At Mia Aesthetics, we want you to know exactly what you’re getting when we give you an injection. Our skinny shots are either semaglutide or tirzepatide combined with pyridoxine, also known as vitamin B6. As you’ll see, B vitamins are lipotropes that encourage your liver to reduce fat production and storage. Vitamin B can also give you an energy boost, which makes it easier to get motivated when it’s time to exercise. Remember that the skinny shot is a valuable weight loss tool, but it works best when combined with a healthy diet and regular exercise routine.
Different doctors refer to different injections as “skinny shots,” and there is no industry standard for the term. A skinny shot could be anything from a vitamin injection to a prescription drug injection like tirzepatide. Some doctors even claim to have their own special skinny shot cocktail.
Weight loss is big business, which makes some doctors pretend they’re hesitant to openly share their weight loss secrets and discoveries. The skinny on these skinny shots? Avoid them. You have a right to know exactly what is being injected into your body. Any practitioner who doesn’t want to say too much is one you shouldn’t be seeing. They could be injecting you with something as benign as saline solution or something potentially dangerous. If they feel the need to keep their trade secret, run – don’t walk – out of their office.
Vitamin B12 is an important vitamin, and doctors sometimes inject it to help those with a vitamin deficiency avoid pernicious anemia. As such, a B12 boost can help you quite a bit if you’ve been feeling fatigued, but only if a B12 deficiency is the reason.
According to the Mayo Clinic, if your vitamin deficiency is severe enough to make you feel lethargic, you could gain weight as a result of reducing your exercise and movement. A lack of vitamin B12 doesn’t directly lead to weight gain, however, so getting a B12 injection alone won’t cause you to lose weight — no matter how many times your doctor calls the injection a skinny shot.
Found in plant-based foods, lipotropes are chemicals that encourage the liver to get rid of fat. There are several different lipotropes, including B vitamins, methionine, inositol, magnesium, niacin, and choline. Lipotropic injections, also frequently called Lipo-C injections, supposedly give the body a boost of these fat-burning lipotropes, the result of which is an increase in fat-burning and a decrease in weight. Providers often indicate that you’ll need several shots each week although you may be able to slowly reduce shot frequency.
Unfortunately, there are a few problems with this particular skinny shot as well. One is that research has yet to prove Lipo-C injections safe or effective. As is true of the proprietary mixes discussed earlier, every clinic uses a different cocktail. Not every mix is suitable for every patient, and some clinics admit to adding phentermine to the mix, which is a prescription drug most known for its use many years ago as part of the controversial weight loss drug fen phen.
The term skinny shot is increasingly used to refer to certain injectable medications available by prescription only. These drugs, known as semaglutide and tirzepatide, may truly be skinny injections. Originally developed as a type 2 diabetes drug, semaglutide helped obese diabetic patients lower their weight as well as their blood sugar, with many losing up to 20% of their body weight in clinical trials. After testing in people without diabetes, semaglutide was FDA-approved as a weight loss drug.
Like semaglutide, tirzepatide is also an injectable medication used to treat type 2 diabetes. Researchers and doctors noticed that this drug reduces weight even further, allowing people to lose up to 30% of their body weight. While not yet FDA-approved for weight loss specifically, doctors are frequently prescribing it off-label for weight loss.
If you’ve decided a skinny shot might be for you, the most important thing you can do is to know what you’re getting. Is that syringe full of B vitamins, lipotropes, phentermine, or something else? If you don’t know, don’t take it. And make sure you know before you go. Asking what’s in a skinny shot five minutes before you get it doesn’t give you any time to do the research you should. You should understand each ingredient in the shot and talk to your doctor about all of them to make sure they’re safe for you given your unique medical history and current medications.
As important as understanding what is in your skinny shot is knowing who is giving it to you. More specifically, it’s important to understand the letters behind the name responsible for your skinny shot cocktail. Are you seeing a medical doctor or are you in a medical spa where your practitioner may not be a doctor at all? Are you in the hands of a licensed dietician, a registered nurse, or a nurse injector?
One good way to find a reputable skinny shot provider is to look at their website. The site should clearly indicate what’s in whatever the provider calls a skinny shot. Consider a list of ingredients that ends in the words “and more” incomplete and suspect. If the site is more focused on giving you a great deal than actual information, find another doctor or clinic. Semaglutide, for example, works very well as a skinny shot. It’s a prescription medication, however, and it’s not cheap. Without insurance, four injections (a month’s supply) run about $1,400. If the price is too good to be true, you’re not getting semaglutide.
The same is true of tirzepatide. One popular clinic’s site claims to offer once weekly tirzepatide skinny shots for $200 each. Given that the current price for a single tirzepatide injection is easily $350 or more, however, this claim is highly suspect. The fact that the website misspells the word “tirzepatide” the very first time it appears on the page is also anything but confidence inspiring. Who you allow to inject you matters, so don’t take their credentials lightly.
