saying: “As the weeks went on I was feeling more and more lethargic, I was constantly sleeping.” She also experienced drastic weight loss, having lost seven pounds in just the first week, before losing three stone in three months.
A severe episode of pain led to her hospitalisation at Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, where they discovered a serious condition. “There, tests revealed that five stones had formed in my gallbladder – and the organ needed to be removed urgently,” she recounted.
“[The doctor] said there was definitely a link between the gallbladder and weight-loss injections. He told me to immediately stop taking it. The consultant was concerned it was my pancreas and that would’ve been life threatening.” Appetite-suppressing injections can cause gallbladder problems because they can reduce the amount of a hormone called cholecystokinin, which is important for healthy gallbladder function.
Explaining the cause of her health woes, she noted: “Because I went from a very unhealthy diet to an extremely strict diet, all the bile in my bladder crystalised into stones then they were being released into my system and that was what was causing the issues.”
Describing her intense agony, she said, “There’s no words to describe the pain I would feel through these flare-ups.” Now on the mend following the operation last month, Stephanie advocates against using weight-loss injectables based on her harrowing experience.
Stephanie revealed: “I didn’t realise how traumatic this was going to be, my life has been put on hold.” She went on to express regret about her decision, saying: “Looking back if I knew this, I would never have taken this. I would rather have just been fat.”
Stephanie also advised others against similar choices, stating: “It’s just not worth it, do a lifestyle change, it’s a safer option for your life.” She opened up about the guilt she felt towards her family: “I’ve spent a lot of time feeling guilty putting my kids through the trauma as they also witnessed me in pain. I wish I hadn’t put my family through this.”